First, let me quote my introduction to my 2022 Annual Book List, with a few minor modifications (last year’s intro in italics; today’s minor mods in regular font):
Yikes! Obviously, an annual book list must be published no later than the end of the first month of the following year. So today’s my deadline, and I’m just squeaking under it. OKay, I didn’t even manage to squeak under this year — Happy February 1st!
It’s taken me a bit to compile, and I’m going to send it out as is, no embellishments. I had thought I might try to organize by categories and/or to highlight favourites. But there are so many books I really loved this year that even that list of favourites would make this post even longer that its already ridiculous length.
So here, for your perusal, is my 2022 2023 Reading List — just enough tags in each entry to give you a sense of genre, subject, setting, other pertinent elements. If you’d like to know more about a title, just click on the Month link (at the top of each section) to see my brief review. (Many of you will have read this already, but you may want to check back to see if you’ve missed some of the wonderful reader comments.)
Also, True Confession: this is an inflated reading list. If you skim through it, you’ll see that I somehow missed a certain number on the way to December 31st! Whoops! In fact, for my 2023 Reading List, I found I’d left out an entry (which was right where it should be in my handwritten journal) — #43 — which I’ve added to my July post.
I’m curious to know which of these titles you’ve read — and I feel confident in suggesting that there are at least ten here that you could happily (and profitably!) spend time with. (First, I know, you need to find that time 😉
And if you gave a retrospective glance to your 2023 reading and have titles that stood out, please share those in the comments below. . . (Although my tardy posting of this annual list might mean that your memory has already pressed the “delete” button on most of those!)
- Fayne. Ann-Marie MacDonald. Literary fiction; Historical fiction; Speculative fiction; Mystery; Romance; Coming-of-Age; LGBTQ; 19th-century Medicine; Feminist; Eco-criticism.
- The Mountains Sing. Nguyēn Phan Qué Mai (my accents aren’t correct, but closest I could manage on my keyboard). Historical Fiction; Family Saga; 20th-century Vietnam; colonialism; Wartime survival & resilience; Women’s lives; Coming-of-Age.
- The Binding Room. Nadine Matheson. Mystery/Thriller/Crime; Police Procedural; Inspector Angelica Henley series; Black female detective; Serial killer; Set in London.
- The Crane Wife. C.J. Hauser. Creative non-fiction; Memoir; Essays; LGBTQ; Coming-of-Age; Women’s Lives; Women’s Bodies.
- A Heart Full of Headstones. Ian Rankin. Mystery; Police Procedural; John Rebus series; Set in Edinburgh
- A Trace of Smoke. Rebecca Contrell. Mystery/Thriller; Historical Fiction; 1930s Berlin; Female protagonist; LGBTQ.
- Against the Loveless World. Susan Abulhawa. Literary Fiction; Historical Fiction; 20th-century Palestine; Protest Literature; Refugee Life; Women’s Lives; Palestinian-American Writer.
- To Paradise. Hanya Yanagihara. Literary fiction; speculative historical fiction; American; dystopia; pandemic; LGBTQ.
- The Left-Handed Twin. Thomas Perry. Thriller/Mystery; Jane Whitfield series; Native American (Seneca) female protagonist; wilderness survival.
- A Small Place in Italy. Eric Newby. Memoir; Travel Memoir; Restoring Old Farmhouse; Vacation Home; Italy.
- The Ruin. Dervla McTiernan. Mystery; Police procedural; Cormac Reilly Series; Set in Dublin.
- Ossigeno. Sacha Naspini. Literary fiction; Crime novel; Contemporary Italy; Read in Italian, Available in English as Oxygen (translation by Clarissa Botsford).
- The Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung. Translated from Korean by Anton Hur. Literary fiction; Short Story Collection; Speculative Fiction; Horror; Feminist.
- L’Eau Rouge. Jurica Pavičić. Translated from Croatian to French by Olivier Lannuzel. Mystery novel; Croatia, 20th-21st century history; Croatia, Civil War; Prix Le Point du Polar Européen 2021 — best roman policier (detective novel).
