My TOP 10 Books I Read in 2023!! 

Thank you, John, for your kinds words about The Way of Edan! I deeply appreciate that you gave the book a shot, and I'm very glad that it resonated with you enough to warrant a mention in this video packed with so many fantastic reads. I am very excited to see what you make of The Prophet of Edan and Return to Edan whenever you're able to get to them. Also, my very best to you for a wonderful year of reading in 2024!

What an awsome guy John is. Very enthusiastic and positive! Love watching, thanks for the content John! 👍

At last my search is over. I have finally found a booktuber who is on the same page as me! I'm looking forward to joining you for a new year of epic journeys...Best wishes to you John from Scotland 💙

What a fantastic list! There are so many books I have as priority reads for 2024 here. Dungeon Crawler Carl and The Wickwire Watch are happening this month! Light Bringer also made my list and The First Law made my honorable mentions. Happy to have found your channel!

Very solid top 10! Big fan of Ruocchio, most people seem to be 🧐. Your number 1 was probably my favorite book for 2015 since that’s when I read it.

Excellent Top 10 (plus some)! Loving your reviews, my friend.

never seen one of your videos before but it popped up on my feed and I really love how passionate you sound talking about these books. You seem so genuinely excited and thrilled talking here and its so lovely to see :) i will be picking up the way of edan sooo soon thanks to you

What a list! I had a feeling I recognized No 1 when I saw the stack, love it when a favorite read slips in right at the end of a year like that.

Woooohoooo what a list!!! Love the passion and energy you brought to your gushing here, and I’m right there with you on Words of Radiance being transcendent, and Excalibur being magical, and Before They Are Hanged being a wonderful subversion so full of voice, and Dungeon Crawler Carl being laugh out loud funny while also giving hints of deeper things going on, and Empire of Silence being a marvelous introduction to such an intriguing galactic conflict. You have me excited to pick up the Last War, Wickwire Watch, and the Way of Edan! Here’s to hopefully another great reading year ahead for us both!!

Todd here. Nice list Talking Story! I read the first few chapters of The Way of Kings and enjoyed it! Many people love Words of Radiance. Happy New Year!

New here as well, from your appearance on Mikes livestream. This a slick looking channel and you’re a great and passionate communicator. Looking forward to watching more vids

Great looking list, many of which I have planned for this year: Wurts, continuing the Edan Trilogy, Mike Shackle, continue Suneater. Let's take on 2024!! - Cheers John!

Excellent list, John! Before They Were Hanged was also my favorite in the First Law trilogy, very closely followed by The Last Argument of Kings. Sounds like you ended the year strong, and I look forward to hearing what’s in store for you this year! 😊

Great list! Awesome video my friend---so funny, Im reading dungeon crawler carl now, MAN what a hilarious and awesome book

Hurrah for The Way of Edan! (the Prophet and Return are even better!) Man, you have me super excited about The Last War series. Somehow I'm fitting it on my TBR Q1. I knew we'd get you into LitRPG. I have sooooo many good recs for you in the genre. Allow me to be your guide! Princess Posse 4 life! Your Top 5 is Outstanding. What an amazing reading year you had!!

I love listening to your passion for these wonderful books. So glad I have found your channel. My favourite book of the year was hunger of the gods. That ending!!! Can’t wait for the next book to be released.

Great list John! I don't think I've even read any of these books that you mentioned! You've become a good friend to me over these past few months, and I wish you well in 2024! Keep it up!

I only discovered your channel a few days ago and have only watched a few videos but it was an instant subscribe for me. Your energy and insight is infectious. Keep it up!

Excellent presentation of a great baker's dozen of books! ;o) Love your positivity and energy on these great stories! May 100 more wonderful tales find you in 2024!

Hey John, I just found your channel from Mike's livestream the other day and I'm already a fan and subscriber! I saw your interview with Christopher Ruocchio and I really enjoyed that discussion since I'm in the middle of Empire of Silence. Happy New Year and happy reading!

