Top 10 (ish) Books I Read in 2023
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- Happy New Year everyone! My wife makes fun of me because it causes me physical pain to try to "rate" the books I read or to say one is definitively better than another - so I challenged myself to rank order all 20+books that I read last year! I go through most of them briefly in the video but try to give some additional commentary on my top 10 so you can determine if any of them would be of interest for yourself!
The challenge with ranking books is that each has strengths and weaknesses that are unique and difficult to compare. Additionally, the "right" book for one day may not be the "right" book on another day...it's like selecting a fine wine! Depends on your mood! Depends on what else is going on in life...But without further delay on my part here is the list....it's likely some of these have already shifted around in relation to one another in my mind since posting this!
SPOILERS:
21. Jekyll & Hyde
20. Frugal Wizards Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
19. The Turn of the Screw
18. Hex
17. Boys in the Valley
16. The Exorcist
15. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
14. Dark Matter
13. Project Hail Mary
12. Equal Rites
11. Sunlit Man
10. Howl's Moving Castle
9. A Wizard of Earthsea
8. Babel
7. The Warded Man
6. Duma Key
5. Piranesi
4. The Shadow of the Wind (in hindsight this is probably my #2)
3. Stardust
2. Tress
1. The First Law Trilogy
I just finished Fracassi's GOTHIC. Not great...but worth a look.
I really liked the books I’ve read that you listed. I’ll have to check out some of the ones I haven’t read!
Awesome! Let me know which ones you enjoy!
My Stephen King recommendation, as you have already mentioned some greats, but one you didn't mention that still stands as one of my favorites is 11/22/63
Oh, I haven’t heard of that one - will have to check it out! Thanks!
Hi! I'm 15, so you might not have the same taste in books as me ( but I'm into everything except exclusively romance novels ), in terms of Stephen King books, I think I enjoyed Thinner most when I was 13, I haven't reread it in a while, but I do know I really had fun with it, and Rose Madder is defintely a must-read Stephen King book. It's not his biggest selling book or anything, but I think everybody could do with reading it, I oersonally thought it was beautiful and in someways comforting and relatable, but a lot of people also found it disturbing, so it's not really a book you can describe reading it.
In terms of gothic horror, if you haven't read it alrready, The Picture of Dorian Gray would be a great book to read. I have been absolutely obsessed with for about 6 years now, and it was the book that first got me into reading. I have no ides whether or not most people woukd put 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickins under gothic horror or not, but I think it belongs there. The book itself is defintely a lot less magical than the Disney and muppets version, but I do think the book was really comforting to read, even though it was kinda dark.
Oh! And my favourite ones! If i could recommend any books on this entire *planet* to read, it would be the Millenium trilogy. The best trilogy I have ever read, quite easily.
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- The Girl who played with Fire
- The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest
These are really well written, fast paced, they are writen very cleverly, and the Swedish adaptions of them were really good ( kinda glad Hollywood didn't get to it first, they like to make the sex, violence and corruption very pretty, which just would not have done these books judtice, in my opinion ). It took me a while to get into it, I'd say I got interested in it about 15% of the way through the first book, and after that I was just hooked. Tip is when you finish the second book, you'll want to start reading the third imemdiately so you might want to have the third book ready for that. Again, elaborate story, actually really complex chsracters, and thoroughly entertaining. Could not rate this series higher.
Wow, thanks for the well thought out comment! Dorian Gray is absolutely on my to read list! I already have a Folio Society copy of it - I will definitely read it this year! Thanks!