Matt's Books and Music

2023 has been another banner year in my reading life. I’ve read so many great books that a top ten or top twenty list just can’t do justice to them all. So, I’m happy to introduce my second annual Bookish Superlatives, highlighting books that excelled in different specific categories. Today’s superlatives will focus on readerly expectation, media, and style. Tomorrow’s will focus on genres, audiences, and communities. (Last year’s lists are available here and here.)

Because part of the point of this exercise is to spread the bookish love around, I may not award or even mention a book in every category to which it belongs.

Reputation

Best ‘Classic’ (written before 1970)

The Last of the Crazy People, by Timothy Findley (1967 🇨🇦)

I read a lot of classics this year (17% of my reading were books over 50 years old), and as always they were hit and miss. But, as my expectations surrounding them, and the tools I use to engage them change, I’m finding more and more are ‘hitting’, and those that do hit, hit hard. While it was hard to decide on a favourite for this year, I had to go with Timothy Findley’s Canadian classic, The Last of the Crazy People. I read this in a single sitting and still remember the atmosphere of decay and desperation that filled this story of a stifling Summer in the life of a young boy of a fading ‘Old Ontario’ family. Simply amazing.

Honorable Mentions: Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann (1912); A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce (1916); Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf (1925); and Robertson Davies’ Salterton Trilogy (Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), and A Mixture of Frailties (1958).

Best Backlist Title (written 1970-2019)

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara (2015)

When dividing things up, one has to create an arbitrary line between ‘backlist’ titles and ‘classics’. For today’s purposes, I’m defining ‘backlist’ as anything between 3-52 years old. They represented about 43% of my reading this year. Because I’m of the age now where most of these were written within my lifetime, these are often more relatable to me than older ‘classics’. I read so many brilliant backlist books this year, but the one I cannot not award here is Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. This has been sitting on my shelf since 2015 because I couldn’t muster up the courage to read this notoriously tragic and painful story. I finally picked it up this year, and am I ever glad I did. I was absolutely blown away by it. What is most impressive is how Yanagihara managed to make this story of a young man struggling (and often failing) to overcome his childhood traumas beautiful. In the hands of a lesser author this would without a doubt be nothing other than trauma-porn, but somehow this is just beautiful and even hopeful. As it happens, in the months since I read it, it’s having a social-media-inspired moment, and it’s everywhere again!

Honourable mentions: September, by Rosamunde Pilcher (1990); High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby (1995); The Wife, by Meg Wolitzer (2003); and Beartown, by Fredrik Backman (2016)

Best Debut

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)

As much as I love the joys of settling into a new story by a favourite established author, there’s also something very special about uncovering a brand new writer. I read some great debuts this year. But the one I have to acknowledge here is Alice Winn’s gay, First World War, novel In Memoriam. Of the books I was considering for this category, Winn’s particular literary voice sticks out the most to me. This book is full of contradictions — love and war, innocence and disillusionment, glory and horror — and is all the more powerful for it. It ends up being a scathing exploration of just how completely unprepared British youth were for the First World War, educated on romantic poetry only to be sent immediately into the trenches. A beautiful book!

Honourable mentions: The New Life, by Tom Crewe (2023); and Talking at Night, by Claire Daverley (2023)

Best Sequel

Leaven of Malice, Robertson Davies (1954 🇨🇦)

There was no doubt that my best sequel — a book following after another, but not directly dependent on the first (think Marilynne Robinson’s Home or Elizabeth Strout’s Oh William!) — was going to be by Robertson Davies this year. All of his novels form loose trilogies (three complete and one incomplete) which orbit around the same place and set of characters. All of the sequels are great, but I have to choose the first, Leaven of Malice. This is a hilarious satire about self-serious people, small-town gossip, and petty litigiousness set in a farcical mid-century Canada, with some of the best character-driven humour you’ll find in print.

Honorable mentions: The Last ‘Devil’ to Die, by Richard Osman (2023), The Manticore, by Robertson Davies (1972), What’s Bred in the Bone, by Robertson Davies (1985)

Best Series

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, by Louise Penny (ongoing; first book: Still Life (2005) 🇨🇦)

There was only one choice for this one. Since May, I’ve read fourteen books in this series, and they were all at least 4.5-star (or 90+ point in my rating system) reads for me. On the surface this is a police procedural about the head of homicide investigations in Québec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. But Gamache is not your typical literary detective. Far from the grizzled, hard-boiled detective whose demons often get the better of him, Gamache is a man who leads with values of empathy and vulnerability, and who insists on seeing the best in humanity even while being constantly exposed to its worst.

Honorable mentions: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (ongoing; first book: The Thursday Murder Club (2021)), and Robertson Davies’ trilogies: Salterton (1951-58), Deptford (1970-75), and Cornish (1981-1988).

