Matt's Books and Music

Yesterday I undertook the first half of my 2023 Bookish Superlatives. That post focused on questions of format, style, and readerly expectation. Today in Part II, I’ll turn to genre and authors representing specific communities.

Genres

Best Romance

I’m Your Guy (Hockey Guys #2), by Sarina Bowen (2023)

I’m on the record as thinking the Romance world really needs to stop fetishizing hockey players, but there’s no doubt that this charming love story between a closeted hockey player and his interior designer was my favourite Romance of the year. It was charming without being over-the-top in its banter, the conflicts in both main characters’ lives felt believable, the connection between them felt believable and earned, and the book didn’t shy away from the homophobia still present in a lot of locker rooms. It just hit that sweet spot of being sweet without being sentimental, and joyful and hopeful without being naive.

Honourable mentions: Thank You for Listening, by Julia Whelan (2022); Before I Let Go, by Kennedy Ryan (2022); The New Guy (Hockey Guys #1), by Sarina Bowen (2023); Well Traveled (Well Met #4), by Jen DeLuca (2022); Game Changer (Game Changers #1), by Rachel Reid (2018)

Best Science Fiction / Speculative Fiction

Uranians, by Theodore McCombs (2023)

There were a lot of 5-star reads in this category for me this year, so it was difficult to pick one. In the end, I went with Theodore McCombs’s collection of short stories Uranians. While other books (and other short story collections) were more consistent, none hit the heights of the best of Uranians, specifically in its sci-fi / speculative elements. I still think about three of the stories often.

Honourable Mentions: Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler (1995); The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler (2022); Our Hideous Progeny, by C.E. McGill (2023); How High We Go in the Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu (2022)

Best Fantasy / Alternative History

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty (2023)

Shannon Chakraborty (whose previous work was published under the name S.A. Chakraborty) is an auto-buy author for me. Her Daevabad Trilogy is my favourite fantasy series of all time, and this book, which follows a retired pirate who is pulled away from her quiet life with her daughter back into the world of high seas adventure, proved a very auspicious start for her next series. I loved this and can’t wait for more adventures to come!

Honourable Mentions: Fourth Wing (the Empyrean #1), by Rebecca Yarros (2023); Mrs. Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls (1982); Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, by Xiran Jay Zhao (2022 🇨🇦)

Best Historical Fiction

The New Life, by Tom Crewe (2023)

There are so many strands of history that intersect in this beautiful piece of historical, literary fiction about two men who attempt a factual, scientific presentation of homosexual relationships and desires in Nineteenth-Century England: It’s a study of Victorian society, the difficult history between social-scientific research and cultural norms and values, and a fascinating book of queer history.

Honourable Mentions: In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023); The Wars, by Timothy Findley (1977 🇨🇦); Once We Were Here, by Christopher Cosmos (2020)

Best Non-Fiction

The Big Reveal, by Sasha Velour (2023)

I debated whether this belonged in the Memoir category, but what stood out to me from this wonderful title by eminent drag queen Sasha Velour is the queer history more than the personal memoir. What I appreciated most was that it goes above and beyond the accepted and comfortable narratives about queer identities and reveals that so much of our history is steeped in illusion and myth-making of its own that we could easily argue that queer history is itself often in drag.

Honourable Mentions: Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake (2021); 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric H Cline (2nd Edition, 2021); Persians: The Age of the Great Kings, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (2022)

Best Memoir

All about Me!, by Mel Brooks (2021)

I knew ‘all about’ Mel Brooks the famous comedian, actor, and writer. I did not know ‘all about’ Mel Brooks the devoted husband to Hollywood royalty Anne Bancroft, or Mel Books, producer of such groundbreaking non-comedic films as The Elephant Man and The Fly. This is the amazing and hilarious memoir of one of the most prolific and important men in the entertainment industry. I’d definitely recommend this one in audiobook format, since it is performed by Brooks himself.

Honourable Mentions: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (2010)

Best Literary Fiction

Dinosaurs, by Lydia Millet (2022)

Because a lot of my favourite books this year fall under this category, I decided to do something a bit different with it, and reward the book I loved predominantly for its ‘literary’ merit. In other words, the book whose biggest success is found in its elevated writing and insights into the human condition. The book that fit the bill for me this year is Dinosaurs, by Lydia Millet, about a man who starts a new life in the desert after walking from New York.