- Almond. Sohn Won-pyung. Trans. Sandy Joosun Lee. Domestic fiction; bildungsroman/coming-of-age novel; disability; Korean writer; Literature in translation.
- Shrines of Gaiety. Kate Atkinson. Literary fiction; Historical fiction; Strong female characters; demi-monde London “between the wars.”
- Lucy by the Sea. Elizabeth Strout. Literary fiction; Lucy Barton series; Pandemic fiction; Women’s lives; Marriage; Motherhood.
- To Fall in Love, Drink This: A Wine Writer’s Memoir. Alice Feiring. Memoir; Women’s Lives; Wine; New York City.
- VenCo. Cherie Dimaline. Fantasy; Thriller; Feminist Critique; Contemporary Witches; Strong Female Protagonists; Métis writer.
- Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions. Tomson Highway. CBC Massy lectures; lectures/essays; Indigenous writer; Cree writer; Language; Comparative Mythology; Comparative Religious Study; Humour; Sex and Gender.
- Era di Maggio. Antonio Manzini. Read in Italian; Available in English as Spring Cleaning; Mystery; Police Procedural; Rocco Schiavone series; Set in Italy’s Valle d’Aosta and in Rome.
- The Lost Kings, Tyrell Johnson. Psychological thriller; Pacific Northwest Setting; Oxford, UK setting.
- Bleeding Heart Yard. Ellie Griffiths. Mystery; Police procedural; Harbinder Kaur series; London setting; Female detective; POC police detective; LGBTQ protagonist.
- Becoming Duchess Goldblatt. Author Anonymous. Memoir; Grief Memoir; Divorce; Social Media phenomenon; Fictional Twitter account.
- Fate il vostro gioco. Antonio Manzini. Read in Italian; Mystery / giallo; police procedural; Rocco Schiavone series, Book 5; gambling; Valle d’Aosta / Rome settings.
- The Playground Murders. Lesley Thomson. Mystery; private detective; female detective; London setting.
- The Hero of This Book. Elizabeth McCracken. Literary fiction; Auto-Fiction; Disability; Maternal Elegy; Armchair Travel (London).
- We All Want Impossible Things. Catherine Newman. Literary/Genre fiction; Women’s Lives; Female friendship; Illness; End of Life; Domestic fiction.
- War in Val D’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944. Iris Origo. Memoir; War Diary; Women’s Lives; Italy.
- Age of Vice. Deepti Kapoor. Crime thriller; romance; family saga; first of trilogy; Set in (near contemporary) India.
- The Wolves of Winter. Tyrell Johnson. Post-apocalyptic novel; dystopian fiction; coming-of-age; survivalist fiction.
- All the Colours of the World. C.S. Richardson. Literary fiction; historical fiction; Art and Art History; WWII; love story; grief.
- The Porcelain Moon: A Novel of France, the Great War, and Forbidden Love. Janie Chang. Historical fiction; Romance; World War I; Chinese labourers in France; French history. Racism. Asian-Canadian writer.
- The Book of Goose. Yiyun Li. Literary fiction; Coming-of-age; Adolescent girls; Friendship; Alienation; Art and Writing; Set in rural post-war France.
- Not Dark Yet. Peter Robinson. Mystery / police procedural; Inspector Banks series; sex slavery; Set in Yorkshire, Paris, Moldava.
- Scary Monsters: A Novel in Two Parts. Michelle De Kretser. Literary fiction; Speculative fiction; Historical fiction; social satire; 20th century France; near-future Australia; immigration; refugees; racism; dark humour.
- A Town Called Solace. Mary Lawson. Literary fiction; domestic fiction; 1972 Northern Ontario setting; youth-elderly connection; childhood/coming-of-age.
- Landlines. Raynor Winn. Creative non-fiction; Long-distance hiking; Travel by foot; Cape Wrath Trail; West Highland Way; Illness narrative; Pandemic; Eco-criticism; Nature writing.