Readerly Expectations

Most Disappointing

Western Lane, Chetna Maroo (2023)

In order to be ‘disappointing’, expectations have to be set pretty high. So a ‘disappointing’ book is not necessarily a bad one. It’s simply a question of whether my expectations were met. When I saw that this book about an immigrant family getting lost in racquetsports as a coping mechanism in their grief had been long-listed for Booker Prize this year, I was really excited. Books on immigrant experiences, grief and loss, and what we do to cope with the world are often big winners for me. But this just didn’t work for me. For me it was disjointed, and ending up wasting its promising premise. The reviews I’ve seen are pretty polarized: This is one that clearly either works for people or doesn’t. Sadly for me, it didn’t. And I really wanted it to.

Honorable mentions: Him, by Geoff Ryman (2023); VenCo, by Cherie Dimaline (2023); Outline, by Rachel Cusk (2014);

Least Living up to the Hype

The Foxhole Court, by Nora Sakavic (2013)

This category has less to do with my expectations than it does with the hype machine. This is for books that were everywhere on social media but didn’t live up to the high expectations this set. This was hard for me this year, as I’ve gotten better at keeping my eyes averted from the bright and shiny objects. But I let myself be led astray by The Foxhole Court. I’d only seen positive reviews of the “OMG!” variety, so I picked it up, but it was pretty bad. There was some good characterization and sexual tension, and I definitely grant that there is something oddly compelling about it. BUT. This is a book where organized crime is a far bigger deal that it is in our own society without explaining why or how that is. It is a book that revolves around a made-up sport whose rules make absolutely no sense. It’s a book where the athletics governing bodies openly sanction drug use, for no apparent reason. It’s a book where the characters turn violent, also for no apparent reason. This is a mess. A compelling mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Honorable mentions: Teacher of the Year, by M.A. Waddell (2023) is another self-published title that bookish social media loved. And, while it was a perfectly good queer Romance with a lot of meaningful representation, I never understood why people were losing their minds over it. And, while it pains me to say either of these titles because I enjoyed them both, both The Celebrants, by Steven Rowley (2023) and The Collected Regrets of Clover, by Mikki Brammer (2023) failed to live up to the hype in exactly the same way. Both were billed as deep examinations of mortality, yet to me both barely scratched the surface. The hype probably had more to do with our death-avoidant, mortality-denying culture than anything.

Most Living up to the Hype

Shark Heart, by Emily Habeck (2023)

On the flip side, sometimes getting caught up in the hype is very rewarding. There are a few books that stood out to me on this count, but I want to acknowledge Emily Habeck’s delightful and moving Shark Heart here, since I only picked this one up because of the hype. This is a high-premise book about a young couple torn apart when the husband develops a condition that turns him into a shark. Despite the body horror elements, this is actually a very entertaining, but also profound exploration of complicated grief and what happens when we simply cannot grow and change in the same way as our loved ones.

Honorable mentions: Open Throat, by Henry Hoke (2023), Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros (2023), Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett (2023), and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

Most Surprising

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby (1995)

This superlative goes to a book that I did not expect to like very much but ended up loving. High Fidelity, both the novel and its 2000 film adaptation, was a big phenomenon when I was in in my teens and early twenties. To my mind, it’s right up there with Office Space and RENT as peak Gen-X culture; but often times the things that speak the loudest to a particular moment or generation aren’t the most lasting. Yet this really held up for me. It is a hilarious and surprisingly insightful exploration of both the pettiness and profundity of life and relationships, and of perception and reality. And its main character is without a doubt a whiny, sour, disappointment of a man, but he knows it; and his self-awareness, humour, curiosity, and his sheer joy in even the smallest victories make him easy to cheer for.

Honorable mentions: Wellness, by Nathan Hill (2023); Hotline, by Dimitri Nasrallah (2022)

Best Under the Radar Title

Only This Beautiful Moment, by Abdi Nazemian (2023)

This category is for books that nobody was talking about but which deserved much better from the industry and bookish community. Only This Beautiful Moment, which explores themes of identity, immigration, sexuality, and belonging across three generations of Persian-American men, was one of my favourite books of the year. Yet not only was it not hyped up on social media, but it still has fewer than 800 ratings on Goodreads (but a 4.5 rating there!). This is such a shame because this is a brilliant book.

Honorable mentions: Kill Show, by Daniel Sweren-Becker (2023); and Talking at Night, by Claire Daverley (2023)

Media & Writing Style

Best Narrative Voice

Open Throat, by Henry Hoke (2023)

This category is about the most vivid or unique point-of-view character in a novel. I was really torn over this one, but have to give it to the queer mountain lion (yes, you read that correctly) who narrates Henry Hoke’s Open Throat. I think Hoke did a brilliant job of making this perspective wholly ‘other’ yet also compelling and relatable.