Honourable Mentions: <redacted so as not to spoil my top ten!>

Best Short Story Collection

Flappers and Philosophers, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)

What amazes me about the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald is how current it feels a hundred years later. While he’s so tightly linked in the cultural imagination with the Jazz Age, I find, more than most other early twentieth-century writers, that Fitzgerald’s writing still feels alive and vital. And, I’m often pleasantly surprised by how he writes women and Black characters — in this he stands in great contrast to someone like Hemingway, who is often a poster child for what we call today ‘toxic masculinity’. This collection of early stories by Fitzgerald is charming, moving, and at times even profound.

Honourable Mentions: Wednesday’s Child, by Yiyun Li (2023); Uranians, by Theodore McCombs (2023); Dubliners, by James Joyce (1914); Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler (1995)

Creepiest Paranormal-Horror

Mister Magic, by Kiersten White (2023)

This is often a pretty sparse category for me, but I read some wonderful creepy titles this year. My favourite was Kiersten White’s Mister Magic. While it has a strong paranormal element, the real terror in it is entirely human, as it tackles difficult themes like religious trauma, controlling behaviours, gaslighting, and survivor’s guilt.

Honourable Mentions: Dead Eleven, by Jimmy Juliano (2023); Starling House, by Alix E. Harrow (2023); Summer Sons, by Lee Mandelo (2021); Episode Thirteen, by Craig DiLouie (2023)

Most Mysterious Mystery or Thrilling Thriller

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9), by Louise Penny (2012 🇨🇦)

My mystery reading this year was dominated by Louise Penny’s incredible Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. I could have chosen a few in this series as my favourites, including Bury Your Dead (#6), and A Great Reckoning (#12), but How the Light Gets In has to take the top honours. For the first time in the series, Penny combines her unmatched interest in her main character’s values and wonderful police procedural detection with the live action, clock-ticking tension of the thriller genre. And it hits so hard.

Honourable Mention (non-Penny): The Last ‘Devil’ to Die (The Thursday Murder Club #4), by Richard Osman (2023); The Telling of Lies, by Timothy Findley (1987 🇨🇦)

Coziest Cozy / Comfiest Comfort Read

Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett (2023)

If you’d told me at the start of the year that my award for ‘comfiest comfort read’ would go to a piece of literary pandemic fiction, I don’t think I’d have believed you, and yet here we are. What made this comfy and cozy? First, as I mentioned yesterday when I touched on this book in the ‘Best Writing’ category, I simply felt I was in the best hands from the first page. I was just able to sink back and relax and enjoy this book, like a hot bubble bath. But also, there’s something very warm and cozy about this story of a woman who had a brush with fame and a whirlwind summer romance with a future superstar, but who loves and cherishes the quiet life she built instead of pursuing fame. This has just the right amount of nostalgia, and so much heart.

Honourable Mentions: The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown (2016); Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne (1926); A Most Agreeable Murder, by Julia Seales (2023); Love at 350°, by Lisa Peers (2023)

Best Spirituality or Theology

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

This wasn’t exactly a banner year for spirituality reading for me, but that doesn’t entirely account for the fact that I’m giving this superlative to a work of fiction. But Richard Zimler’s 2019 The Gospel according to Lazarus (republished in 2023 in North America under its new title) simply does a fantastic job of representing late Second-Temple Jewish mystical and magical traditions — a better job than any non-fiction effort I’ve read.

Honourable Mentions: Knowing Jesus, by James Alison (1993); The Sign and the Sacrifice, by Rowan Williams (2017)

Communities

Best Children’s or Middle Grade Fiction

Frindle, by Andrew Clements (1996)

I spent the first half of the year going through a list of the best children’s books as determined by a school libraries group, so I read some great backlist titles in this category this year. Far and away the best for me was one I hadn’t even heard of before, Andrew Clements’ 1996 book, Frindle. It follows a wisecracking boy who puts his teacher’s belief that words have meaning because the collective says they do to the test, with hilarious results. Not only was this really fun, but it was also a great way to introduce kids to some basic principles of linguistics and the philosophy of language. I loved this book.