Just discovered your channel and it's amazing! You are full of emotion! I love it.

Happy 2023, John! Great thoughts!!! The Wickwire Watch is my most anticipated read of 2024! I sampled the first chapter in mid-2023 and LOVED IT! I've since acquired the ebooks and audiobooks for the first 3 Riverfall Chronicles books and can't wait to immersion read ALL of them! LOVE Jacquelyn Hagen's writing style and the audiobook narrator's voice and performance. 🥰 I also purchased a copy of The Way of Edan and added it to my 2024 TBR, and the rest of the books you mentioned are all on my TBR lists and/or radar. 🙂📚

Such a great list, I was looking forward to hearing your top 10! I'm planning to dig into some Mike Shackle once I finish Hobb's Tawny Man

I love this time of year for the wealth of these lists, and I specifically love lists like yours, since they’re so full of books I haven’t read yet. 🔥 Hot list John, even if I can’t get as excited as you about Sando or Dungeon Crawler Carl. 😜 Here’s to even better reads in 2024!

Such a great list John! I wasn’t shocked to see Words of Radiance at number one. So glad to see Edan and Warlord Chronicles on here too. I really need to get on the Ferryman and the Wickwire Watch.

Nice list. Love those top 2 for sure.

Wow, wow, wow, what a list!! I can't say I am surprised that WoR shot all the way to the top, that book is just a masterpiece! And so excited to see some of my personal most anticipated reads on here, I especially can't wait to get back to The Last War, Edan trilogy and finally start Sun Eater! Hope you find many more faves in the new year!

Love how passionate you are about the books you talk about. Your enthusiasm makes me SO happy. Will definitely check out all this books. Thanks! 🤎

I NEED to read Warlord Chronicles this year! It’s been on my TBR for a while but I keep pushing it back for some reason. You’ve definitely convinced me to pick it up!

You have made me so excited for my own Cosmere catch up! I’m looking forward to reading Words of Radiance for the first time. You’ve also added a hefty number of books to my tbr list. Happy 2024!!!

Hey John, found you from Mike's live stream the other day. Solid top 10! Lightbringer, my best read of 23! Love your charisma and passion, I'll be along with you in 24. Keep going man!

DCC and First Law are on both our lists! Solid choices! I’m very excited to dive into Sun-Eater, Red Rising and some others here. Well done, John! 🤘🏽

Happy New Year! I'm also going to get on the Dungeon Crawler Carl bandwagon (Andrew convinced me lol) and you've convinced me to put Way of Kings WAY further up on my TBR despite it's hefty size. Thank you!

Your description of The Wickwire Watch was perfect! One of my top reads of 2023!

First time seeing your channel. Love the enthusiasm. Keep at it. New regular viewer

Brilliant video of a brilliant reading year. I have been off the grid for 8 days with no reading, so I still have 250 pages of Words of Radiance left. Very excited. Light Bringer was my best read of 2023. Bring on 2024!

I love your excitement and enthusiasm about books. It makes me smile when I see men who love reading. It also doesn’t hurt that you read science fiction and fantasy😂 Happy New Year and pleasant reading

The fact that we disagree so much about the specific books (Feist is the only book on your top ten that I would even put in my top 1,000) and yet I so enjoy your videos tells you how good you are at this - keep it up, love the channel and the videos! Happy new year!

I’m so happy to see you shining a light on Jacqueline Hagen. The Wickwire Watch is just wonderful. I read The Blue Flames this month. Hagen will have a long career as an author. As GRRM would say, “Fantasy as it ought to be written.”

Great list! Words of Radiance is a high point of great series! I am a fan of most of Sanderson, but Stormlight really shines as his best work.

Cool top 10 thank you 🙏

You read some damn good books this year! If I had to pick a favourite off the top of my head I'd probably say Yumi And The Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson. I've been a huge fan of his for years and even so that book blew me away with how good it was. Very close runner up would be Wizard And Glass, I read all of The Dark Tower for the first time this year and I adored it, book 4 being the highlight for me personally.

