The Best Books I Read In 2023
Every year, like the completist geek I am, I keep a record of every book I read. Here are the five I enjoyed the most in 2023.
As ever, I began the year planning to read more - and this year I actually managed it, something I’m putting down to better book choices and dedicating more time to it, as I outlined in this blogpost (which, to my surprise, was far and away the most popular blog I published all year).
Of course, I hit a few blocks, especially as I ploughed through a couple of ‘improving’ none-fiction choices. But overall I read a lot of good stuff, and once again I managed to keep a record of everything I read as a highlight on my Instagram Stories which you can read here.
I just had a quick squizz through that entire list to pull out the five books I enjoyed most this year - here they are:
1. Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
As I get older, and reading becomes ever more important to me, I’ve come to a pretty good understanding of what I’ll enjoy, and immersive historical fiction is right up there.
And this extraordinary fictional reimagining of Shakespeare’s home life is the novel that affected me the most this year. As well as a deeply moving treatise on parenthood and grief, it reclaims the story of Anne Hathaway with proper righteous fury, and also has very interesting things to say about the way the contributions of the wives of great men have been ignored by history. (I’m looking forward to reading Anna Funder’s Wifedom, which covers similar ground).
More here.
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2. The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan
I picked this up after hearing Peter Frankopan on the brilliant Empire podcast, and had been expecting a pretty straightforward history of the Silk Roads.
Instead, this is something else entirely: a complete reimagining of world history with Central Asia, rather than Western Europe, as the focus.
I was awestruck by the scale of Frankopan’s vision, and applauded the deftness with which he pulls it off. It made me rethink the history of the First and Second World Wars, and gain a new understanding of the history of the Middle East, from the rise of Islam, to the genesis of the current horrific situation.
More here.
3. Magnificent Rebels, by Andrea Wulf
I’m frequently guilty of picking up books that I think I ‘should’ read, and then either never starting them, or never finishing them. It’s one of those weird human habits I explored in this aforementioned piece.
So, deep down, I wasn't expecting to get on too well with this intimidating-looking history of the Romantics. In the end, it turned out to be the most purely pleasurable reading experience of the year: partly because I was lucky enough to read it in sunny Normandy, away from any distractions; but mainly because of the accessibility of Andrea Wulf’s generous prose, and the soap-opera like lives of her motley, beloved band of protagonists.
More here.
4. The New Confessions, by William Boyd
This was the last of William Boyd’s ‘whole life’ novels that I read, and the one I enjoyed the most. Yes, even more than Any Human Heart or this year’s The Romantic.
Why? I think it’s because of what an absolutely hopeless shit protagonist and anti-hero John James Todd is, but also because it’s essentially a book about creative failure - and the usual combination of rollicking yarn and eyewitness account of twentieth century history.
More here.
5. Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart
I raced through this bleak account of Stewart’s time as an MP, which is a thoroughly horror-inducing look at the archaic, moribund state of our political system.
I enjoyed its honesty most of all - especially when it comes to the author’s own evident shortcomings, and his despairing realisation at how flawed and rigged the entire system really is.
More here.
Read something I should add to my 2024 list? Any books you particularly enjoyed this year that you’d like to share?
I have two very different faves of the year. The first is Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte. I've read and heard A LOT of poetry these past couple years as I get back into writing. Melania stood out because she's an amazing performer (her piece "Afro-Latina" was spotlighted by Instagram), and her poems bring a reality to concepts that get talked a lot but may not always be represented well: intersectionality, colonialism, generational trauma, and identity. I learned a lot from her poems.
For something completely different, I'm currently obsessed with Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu . It's a Chinese fantasy webnovel that has been adapted into a comic and a cartoon. It's a queer romance with ghosts and gods, and I'm learning a lot about Chinese mythology, which very different from Western or even Egyptian.
It is on my list but I do have to read some more current stuff first. I seem to unconsciously slide towards mid century writers just as I have a bias for music from certain decades and genres. It’s a big world out there but so tempting to only pick from the trees I know.
This was the first Golding I have read and now do I see what all the fuss was about.