Posting my previous year’s favourite books in March must be some kind of a record. But as I shared my absolute faves already, doing the follow-ups by genre seemed less urgent. And then suddenly I was about three months late. Anyway, I have found these summaries very helpful for myself, when people ask for book recommendations or when I need to recall my favourites for any other reason. So I am doing this despite the ridiculousness of the timing.

2023. was a decent fiction year for me and as has been a tradition in recent years, August was the most fruitful month, because of the Women in Translation month. I covered Emapiim, The MANIAC, Daisy Jones and the Six and Content Warning: Everything in my overall ‘best of 2023’ post, so here I will focus on the rest. I include my poetry favourites, as I have always found it very strange that poetry is officially lumped together with non-fiction, while these genres are often the exact opposites.

So, in no particular order:

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. If you loved Eng’s much-acclaimed The Garden of Evening Mists (as I did), you will probably at least like The House of Doors. It is beautifully written and we are back in the humid, beautiful and troubled Malaysia. This time, we follow Somerset Maugham and his lover who arrive in the colonial Penang and trigger the remembering of past loves, hurts and tragedies. There is a dual timeline and quite a bit of narrative tension, but for me, it’s all about atmosphere and the gentle but devastating dynamics between people. Gorgeous and gripping.

A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux. The more I read Ernaux, the more I come to appreciate her. She is not the only woman to write very unsentimental, unsparing prose, but her method sets her apart. In A Man’s Place, she attempts to faithfully reconstruct her father’s story, which is why this is sometimes shelved with non-fiction. Ernaux, however, maintains that the recreation is always an act of creation, so it should be seen as a novel. In any case, I have an increasing respect for this obsession with the truth, the attempt to capture a lost moment as closely as possible. I used to laugh at people who say “but fiction is just lies”, but I’ve come to see their point. It doesn’t bother me as much in genre fiction, where the imaginary nature of things is obvious. In literary fiction, however, you can create whatever you want, fabricate any morals you like and pretend it’s real life. And I increasingly feel that if you are going to do that, you better be very, very convincing. (And yes, I know it’s the wrong Ernaux on the picture).

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. Minor Detail had been on my reading list for a while and I have to admit that in the end it was the horror in Gaza that made me pick it up. This novel is of course written well before the current war, but it is helpful for understanding the history of Palestine and the reality of the occupation in recent years. There are two timelines, the first describes a gang-rape of a Palestinian woman by Israeli soldiers in 1949, soon after Nakba. The second shows a contemporary account of a woman trying to investigate this incident (which is based on a true story, although the book is fictional). It is a hard read and not recommended if sexual assault and oppression are triggering for you. It helps that the book is very well written and short, but these are tense 112 pages. I wish more Estonians would pick up books about Palestine, considering how biased our public discourse on this tends to be.

Peetri keisrinna/Peter’s Empress by Kristina Sabaliauskaite. Historical fiction is not among my favourite genres, at least when it’s done in a traditional way as it is here (I guess Lincoln in the Bardo is technically also historical fiction, but it has a different, more experimental feel). But Sabaliauskaite executes her idea so well that I found myself much more drawn in than I expected. We follow the low-born wife of Peter the Great and what a fascinating life that is. If you happen to be a fan of the genre or interested in this period, I would strongly recommend it. The research seems to be very sound, but it is till very much a novel, not an embellished biography. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s available in English, but the Estonian translation is very good. 

Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami. My struggles with Japanese fiction are well known, I often feel I’m unable to fully connect with the characters and the plot. It can sometimes be a pleasant effect, but I’m often disturbed by the possibility that I am completely misreading the text. While the author is dead, I personally still prefer to broadly understand what she or he meant. But occasionally, I am reminded why I keep trying Japanese fiction anyway and Ms Ice Sandwich is a good example of that – it is short, somewhat bizarre but still poignant. My sample might be skewed, but the Japanese seem to be particularly good at conveying loneliness, alienation, the feeling of not fitting in and this is a big theme here as well. Another Japanese book I liked quite a bit was Rin Usami’s Idol, Burning.

Lips too chilled by Matsuo Basho. Now, all the issues I have with Japanese fiction disappear immediately when it comes to poetry. I doubt that I understand it better, but I am used to not fully understanding poetry and just going with the flow. Basho is on one hand exactly what you’d expect from a 16^th century Japanese poet – lyrical, precise, obsessed with nature. On the other hand, he is not what you’d expect at all. I was particularly struck by his gentle humour, eating all the Instagram poets and leaving no crumbs:

Under the cherry:

blossom soup,

blossom salad.

What Girls Do in the Dark by Rosie Garland. I bought this poetry collection on a whim when browsing in the Brussels Waterstones and I am very glad I did. It is perhaps not quite Kaminsky or Plath, but I love a cosmic metaphor and you have a number of them here. It was a really lovely reading experience and the collection strikes a good balance of being approachable but not trite. I also want to include an honourable mention to Jen Campbell’s Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit – she is one of my favourite booktubers and writes movingly about motherhood and disability.

For context, let me also say that I read Yellowface, one of the biggest books of the year, and I fully understand why it was a bestseller. It is well written, addictive and handles some very relevant themes. It is not on the list because it has too much second-hand embarrassment and train wreck energy for my personal taste, but it’s well worth checking out. Two other things that one may have expected to be on this list are August Blue by Deborah Levy and Greek Lessons by Han Kang, but neither are their authors’ best work in my non-humble opinion.

If you can still recall what you read last year, feel free to share your favourites in the comments.