Excited to see someone giving some love to the Ferryman by Justin Cronin! I read that one as well, and it was a mind trip, kept making me ask questions about what was going on, that kept me wanting to read without stopping. And I started Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruoccio and im not quite half way through it, but it already has its claws into me, his writing is absolutely perfect. Awesome List man, and heres to a great reading year in 2024. 👍

Excellent top ten, I've read most of these and agree they are excellent! Light Bringer is also my #2 this year, and WoR is my second favorite book ever! One day we will fight about Excalibur being fantasy, but for now it's fine 😜

Excellent video, thank you.

Found your channel recently and I'm slowly catching up on your videos. Love your passion and love for books and stories / storytelling 😊 The First Law trilogy is on my tbr for this year, can't wait to start it! My top read of the year was not a sci-fi or fantasy book, which is somewhat weird. I read a lot of 5* books, like all of Sun Eater so far, but I think the top one was Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants by Mathias Enard. And in case you're up for a bit of amazing sci-fi, check Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. I have a feeling you'll enjoy it 😊

The Wickware Watch sounds amazing!

Love channels that have the chapter list. Bravo

Great list, top 5 were exceptional.

Great top 10, I figured Words of Radiance would take your number one spot! I'm well into The Way of Kings now, can't wait to share my thoughts with you when we chat!

I'm way behind on watching my booktube backlog, but this was such an interesting and inspiring list. Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of the books on my currently-reading list and so far it's highly entertaining. I've read both Words of Radiance and Before They are Hanged before and really enjoyed them. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie made it to my number 3 spot in 2023. I'm also re-reading Empire of Silence at the moment as I've read it 2 1/2 years ago, but never followed up and I want to experience the series this year. And I'm just tackling the Red Rising series with Morning Star being one of my current reads as well. For me personally, Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan took the crown in 2023 followed closely by The Will of the Many by James Islington. Other great books were Dark Water Daughter by HM Long and The Shadowthrone by Django Wexler.

Great top 10

Dungeon Crawler Carl! Just started listening and it's so good.

Love your list! I didn’t hit as many fantasy reads this year as I wanted to, but I did read The Blade Itself (really liked it!) and The Way of Kings. I have to be totally honest, I was a bit disappointed with The Way of Kings - would you say the series gets better as it goes along? I’m definitely going to be checking out Bernard Cornwell this year as well! Also love what you said about growing up in theatre - the answers are in the text, so true 😊

I loved A Fool's Hope! Tinnstra, Dren and Yas

Excellent list! I'd have to say my top read of the year was probably my re-read of The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker, book 1 of The Prince of Nothing trilogy. It's a profound exploration of character and the nature of being human, all wrapped up in a dark and epic story of a Crusades-style holy war in an intricately complex world with magic, aliens(!), and a very strong Dune vibe.

John I was very moved by the Harry Potter story you shared with Mike & Spencer on his New Years live stream. I have come to the conclusion that the real magic we have in our lives are the fantasy stories themselves. Countless times fantasy has got me through such hard times. Who needs psychotherapy or valium when you have Potter or The Song of Ice and Fire. I had to wait through 8 hours of high risk spinal surgery on Luke without my husband’s support in 2020. Only one parent was allowed so I dove right into the ETL Witcher Book Club. Those two hilarious podcasters saved my sanity!!

I also read the entire Red Rising this year and Dark Age/Light Bringer tied for my best book(s) of the year!

Just ordered The Ferryman.. looks like my kind of story!