Honourable Mentions: The Giver, by Lois Lowry (1993); The Only Black Girls in Town, by Brandy Colbert (2020); Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume (1970)

Best Young Adult / New Adult Fiction

Only This Beautiful Moment, by Abdi Nazemian (2023)

To my mind, the single most important lesson everyone needs to learn is that the world is a complex place and more than one thing can be true at the same time. This is one of the major themes of Abdi Nazemian’s amazing YA novel Only This Beautiful Moment, in which a gay Persian-American teenager travels to Iran to visit his grandfather (to the horror of his White progressive, activist boyfriend), only to discover that questions of identity, belonging, and sexuality are nothing new in his family. This is simply a gorgeous book that I think everyone should read.

Honourable Mentions: When You Call My Name, by Tucker Shaw (2021); The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (2008); Sixteen Souls, by Rosie Talbot (2022)

Best LGBTQ2S+ Fiction

Only This Beautiful Moment, by Abdi Nazemian (2023)

I’ve already talked about this book a few times now (yesterday, today, and in my original review), but this was also the best piece of queer fiction I read this year. It has so much to say about queer experiences, both today and in generations past, and in both the West’s democracies and in parts of the world too-often dismissed as ‘backwards’ and repressive.

Honourable Mentions: The New Life, by Tom Crewe (2023); A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara (2015); In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023); Fraternity, by Andy Mientus (2022); Uranians, by Theodore McCombs (2023); When You Call My Name, by Tucker Shaw (2021); Waves, by Ingrid Chabbert (2017).

Best Indigenous Fiction

The Berry Pickers, by Amanda Peters (2023 🇨🇦)

After my 2022 deep dive into Indigenous fiction, I read fewer in this category this year, but I loved many of the ones I read. The best of the best for me was The Berry Pickers, by Amanda Peters, a Canadian author with both White and Mi’kmaq heritage. This is a story about two families whose trajectories change when a White woman takes a young Indigenous girl she sees on the side of the road and raises her as her own child. Chilling, heartbreaking, and profoundly empathetic, this was a fantastic read.

Honourable Mentions: The Circle, by Katherena Vermette (2023 🇨🇦); Blood Sisters, by Vanessa Lillie (2023)

Best Fiction by an Author of Asian Descent

A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara (2015)

As much as it would make sense to have a winner in this category that speaks to Asian or Asian-American/Canadian experiences, if I looked at all the books I read this year by authors of Asian heritage, there was simply no way to say that Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life wasn’t the best. It’s simply one of the best novels of the twenty-first century, full stop. But if you want some ‘Own Voices’ titles, check out the Honourable Mentions.

Honourable Mentions: Only This Beautiful Moment, Abdi Nazemian (2023); Himawari House, by Harmony Becker (2021); How High We Go in the Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu (2022); Babel, by R.F. Kuang (2022); The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (2023); Where Reasons End (2019) and Wednesday’s Child (2023), by Yiyun Li.

Best Fiction by a Black Author

Before I Let Go, by Kennedy Ryan (2022)

This was a bit of a down year in what is normally a stacked category for me, but the title by an African or Black author that stood out to me the most was Kennedy Ryan’s wonderful second-chance Romance Before I Let Go. I loved it for both of its main characters, the realness of their relationship and what made it crack, and for its representation of Black thriving.

Honourable Mentions to: Mr. Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo (2014); The Only Black Girls in Town, by Brandy Colbert (2020); B-Boy Blues, by James Earl Hardy (1994); and Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler (1995).

Best Canadian Literature

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies (1970)

I tried to be intentional this year about reading more Canadian classics and backlist content, so I had lots to choose from here (about 18% of my reading). In the end, I couldn’t not go with something by my ‘author of the year’, Robertson Davies, and of those twelve books (11 novels and 1 book of plays), my favourite had to be Fifth Business. It’s a simply masterful work of fiction, following the consequences of a snowball fight around the turn of the last century on the lives of three boys, while exploring themes of identity, meaning, and who gets to say they lived an important life.

Honourable Mentions: Hotline, by Dimitri Nasrallah (2022); The Berry Pickers, by Amanda Peters (2023); The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Wars (1977), by Timothy Findley; Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay (2007); and Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series (2005 – present).