- The Long Call. Ann Cleeves. Mystery. Police procedure; Two Rivers series; North Devon setting; LGBTQ.
- April in Spain. John Banville. Literary fiction; detective fiction; domestic fiction. Late 50’s San Sebastian/Donostia and Dublin.
- Open Water. Caleb Azumah Nelson. Literary Fiction; Debut Novel; Black writer; British writer; Love; Black Lives; Art; Music; Writing; Set in Contemporary London (England).
- The Parisien. Isabella Hammad. Literary fiction; Historical fiction; Debut novel; Palestinian 20th century; Imperialism / colonialism; Middle East history; British-Palestinian Writer.
- Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Gillian McAllister. Thriller; Mystery; Fantasy (Time Travel); Marriage; Parent-Child relationship.
- Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You. Lucinda Williams. Memoir; Musician’s Life; Women’s Lives; Septuagenarian Icon; American 20th century cultural history.
- The Moth Catcher. Ann Cleeves. Mystery/Crime fiction; police procedural; Vera Stanhope series; female detective.
- The Dictionary of Lost Words. Pip Williams. Historical fiction; literary fiction; domestic fiction; Words; Class and Language; Patriarchy and Language; Feminist fiction; Women’s Lives; Suffragette movement; 20th century Oxford.
- The Space Between Us. Thrity Umrigar. Literary fiction; Domestic Fiction; Women’s Lives; Setting: contemporary Mumbai, India; Class; Patriarchy; Indian-American writer.
- La Carrozza della Santa. Cristina Cassar Scalia. Mystery/Crime Fiction; Giallo; Police procedural; Read in Italian (Series not yet available in English translation); Vanina Guarrasi series; Setting: Catania and Palermo, Sicilia.
- An Unnecessary Woman. Rabih Alameddine. Literary fiction; senior/elderly female protagonist; Beirut; Lebanon; Lebanese history, culture; women’s lives; Lebanese-American writer.
- This Is Happiness. Niall Williams. Literary Fiction; Rural Ireland; Coming-of-Age; Arrival of electricity; Cultural change; Masculinity; Male friendships; Grandparent-grandchild relationship.
- The Bitter Taste of Murder. Camilla Trinchieri. Mystery; Tuscan Mystery / Nico Doyle series; Set in Tuscany.
- Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop: A Memoir. Alba Donati. trans. Elena Pala. Memoir; Books in translation; Bibliophile content; Bookshop; Rural Italy; Women’s Lives.
- Exiles. Jane Harper. Mystery; Aaron Falk Series; Set in Australia.
- The Librarianist. Patrick de Witt. Literary fiction; humour; Coming-of-(OLD)-age; men’s lives; living alone; retired life.
- The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World. Laura Imai Messina. Trans. Lucy Rand. Literary fiction; Books in translation; Grief and mourning; Based on “real-life” events; Set in Japan.
- Down Cemetery Road. Mick Herron. Thriller; Oxford Series; Female protagonists.
- Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets. Kyo Maclear. Memoir; Women’s Lives; Mother-Daughter Relationship; Grief/Bereavement; Fathers; DNA search; Roots and Identity; Botany, Gardening, Ecology.
- Enter Ghost. Isabella Hammond. Literary Fiction; Set in contemporary Palestine; Palestinian/Israeli history; Shakespearean theater; Shakespeare in Translation; British-Palestinian female protagonist; British-Palestinian female writer.
- The Puppet Show. M.W. Craven. Mystery/Crime novel; police procedural; serial killer; Washington Poe series.
- State of Terror Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton. Political thriller; Roman à clef; American politics; International politics; Strong female protagonist; Friendship; Love.
- The Last Voice You Hear. Mick Herron. Mystery/thriller; Oxford series; Zoe Boehm, female detective; single women, mid-life.
- Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Max Porter. Literary fiction; Bereavement; Fathers, Sons; Ted Hughes; Crow.
- Why We Die. Mick Herron. Mystery/Thriller. Oxford Series/Zoe Boehm; female detective.