Book of the year for me was The Will of the Many! Such a fantastic read

Funny, my top two books in 2023 were the same, just flipped. Great list!

in 2022, I didn't have a book # goal but read 50. This past year my goal was to double that, which I hit 92 so not bad BUT this year my focus is going to be solely on page count instead of number of books. My daily goal is 100 pages because this is the year of chunky SciFi and Fantasy books and series! I'll still be reading a wide variety of genres as usual (love Horror and Thriller/Mysteries and some Historical Fic, Lit Fic, Non Fic, Classics, Poetry & Manga).. but this year I'm getting into the Green Bone Saga, Red Rising, The Foundryside, The Expanse, The Daevabad series, and a few other new ongoing series. I cannot wait! 😄

I guess it’s time to start all of these series! Lightbringer was fantastic! I’m late to Stormlight, but I do own all of them. I also want to start Sunbearer. And I guess now Dungeon Crawler Carl! Too many series, not enough time 😅

Amazing that you got through seventy six books, especially since a lot of those were chonkers!

The book pile was fighting for its life at the end 😂

Solid top ten John. I'm really interested in Jaquelyn Hagen and Philip Chase (I love the cover artwork for The Edan Trilogy). I like you, but my purse doesn't 😂 I hope your day job isn't selling encyclopedias or we're all doomed!

I'm a new subscriber. I just finished Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton and I will be starting The Blade Itself soon.

My Top Favorite Read of 2023, is a tie between «Under Heaven» by Guy Gavriel Kay & «The Veiled Throne» («Dandelion Dynasty #3) by Ken Liu: «Under Heaven» should be teached next to «War & Peace» and «Le Miserables» for GGK’s prose and Ken Liu’s Character Work has few if any rivals! A character that has only one scene in «TVT» (though a series veteran in «The Dandelion Dynasty»), earned with that scene alone my favorite character of 2023: Cogo Yelu! Next is another tie between «The Retreat to Avalon» by Sean Poage & «The Winter King» by Bernard Cornwell: Poage has written my favorite take on «A Historical King Arthur» and the Seige of Yves Trebon/St. Michel in «TWK» shows why Cornwell might be the best at writing battles! The next are unsorted: «The Winter Road» by Adrian Selby «The Way of Edan» by Philip Chase (You might have heard about him! 😄) «Bold Ascension» by Vaughn Roycroft «Salammbo» by Gustave Flaubert «The Farthest Shore» by Ursula K. Le Guin «The Name of the Wind» by Patrick Rothfuss «Brigantia» by Adrian Goldsworthy «Tortilla Flat» by John Steinbeck «The Little Emperors» by Alfred Duggan My Honorable Mentions «The Conscience of the King» by Alfred Duggan «Tehanu» by Ursula K. Le Guin «The Black Gods Kiss» (Jirel of Joiry) by CL Moore

Hi John. A novella of Lovecraftian which made it to my 2023 Favorite Reads is The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor La Valle. It combines dark gods with 1924 racism in a big city, with a surprising narrator.

Nice list my friend... me by top 2 if the year was golden son as number 2 and dune as number 1

Dungeon crawler carl has quickly become my guilty pleasure.

Lots of titles I want to get to. I have Philip’s already and just ordered Wickwire 😊 I don’t know about Sanderson. I’ve read a few and although I enjoyed them, they didn’t ‘grab’ me. Loved The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension was ok, didn’t read the 3rd. Read Skyward to Cytonic and the novellas, again enjoyed it, but it went down-ish / Rithmatist was good / Steelheart meh. Considering Way of Kings, Elantris or Warbreaker. Which of these three, do you think? So pleased you loved Warlord Chronicles. I read those pretty much when they came out and just inhaled them. Need to re-read them, this time with the recommended audio.

Our community is so funny. I read 65 books totalling 25k pages this year and felt bad about that number, wanted to get closer to 100. The next highest person that I know in real life read 6 books this year

Fantastic list! I have a quick question. Can Excalibur be read as a standalone? I didn’t read the first 2 books. Can I jump into the book Excalibur? Thank you

Off the top of my head my favourite reads of the year were: Dandelion Dynasty 2: Wall of Storms Death of Ivan Ilyitch / Leo Tolstoy Flowers for Algernon / Daniel Keyes Liveship Traders 1: Ship of Magic Kithamar 2: Blade of Dream No Country for Old Men / Cormac McCarthy Sandkings / GRRM Stoner / John Williams Under Heaven / Guy Gavriel Kay Honourable Mentions: Eaters of the Dead / Michael Crichton The Malevolent Seven / Sebastien De Castell

The First Law trilogy is very good enjoy the 3rd book!