Honourable mentions: Hotline, by Dimitri Nasrallah (2022); Only This Beautiful Moment, by Abdi Nazemian (2023); Mr. Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo (2014)

Best Audiobook Narration

Hotline, by Dimitri Nasrallah (2022 🇨🇦), performed by Jan Kamar AND 10 Things that Never Happened, by Alexis Hall (2023), performed by Will Watt

I read a lot of books in an audio format this year (51%), and it’s always a bit of a craps-shoot performance-wise. Normally if I notice the performance, it’s because it’s distracting me from the author’s work. But sometimes, performances stand out because they capture what the author is doing so perfectly. This year two stood out to me and I simply couldn’t pick between them. (That one of my favourite books of the year was performed by Meryl Streep and it isn’t one of the two shows just how great these two performances are!) I can only imagine how difficult it was to find a suitable voice actress for Hotline, since she had to be perfectly fluent in English, speak French well enough to be passable as a French teacher, and do all of this with an Arabic accent. Jan Kamar more than rose to this occasion, and filled her performance of this wonderful book with a vulnerability and strength that fit its characters and themes perfectly. The second winner is Will Watt, who yet again proves himself to be one of the best in the business with his performance of 10 Things that Never Happened. His accent work, his comedic timing, and gorgeous voice never don’t elevate his material.

Honorable mentions: Thank You for Listening, written and performed by Julia Whelan (2022); and Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett (2022), performed by Meryl Streep

Best Graphic Novel or Comic

Himawari House, written and illustrated by Harmony Becker (2021)

I read a lot of wonderful graphic novels in 2023, especially in the first half of the year. The one I cannot stop thinking about is Harmony Becker’s Himawari House, which made the best use of the graphic novel format of any I’ve eve encountered. This is a story she simply couldn’t have told in another format, and I loved it from start to finish.

Honourable Mentions: Waves, by Ingrid Chabbert (2017), Strong Female Protagonist (Vol 1), by Brennan Lee Mulligan (2014), and Flamer, by Mike Curato (2020 — this is a book that could save lives, but is being banned from libraries in several jurisdictions. Read banned books!!!!)

Funniest Book

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi (2023)

Humour can work in a lot of different ways in writing, from laugh-out-loud humour, to wry wit, to irony, charm, and satire. John Scalzi’s Starter Villain takes this category for me this year because it excels in all of these ways. I loved this book for a lot of reasons, but its humour stands out among them all.

Honourable Mentions: Leaven of Malice, by Robertson Davies (1954 🇨🇦); Rachel’s Holiday, by Marian Keyes (1998); Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder (2021); and Road to Roswell by Connie Willis (2023)

Best Sense of Time and Place

The Gospel according to Lazarus (aka The Lost Gospel of Lazarus), by Richard Zimler (2019)

I love a book with a rich setting. The richest setting, in terms of place, but also time and culture, in the books I read this year was Richard Zimler’s 2019 work The Gospel according to Lazarus (published in North America in 2023 as The Lost Gospel of Lazarus). There are a lot of books that try to portray life in first-century Judaea, but none has come close to the success of this book. Rather than relying on Semiticisms or anachronistic inputs from later Judaism, Zimler shows the depth of his knowledge of late Second Temple Judaism and life in Roman-occupied Judaea. This is a world filled with mysticism and magic, with poverty, oppression, rumour and conspiracy, but also joy and connection.

Honourable Mentions: Hotline by Dimitri Narsallah (2022 🇨🇦) and The Geography of Pluto by Chris DiRaddo (2021 🇨🇦) for their vivid and particular descriptions of Montreal; Fredrik Backman’s Beartown (2016), for his portrayal of life in a remote Swedish village; The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (2023), for its portrayal of the water-logged Kerala region of India; and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1912), for the stifling atmosphere of the titular beautiful yet decaying city.

Best Book in Translation

Eastbound, by Maylis de Kerangal (2012, translation by Jessica Moore published in 2022)

When thinking about a best book in translation, I wanted to highlight not just a great book that happens to be translated, but one where the translation had a high degree of difficulty because of something in the book. The one that stood out the most to me was Eastbound, which was published in 2012 but only released in English translation last year. It’s the story of a Russian military conscript who decides to flee — but doesn’t make his decision until after he’s boarded the train carrying the troops to Siberia. This is a tense psychological thriller, and Jessica Moore’s translation captured this atmosphere amazingly well. I was riveted!

Honourable Mentions: Beartown, by Fredrik Backman (2016, translated by Neil Smith); Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann (1912, translated by Michael Henry Heim (2009)); and Love in the Big City, by Sang Young Park (2019, translated by Anton Hur (2021))

Best Writing

Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett (2023)

Much like comedy, ‘best writing’ can cover a lot of different things. ‘Good’ writing can be spare or effusive, simple or poetic. All of my short list here do something a little different that amazed me in their writing: A Little Life managed to create a work of beauty out of trauma; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow managed to make a book about a strained friendship between two unlikable people compelling; Fifth Business (🇨🇦)— and really everything I read by Robertson Davies this year — had me copying out extract after extract of witty, wise, or simply beautiful text; and John Scalzi’s Starter Villain was just completely transporting (and funny). But it came down to a battle between Tom Lake and Michael Cunningham’s Day for me this year, both for the same reason: From the opening words, in both works, I knew without a doubt that I was in good hands. I’m not sure how they did it, but the strength of their writing allowed me to relax into their worlds and carry me away. I’m giving this to Tom Lake by a hair, but really they’re both amazing.