- Hello Beautiful. Ann Napolitano. Literary fiction; Domestic fiction; Coming-of-Age; Sisterhood; Romance; Depression; Family.
- Murder in Chianti. Camilla Trinchieri. Mystery; Tuscan Mystery Series; Armchair Travel; Italian Cuisine. Widower, Nico Doyle.
- The Distant Dead. Lesley Thomson. Mystery novel; The Detective’s Daughter series; female detective.
- Many Rivers to Cross. Peter Robinson. Mystery novel; Police Procedural; Inspector Banks series.
- The Seagull. Ann Cleeves. Mystery; Police Procedural; Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope series; Female detective.
- Scontro di Civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittoria. Amara Lakhous. Literary novel; Mystery; Read in Italian (Book available in English as Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio); Set in Rome; Immigrant life.
- Le Parfum de bonheur est plus fort sous la pluie. Virginie Grimaldi. Domestic fiction; Marriage; Loss; Grief; Set in Bordeaux; My French reading.
- Birnam Wood. Eleanor Catton. Thriller; Literary Fiction; Eco-thriller; Eco-activism; Billionaire Class; Set in New Zealand.
- 7-7-2007. Antonio Manzini. Crime/mystery; Police procedural; Rocco Schiavone series; Set in Rome; Read in Italian.
- The Blue Book of Nebo. Manon Steffan Ros. Translated from Welsh to English by Manon Steffan Ros. Young Adult (but I enjoyed it and feel it has a wider appeal); literary fiction; apocalyptic fiction; parenting; adolescence; coming-of-age.
- The Covenant of Water. Abraham Verghese. Literary fiction; historical fiction; Set in Kerala, India, 1900-1970s.
- Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect. Will Guidara. Memoir; Business; Career; Hospitality Management; Restaurants.
- Small Mercies. Dennis Lehane. Crime fiction/mystery; historical fiction; American history; racism; forced busing; integration; working-class; Boston.
- The City and the Mountains. Eça de Queirós. Trans. Margaret Jull Costa. Literature in translation; 19th-century Portuguese literature; satire; 19th-century Paris; rural Portugal; novel of manners.
- What Strange Paradise. Omar El Akkad. Literary fiction; Giller prize-winner; Egyptian-Canadian novelist; Syrian refugee / boat migrant; child refugee.
- Lessons in Chemistry. Bonnie Garmus. “STEM-inist fiction”; “Quirky tragicomedy” (genre labels thanks to this Slate article); feminist fiction; literary fiction; NYT bestseller; neurodivergent female protagonist.
- Yellowface. R.F. Kuang. Literary fiction; Satirical thriller; Dark humour; Racial diversity; Social media; Book publication/distribution; Writing life; Asian-American writing.
- The New Parisienne: The Women and Ideas Shaping Paris. Lindsey Tramuta. Non-fiction; Mini-biographies, interviews; women’s lives; diversity; Paris; Urban life; Urban planning/policy; Travel.
- Il Giardino che vorrei. Pia Pera. Read in Italian (My English translation of title: The Garden that I would like). Memoir; Gardening; Italian gardens.
- The Bookbinder. Pip Williams. Historical Fiction; Feminist fiction; Bibliophilic fiction; Set in Oxford; WWI; Neurodivergent character.
- Harriet the Spy. Louise Fitzhugh. Children’s novel; Set in New York City’s Upper East Side early 1960s; 11-year-old protagonist (Grade 6).
- Dark Mother Earth. Kristian Novak. Trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac. Literature in translation; Croatian literature; Fantastic/realism; Balkans; Historical fiction (mid to late 20th century).
Great list, Frances. You’ve given me some good ideas.
Author
I’m glad to hear it, Maggie! So many good books –aren’t we lucky?!
From my 2023 list, I highly recommend The Sun Walks Down by Fiona MacFarland, Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur, Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Orphan Bachelors by Fae Myenne Ng and A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. So many good books!
Author
Okay, I have too long a TBR list already, but books you recommend definitely go on it. Thank you!
very impressive. I only got as far as 50 for the year. thank you for the suggestions.
