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What were the best books you read this year?
Long Fiction - Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield - I read this just after the Titan submersible explosion, which gave it even more atmosphere, but this book was stellar outside of that. The portrait of a marriage when one partner comes back from a journey broken was so damned good.
Short Fiction - Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle novellas. Each novella is a standalone, but they are all such beautiful, lyrical, an tight stories. I already have a notification on my calendar to buy the 5th on May 7, 2024.
Short Story - "The Rules of The Game" by Amy Tan. This story is both hilarious and excellent. I play chess so I appreciated it all the more.
Fiction Honorable Mention - The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. I'd read Otsuka before, but this book and its examination of swimming and how it centers lives was really unexpected. The book was also terribly jarring in its showing of dementia.
Nonfiction - Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith. One of the best literary memoirs I've ever read. I'm biased as I know Lee, live very close to her and know what bookstores to find her in of a Friday night. But I cut my adult, newly out of the closet teeth on her Southern fiction and I loved getting to hear her talk about her own life with the same voice.
Nonfiction Honorable Mention - Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I wish everyone could read this without knowing who Zauner is, as I think that is what gives the book its best light. This was an excellent memoir of a child caring for her dying mother, whom she had a rocky relationship. I am always morbidly fascinated by stories like this as I don't have any relationship with my family. But her prose was excellent and you can hear the songwriter in every line.
What excellent books do you recommend that were published in 2023?
(see Nghi Vo above)
How did your anticipated 2023 books hold up this year?
I didn't really have any. But the things I picked up that were published this year were all good purchase and I enjoyed them.
And, what books are you looking forward to in 2024?
Haven't really looked yet.
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