BEST BOOKS OF 2023 + FINAL READS OF THE YEAR
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- čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
- Tuck in for a long video! We're talking best books of the year, honorable mentions, and reads to close out 2023. What was your standout book of the year? Thank you for being here xo
Goodreads: / carolyn
The covenant of water sounds right up my alley! Omg Foster is my fav claire keegan and you cannot miss the forester’s daughter. Whale-cheon myung kwan really hit me hard and it’s also a multigen saga! And just an absolutely crazy ride that I was gleefully chuckling throughout and had me painfully sobbing at the end. Happy 2024 Carolyn! Hope you have a great reading year ahead! ❤
Thank you for the recommendation of Foster!! Wow! I loved it!
Great reviews! I have Booth and cannot wait to start it!
Happy I just found you! I've been looking for book lovers who don't read just new releases. I love your recs and have added many to my TBR. You also made me want to try Robin Hobb one more time 👀
loved it! i started my robin hobb journey in 2023 and will keep going with her work later this year :)
I love we are all completely beside ourselves it’s so good. A must read
Agreed!
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves sounds so so good and right up my alley!
100% a you book!
One of the best books I read in 2023 was The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. It’s one of those stories where nothing happens but everything happens. It’s really stuck with me and I think you might really like it!
I read Matrix by Lauren Groff and really enjoyed it. It has the same vibe... nothing happens but lots unfolds with our characters.
@@pagesofcarolyn Matrix is on my shelves - hopefully I will get to it this year.
I second this rec!
Just found you and I'm in awe! You are so well spoken and I literally have not heard a single thing about any of the books you talked about! Ah no I lied 😅 Robin hobb I heard of. So stoked to look into your other videos to see if I will pick up some of your recommendations 🥰
The title novella in My Monticello is so powerful. It has really struck with me.
just found your youtube channel and I’m so excited to watch more of your videos! i have barely heard of any of these books, so I hope that your videos will expose me to some new reads that I wouldn’t have found outherwise :)
Hooray, great to hear :)
Can't wait to read Royal Assassin and finish the Farseer trilogy this year ! ❤great vlog !
Of all the fiction I read in 2023, Claire Keegan’s “Foster” is the book that has lingered in my mind the longest and with the deepest emotional effect since I first came across it last March. And I wouldn’t have heard of Keegan’s story had it not been for the Irish language film adaptation-“An Cailín Ciúin”-“The Quiet Girl”-which I also first saw last March at my local independent cinema. All I knew of “The Quiet Girl” beforehand was what I had seen in a trailer a few weeks earlier, so the film’s story and its overpowering final scene caught me entirely off-guard and left me emotionally wrung out.
After I got home from the movie theatre that day, I began rummaging around online and was able to find a PDF copy of “Foster”, which I read in one spellbound sitting. I’m a retired child protection/family services worker, so the story of Keegan’s nameless little girl, her dire family situation, and her restorative summer months with John and Edna (Seán and Eibhlín in the movie) struck a sensitive chord with me. One of the foster couples I used to work with even ran a dairy farm, just like the Kinsellas. The screenwriter/director, Colm Bairéad, did a wonderful job of bringing Keegan’s long short story to the screen, and I highly recommend “The Quiet Girl” to anyone who hasn’t seen it. The film was released in Canada and the US last March, but I don’t think it received the theatre distribution it deserved, as I still meet people who have read “Foster” but have no idea it was made into an Oscar-nominated film.
“Foster” is part of the curriculum for Irish schoolchildren, and you can find a copy of the study guide they use by doing an online search for “Study Notes on ‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan - Reviews Rants and Rambles”.
So glad this video popped up for me today - I feel like we are so similar!! I love Robin Hobb, and I also read Foster and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan recently. I also loved your explanation of bodily, sticky writing - I thought Lapvona was fascinating, uncomfortable, and bleak. If you haven’t read Hunger by Knut Hamson, i would recommend; it has a bodily feel to it, for sure. The Mountain in the Sea and Perdido Street Station are on my TBR! And Stardust is one of my all-time favs 😊
Ooo thank you for the recommendation!
My standout book of 2023 was the book of short stories, Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Turgenev. Best wishes.
I loved Round House by Louise Endrich. Highly recommend.
Oh man, if you are looking for another Louise Erdrich to read I would love to see you read The Round House. It is harrowing, rage-inducing, desperately sad; so so many layers. I'd read some trigger warnings before diving into this one if that is something you're sensitive to in books, but LE never makes it gratuitous. So many ways in which violence perpetuates violence, esp in acts of vengeance -- as "justified" as it may seem. Lots of interesting things to say about penalization vs. rehabilitation, esp where it concerns the feelings of victims too.
Added to my list! I want to read a bunch more LE.
Erdrich - try the round house or love medicine or plague of doves! Such a stunning writer
Taking notes! Thanks so much for these recommendations
I love your videos, you always have really interesting recommendations! My favourite of the year was Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, beautiful writing about nature, and the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and science. I think you would really like it if you haven’t already read it 😊
I read Braiding Sweetgrass a few years ago and loved it. Such gorgeous writing. I'm on the hunt for more stellar nature writing for 2024
There were a few stand outs for me this year: On the Savage Side, A Little Life and Hello Beautiful but the Cromwell trilogy totally stole the show for me. Just loved it so much. I think I’ve recommended Julia Armfield to you before but her books are one I’d recommend for the bodily and grotesque - she has a short story collection called salt slow and a novel called our wives under the sea!
I’ll check out Julia armfield! Cromwell trilogy 👏🏻
Have you watched The Handmaiden (2016)? It’s an adaptation of the fingersmith that is one of my favorite movies of all time. I totally agree with your description of Robin Hobb trilogy, so so so excellent with compellingly realistic magic! I’ve been meaning to pick up the mountain in the sea
It sounds similar to the sci fi novel Venomous Lumpsucker, which I really liked
Adding The Handmaiden to my watch list. I also really liked Venomous Lumpsucker - those 2 def have a similar feel to them
@@pagesofcarolyn yay! I’m def gonna read the mountain in the sea soon, coincidentally my friend from high school whom I was hanging out with the other night told me about the book and said she really liked it!!
Wonderful video! If you enjoy Sarah Waters I would also highly recommend House of Longing by Tara Calaby.
Thank you for the reco! I’ll check this out