One of my favourite books of 2023 is The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett. It is an exploration of AI, virtual reality and and what it means to be sentient.

Sir just found out your channel, I will recommend two books if you haven't read them, Lev grossman's Magicians and Tim Power's Drawing of the Dark. Both books are excellent. Read them last year

I can't go with just one Abercrombie book in this years top 10, lol. I got 4 on this years list. And I read the first FL trilogy in 2022; there would be even more of his books on the list if I had read them all in 2023. But here my top 10 for 2023 (with ratings): 1. The Heroes by Abercrombie (5 out of 5 stars) 2. Red Country by Abercrombie (5) 3. Bloody Rose by Nicolaus Eames (4.5) 4. Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellen (4.5) 5. The Wisdom of Crowds by Abercrombie (4.5) 6. Sharp Ends by Abercrombie (4.5) 7. Kings of the Wyld by Eames (4.5) 8. The Crippled God by Steven Erikson (4.5) 9. Blood of Empire by McClellen (4.5) 10. Wraith by John Gwynne (4.5) I only read 24 books this past year. But I would call it quality over quantity because there wasn't a dud amongst them. Nothing below a 3.5 rating from me and over half of them at least a 4.5. I'm stingy with my 5 star ratings so a 4.5 star would be a 5 star from many people if they liked it as much as I did. But as I say I'm stingy with that perfect 5 star. I've only given out 19 in my entire life, lol.

Seeing Joe Abercrombie on the list makes me happy... should be higher tho haha jk his film influences become more apparent with the standalones.

Subbed

Just found your channel and loving these videos. I have a conspiracy theory. You are daniel greene from the future come back to allow us double the booktube content. You are so passionate its amazing keep it up

You should check out one piece or atleast the live action for a start

I guess I will have to read Words of Radiance. I read Way of Kings and thought it was OK, and the rest of the books have been sitting on my shelf for two years and I just haven't picked them up. I have major issues with this world and do not think the world building was thought out at all. Maybe some issues get resolved. I know it's fantasy and have no problem suspending disbelief, but the author has to do his work and be consistent. This world made no sense to me. I live in Florida and have been through several hurricanes. I had to rebuild my house 20 years ago after one destroyed it. I have a commercial landscaping company and after one hurricane years ago, it put us 6 months behind. It literally took 6 months to fully clean up and right all the damage. The fact that storms greater than those hurricanes hit this world on a regular basis is just nonsense, fantasy world or not. Civilization simply could not survive such regular storms and there would be perpetual clean-up of damage and death. How are there cows and horses in this land? Where do they go during these storms? Who is rounding them up and where are they putting them? The grass is also said to retract as people walk on it. How do cows and horses then eat? Come on Man! There simply would not be these animals, or any 'regular' ones as they would never survive the storms. There wouldn't be leather because no cows. The unique animals he came up with covered in armor and carapaces would be the fauna. People would not be wearing clothes, they would be wearing these carapaces and hardened armor made from these unique creatures. Sanderson didn't go far enough with the world building and it makes no sense. The trees are said to pull in their leaves for a storm. OK, great, except the trees themselves would snap like matchsticks and there would be no trees. Maybe he resolves some of this, but the laziness of the world building was just jarring to me and that is why I haven't continued with the series.

One of the best reviews of WoR I've heard or read! Spoilers "Kaladin, stretch forth thy hand! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I think my suggestion for this year would be pretty obvious. 😂

“….my honor remains.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

ur godlike attractive OMG

Not nearly enough rodents in this, John... But great list otherwise.