Top 20 Books I Read in 2023

THANK YOU so much for watching my videos in 2023!

The books I couldn't wave enthusiastically in the video were all books I read from the library. Support your library!

The alphabetical list by author surname of the books I mention in this video, with links to my reviews (if I filmed one):
Chisholm - A Waiter in Paris
Clark - Revolutionary Spring
De Roberto - L'Imperio
Ernaux - The Years
Jacobson - The Mighty Walzer
La Farge - The Night Ocean
Sciascia - The Mystery of Majorana

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[mungoslade]

i love your videos, great recommendations! but when you do videos with multiple books, PLEASE, keep a cover or title on the screen longer than a few seconds so i don't have to rewind the video to check the title in order to add it to my TBR! I loved Crook Manifesto.

[nl]

What I read in 2023, and my take was,

Great:
1. Invitation to a Beheading (V. Nabokov)
2. The Thing In The Snow (S. Adams)
3. Campfires of the Dead and the Living (P. Christopher)
4. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (J. Le Carré)
5. Consider This (C. Palahniuk)

Good:
6. Fugitives and Refugees (C. Palahniuk)
8. The Shards (B.E. Ellis)
9. Not Forever, But For Now (C. Palahniuk)
10. The Decay of the Angel (Y. Mishima)
11. Zodiac (R. Graysmith)
12. Notes On The Cinematograph (R. Bresson)
13. Make Something Up (C. Palahniuk)
14. Faceless Killers (H. Mankell)
15. Snuff (C. Palahniuk)
16. Rant (C. Palahniuk)
17. Red Lights (G. Simenon)

Fine:
18. Touching From a Distance (D. Curtis)
19. The Day of the Locust (N. West)

Mid:
Ecce Homo (F. Nietzsche)
The Fire Next Time (J. Baldwin)

Bad:
The ABC Murders (A. Christie)

[ernyes_]

It's always a joy to watch your best of lists, cuz there's always and array of classics and some newer works, but mostly because you're not falling into the trends. On the majority of channels one sees the same books over and over, and it all becomes redundant, but you never disappoint, and coming here one knows that there'll be unique recommendations always brilliantly and eloquently reviewed.

Btw, the sound quality has surely improved, the volume is higher, so much better now. The investment on the mic paid off.

Have a nice year, Mattia!

[ghost]

Always enjoying your Top Books of the year list.

[luci.diiorio]

Although I never experienced any audio difficulties—I am able to hear an improvement. Excellent work you do!

[linwoodsly]

Thank you for rendering ur review of such a wide variety of novels …new to ur channel shall keep viewing…😂

[nikchemnyk]

Overstory didn't stay with me for too long either. In retrospect I think maybe it needed more science fiction (and less bloat).
But the bit about the family who photographed a tree throughout a hundred years, and some other stuff like that, was really imaginative.

[irena]

So happy to see this! I thought you’d stopped making videos so this a great surprise

[ameliareads]

I think I once heard Ernaux saying in an interview that she writes fiction, because she could never trust her memory.
My favourite book was actually a Finnish one that unfortunately isn't translated into English or Italian.
But Permafrost by Eva Baltasar and Is Mother Dead? by Vigdis Hjorth have been in my top reads.

[qaq]

I’ve been subscribed to your channel for so long and I had no idea that you were interested in the 1848 revolutions. (Although I did suspect you were of a left persuasion!) I highly recommend checking out Chris Cutrone’s lecture/teach-in on 1848. He’s a fantastic teacher.

Big fan of your videos and I look forward to more in the future!

[morganli]

What other books would you recommend about the revolutions of 1848? I loved Revolutionary Spring too.

[happyseal]

All very topical for current affairs ❤

[jackeverett]

Happy new year! Always love your videos!

[lysanderhock]

1. Dan Simmons: The Hyperion Cantos - 2000 pages of the most original space opera, perhaps a couple of hundreds to many, but I still can only recommend it so very, very much
2. Emil Ferris: My Favorite Thing is Monsters - amazing graphic novel
3. Don DeLillo: Underworld
4. Thomas Pynchon: Bleeding Edge
5. Ursula K. LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness

Somehow I didn't enjoy reading Butler's Kindred, and neither did I like Solaris (although I absolutely see why it is considered a classic). Alas, I didn't read too many books last year. However, it would still have been a good year, even if Hyperion had been the only one. It is really good, read it if you can.

Thank your for the recommendations. I guess I'll check out Colson Whitehead this year and I'll definitely read le venti giornate.

[malexander]

When you review "The Years" ...up to a certain point, if I were to mistake "France" for "England, " and "2nd half of the 20th century" with "the 1st half"....then, your brief summation would sound a lot like "The Years" by Virginia Woolf. Except, there are a few different characters in that one--but whenever there's a change, the individual is so interiorized (well, this is Woolf) ...Well, I'm wondering, is Ernaux referencing Woolf at all?

[firestarter]

Ciao, the best book I read was The nix from Nathan Hill

[JeanArtQuro]

Have you read Jan Potocki's "Manuscript Found in Saragossa"? It's stylistically/narratively equidistant between The Canterbury Tales and a Pynchon novel, and by that I mean that it seemed somewhat up your alley.

[RadellasReadingRoom]

"A New Life" added to my TBR as I now work in postgraduate admissions

Hearing you talk about the book on the 1848 revolutions, I was wondering if you have any recommendations for books on the French Revolution? Most of what I can find are biographies (Robespierre, Lafyette, Napoleon 🙄, Marie Antoinette) or are focused on The Terror with the Estates General and the Riding School glossed over as background.

[mindheartsun]

Hi,
I have a short story I'm working on. This has nothing to do with your video (I hope you don't mind). But, would it be possible for me to send it to you after I'm done with it? I'm not looking for feedback on the actual story (although you're welcome to share your thoughts :) I just want to know what it makes you feel.

[k.e.]

Will you read more Murakami this year? Or maybe László Krasznahorkai