Author
It’s not about the numbers, right? I’m somewhat apologetic about numbering what I’ve read, but it helps me keep track of and retrieve info about what I’ve read.
Hi Frances, wondering if you could recommend a fiction or non-fiction book(s) in Italian at a beginner, children, or young adult level. I’ve more or less given up on verbal skills but would like to keep up on reading. Your lists are inspiring
Author
I don’t have recommendations of specific books, but if you happen to have an Italian Cultural Centre in Portland or a good selection of Italian books at your library, that could be a good starting place. Or you could do a Google search for Easy or Beginner Italian Readers — I just tried that, and I found many suggestions — here’s a link to one, for example. Hope that helps!
My reading is much lighter than yours Frances but I have read & enjoyed a few on your list – 16, 17, 35, 37, 38, 39, 46 & 67 . Some of the others I’m looking out for , but one series I just couldn’t take to & didn’t finish the first one – 66 . Why do I feel mean saying I really disliked a book someone else enjoyed ? We can’t all like the same things . I know Richard Osman doesn’t appeal to you but I like them , perhaps because of the humour . Humour is important to me in life & sometimes in books .
Author
It’s true, Wendy! We can’t all like the same things, especially in books. I haven’t ever read any Richard Osman books, so I can’t comment on those — should correct that soon. But so many people whose reading opinions I respect love Louise Penny’s books, and I stopped after the first Gamache. De gustibus and all that! ;-). . . Also, I think we have such an embarrassment of choices that we don’t always/often “push on” to the point where we might end up liking a book or a series. . .
Humour! Yes!
I’m in awe off the breadth and depth of your reading. I read way fewer books than you and find that, these days, I have to be in the right frame of mind to commit to reading a book. There are too many competing online reading options (newspapers, blogs, IG, FaceBook) and I’m sure my ability to concentrate on books has diminished as a consequence of these alternatives. Nevertheless, l still read books and enjoy many of them, including the books you mention at 39, 45, 46, 60, 68, 79 and 83 (though not all in 2023). My daughter has passed on her copy of 80, which is on my to be read pile. I tried to get into 17 (I find Strout’s writing lacks warmth) and 71 but failed (and I didn’t get far with Richard Osman either). I love the deep sense of satisfaction that good books provide. Your reading posts are a wonderful resource and inspiration, thank you.
Author
Thanks Maria — yes! “the deep sense of satisfaction that good books provide” — on so many levels and to so many purposes, right? They can inform, challenge, entertain, disturb/trouble, distract, and delight us, leave us with a sense of wonder.
I know what you mean about the many competing options for our reading time — I find that I’ve lost much capacity for the shorter reading forms and increasingly I’m preferring books. Reverting to my childhood bookworm? 🙂
I admire your list for its length and broadness. Most of my reading stuff last year was in Italian and German. I read no. 69, following your recommendation. I liked the idea, but found the book to be a letdown – far too predictable.
Here is a recommendation for all your readers who read German: the novels by Dörte Hansen, all three of them set in the north of Germany, on or near the North Sea coast or on an island. And all of them describing the change of what can be called “home” through social, political and economic “development”, how it affects families and communities and how people deal with it. There are some wonderful characters, male and female. And I found out that the first novel has been translated into English: “This House is Mine”. I only hope the translation does it justice.
If you enjoyed no 46, then you might also like ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho ‘.
Set in Oxford again, around the time of WW1, it follows the life of a young woman and her sister who work at the Oxford Press. One of the characters from ‘The Dictionary of Lost Words ‘ reappears and links Oxford and France during the war. Interesting and moving. I now can’t open a book and hear the spine crack without thinking of the Press.
Author
Thanks, Lorraine! I did like The Bookbinder (published in North American with that title — presumably because the geographical reference doesn’t work as well here?) — It’s #83 on my 2023 list, almost at the end of the year. As with you, it’s made me even more conscious of the materiality/construction of books — what a brilliant technology!