FAVOURITE READS 2023 Q4

What reading stood out for you in the last three months? Or, did anything stand out? Perhaps it was more of a mundane quarter? Let us, your fellow readers know. If something stands out in the next two weeks, add that in too.

Three books stood out this quarter: The Avram Davidson Treasury; Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey; and Prequel by Rachel Maddow.

I didn't read a ton this quarter, but I read a few really good books, and nothing below average.

My favorite fourth quarter novels were:

1. Capitaine Rosalie by Timothée de Fombelle
2. State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang
3. The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

And my favorite nonfiction was Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky.

A short quarter for me, because of the way my travel worked out. So not a very long list. What stands out:
- my re-reading of the Beats, especially Howl, The Dharma bums and A Coney Island of the mind
- non-fiction: Empire express about the Transcontinental Railroad, and Gay bar: why we went out, a sort of mash-up of memoir and academic study.

My top reads this quarter are
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce

Am rereading Unraveling by Peggy Orenstein, which I'll finish today. Still 5 stars.

I predict that I will also give 5 stars to The Lais of Marie de France when I finish it...

I read some really incredible books this quarter, along with discovering 4 new to me authors. Also have on deck a few others that I may finish in the next few weeks covenent of water and ancestor stones. And with this last quarters count, I have read 95 books this year, compared to 82 last year

astray
lessons in chemistry
old new york
two old women

Karios ( wrong touchstone) jenny erpenbeck

bird girl and the man who followed the sun
mister pip
here at the end of the world we learn to dance
one day all this will be yours

Also have on deck a few others that I may finish in the next few weeks covenent of water and ancestor stones. And with this last quarters count, I have read 95 books this year, compared to 82 last year

I think my favorite book this quarter was If Found, Return To Hell, which was funny and warm with great world building.

Cahier d'un retour au pays natal was a memorable read which hit me with its anger, then on a second reading seduced me with its lyrical writing.

>5 WelshBookworm: Unraveling is a book I really hope comes my way. I've heard her speaking about it on the radio, and it sounds excellent. It also turned up at my book club's year end, where we each pick our favourite fiction and nonfiction book of the year from all our reading, and someone picked it.

Q4 Best reads:

Poetry: How Fire Descends: New and Selected Poems (trans. 2023), Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine)

Fiction (Novel): The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan 2017, trans.2021 (Ukraine)

Non-Fiction:Conversations on Writing by Ursula K. Le Guin "with" David Naimon (2023)

I only read one book this quarter, but I gave it 5 stars: Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad by Tamara J. Walker.

My favorite this quarter was Lidia Yuknavitch's Thrust, and 2nd favorite is The baby on the fire escape (nonfiction.)

I only read 4 books this quarter. I'm currently reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell which is outstanding. Not likely that I'll finish it this year though.

>3 labfs39: Of course, I jumped right in with my quarterly favorites and then read some exceptional books. One I do want to mention and it will make my best of the year list too: At Night All Blood is Black. An exceptional book, if exceptionally dark.

The following are the books I most enjoyed this quarter in rough preference order.

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
System Collapse by Martha Wells
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Dear Miss Kopp by Amy Stewart
Murder On Cold Street by Sherry Thomas