Reading in Public No. 24: My "no frills" top 10 books of the year

Offering a classic best-of-the-year list and reflecting on what makes a favorite

I always feel a little bit fraught about best-of-the-year content. The A student who lives inside me is always a little concerned with getting things “right.” This makes it difficult for me to unmarry the idea of favorite and best. There are books that are not on my favorites list that I recognize are in fact better books and I have to resist the desire to prove that. Often, my best-of lists end up being some amalgamation of books I personally loved and adored, and ones I liked and know were exceptionally well done.

Luckily, my conversation with Traci Thomas last year has helped me reframe this. Traci reminded me that as a public reader and book reviewer, people are eager to pinpoint my singular taste—whether they align with my views or not. It’s not my job to identify the most perfect books of the year, but truly to share my favorites as an individual reader. Our conversation has also given me more freedom to say I just didn’t like that or it has some problems but I loved it. It’s still very important to me to accept a book for what it is and to use reviews to analyze what a book is trying to do and whether it’s successful. But within that framework there’s still room for more lightheartedness. I’m hoping to bring both more rigor and more fun into my literary criticism in 2024. I hope you’re ready!

Energized by these thoughts, this year I’m sharing a straight-up, no frills top ten list. You can still find my best new releases and best backlist books podcast episodes. Plus over on Novel Pairings we’re sharing bookish superlatives, so be sure you’re subscribed there! Those lists gave me room to make sure I was putting allllll the great books I read this year on your radars, but this is the real deal, best-of-the-best, star of the show.

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So, without further ado….

My Ten Favorite Reads of 2023

• Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. It’s impossible to separate my love for Birnam Wood from my general infatuation with Eleanor Catton this year. Reading all three of her (very distinct) works in a single calendar year was a wonderful experience and I continue to marvel at her brilliant mind. This one beat out The Luminaries for a spot on this list because it takes her incredible talent for pacing and periodic sentences and puts it to use creating a combustive plot and complex characters. One of the things I really love about Catton’s work is that it eschews easy thematic identification. Other than “billionaires are bad,” this book doesn’t necessarily coalesce around a single message. That element keeps me thinking and, to me, captures the (post?) post-modern identity in a surprising way. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm

• An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. I read this book at the beginning of the year, weeping as I listened while holding my sleeping baby in my arms. This is McCracken’s memoir in which she explores her grief and eventual healing after experiencing a stillbirth with her first pregnancy. The story is heartbreaking, but the writing and the structure of the story are compassionate and kind. I can’t quite explain how but I don’t have a better way to describe the fact that McCracken clearly wants her readers to understand her grief and to connect with others who’ve experienced loss, while somehow giving us the support we need to bear her loss. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and certainly one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.

• The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sheriff. As I was curating this list, I kept popping The Fortnight in September in and out in favor of other books. That’s only because while I deeply love this book, I’m fuzzy on the details! For whatever reason, it’s hard for me to remember specifics of plot and character, and memorability is a primary factor in selecting my favorites. But the thing is, I remember the feeling of reading this book down in my bones. One of the best feelings while reading is the recognition of a thought or emotion I’ve experienced, but never had the words for. This book is filled with moments like those. It’s a book about nothing and everything, capturing real life in the vibrant simplicity of its prose. It’s also the book I read last year that I’m most eager to revisit and the one I can see returning to again and agin…and what says favorite better than that?

• The Fraud by Zadie Smith. Smith’s first go at a historical novel was towards the bottom of my top ten when I recorded my Best of the Year episode with Liz, but after rereading and discussing with my Patreon community, it shot up to a top spot. In my first reading, I really appreciated the way Smith operates on multiple levels, simultaneously commenting on the past and the present with biting humor and richly drawn characters. My second reading allowed me a better glimpse into the heart of the novel, both in terms of Smith’s deep compassion for her characters as well as her thoughtful and urgent exploration of what a novel can—and can’t—do.

• Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong. Goodbye, Vitamin was a delightful surprise, not because I thought I wouldn’t like it, but because it’s impossible to encapsulate the tone and feel of this lovely little book, even in the most well-composed reviews. I like to think of it as the remedy to the “you can’t go home again” story. While it deals extensively with that theme through a painful and poignant depiction of memory loss, it also believes in the healing that comes from returning to our roots and revisiting our pasts. I’ll think of this book always as I jot down little notes to my daughter in the hopes of keeping my own memories of this precious time alive.

• Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt. Every time I record a best books of the year podcast, I have one book that I realize needs to be much higher on my list after I talk about it. Last year that was The Long Answer by Anna Hogeland, and this year it is Loved and Missed. When I initially reviewed this I had some quibbles with the ending that I stand by, but this proves to be one of those books that isn’t perfect, but is a favorite. The depiction of mothers and daughters is very different from other books I’ve read, and I felt the weight and complexity of every decision Ruth had to make throughout the story. There are many facets of this book that I can’t get out of my head: the descriptions of holding a warm sleeping toddler in your arms, the theme of never knowing how to best demonstrate our affection, and the moment the title is woven into the novel (to name a few). This the quiet and beautifully written novel I needed this year, and I’m so glad it came to me.

• My Work by Olga Ravn. I read a lot of wonderful, highly literary books about motherhood this year, and I’m grateful for each and every one of them. What serendipity that my re-entry into the world of complex fiction after many months of baby brain coincided with a boom of inventive, poetic, and nuanced depictions of that exact time of life. My Work stands out from the rest for its structure, its humor, and the juxtaposition of creative work with the mundane routine of infant care. I also love the radical redefining Ravn does as she investigates the very idea of “work.” Mostly though, this book included a final chapter that made me cry and succinctly captured in one discreet image the belief that raising my daughter is my most important work, but if I make it my only work, we may both be lost.

• The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. This goes on the list a) because I loved it and b) because it is a great reminder that books don’t disappear and are still worth being celebrated when the calendar turns. Had I read this when it released in 2022, it would undoubtedly have been on my best of the year list, but I read it the following year and I can still hold it up as an exemplar of the type of fiction I love. I always appreciate a novel that is driven by its structure, but that works best when that structure effectively and naturally enhances the novel’s themes. It’s hard to think of a better example of that than The Swimmers. Each of the four sections brought something new to the book both in terms of Otsuka’s craft and in terms of the thematic mosaic of the work as a whole. Sheer perfection.

• Telephone by Percival Everett. Everett is a daring writer and an absolute genius who, with Telephone, has written the perfect book club book. If you aren’t familiar with this one, it’s the story of a man whose daughter is diagnosed with a degenerative condition. It’s also a novel in triplicate, meaning Everett published three different versions of the same story and which edition you read is (mostly) luck of the draw. Discussing the novel therefore feels like a game of telephone in which you discover that everyone heard a slightly different version of the story. Each of the three versions has some slight and some significant variations, and each is excellent in its own right. But it’s the practice of considering the way we read, the way we come to understand the stories we tell and are told, and how chance and luck impact us that elevates this book to a whole new level.

• Wellness by Nathan Hill. This is the best audiobook I listened to all year and it’s hard to think of another reading experience that was so all-consuming. This book is over 600 pages and I didn’t want it to end! I continue to bring it up in conversation and little details pop into my mind when I least expect it. Still, it’s hard for me to articulate just what I loved so much about this book. I liked the story of the marriage, yes, but moreover I love Hill’s singular style. It’s satirical, but warmly so. There are digressions, but they all converge around a single theme. It’s clever, but not self-congratulatory. I just found the book as a whole charming and thought-provoking, and I appreciated Hill’s ambition to tackle big, philosophical questions as they relate to our modern age. Meeting him and discovering that he’s incredibly kind and funny cemented this as a most memorable reading experience as well!

Here’s to a great year of reading! I can’t wait to see what 2024 holds for us!

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Happy reading!

Sara