Top 10 Favorite Novels I Read in 2023 || Fantasy/Sci fi/Historical Fiction/Contemporary 

Finally someone else is talking about the Soldier Son Trilogy!!!!!

Loved the list! Lots of amazing books, but I was particularly pleased to see the love for I Know this Much is True. One of my all time favorite novels and one that deserves more love on booktube!

Love the list!!! Love the book of the year as lowest rated one on GR 💪 Can’t wait to try out Soldier Son, and more Le Guin. So happy to see Children of Time up near the top! What a freakin masterpiece, and totally with you on your commentary about it.

Number 9 is one of my favorite reads of all time. Nice list!

great video! also like the new background!

Great video, thank you.

Great list dude. I can’t wait to read Spear and Idec if it’s hyped right now it sounds so cool. I’ll also definitely be interested in exploring more of Hobb once I finish Rote.

I needed you last night when Allen and I were going to war over The Dispossessed. We’re both still reading it, and I am loving it on so many levels!!! It’ll be the first book I finish this year, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t make my Top 10 for 2024.

Heck yes for loving underrated books!! I didn't even have Forest Mage on my radar, but consider that mistake rectified now. And I had the same experience with the start of The Vanished Birds by Jimenez, but that story just crept up on me and ended up on my faves as well. Now I can't wait to read Spear Cuts Through Water! My faves by far are Legacy of Brick and Bone by Krystle Matar, The Riverfall Chronicles by Jacquelyn Hagen, and Of War and Ruin by Ryan Cahill. It was a good year overall though! Happy reading, Jake 🤩

I’m glad you liked Children of Time, it was a 9.5 for me. I have since read Shards of Earth and Dogs of War. Neither of them were on the level of Children of Time but I quite liked both, especially Dogs of War.

As soon as you said epistolary and good prose I thought of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. You should read Blood Meridian by McCarthy also if you haven't already, or even All the Pretty Horses which has some of the most beautiful descriptive writing. Daniel Abraham has been on my tbr for ages, can't wait to dig in!

All of these I've read are excellent, and I will make sure to actually read Soldier Son based on how much you loved it!

I’ve read 7 of these!!

I just finished your #8. I feel 99% the same as your thoughts. Very glad I read it.

Man, I really need to get back to Soldier Son. I enjoyed my re-read of Shaman’s Crossing for what it was and immediately fell into a reading slump as I was trying to get going on Forest Mage. I also really need to get to Urth. Brent and I keep talking about buddy reading it, and I know Ruoccio adores it.

I read Stoner and Butcher's Crossing last year and John Williams writing is now some of my favorite. I will definitely be picking up Augustus

Well, I am not going to yell at you because I know you are reading Betrayal in Winter now but yelling may happen in 2024 top 10 list if I don't see certain books. Anyways, good list. Made me happy to see The Dispossessed though I haven't read it yet. Also, its sweet that you read your mom's fav book.

My favorite book by Le Guin is The Word For World Is Forest. It's just a novella but well worth picking up

Number 10 is my favorite movie! I struggled with the book because of it's similarity to the movie. I may try it again down the road. Edit: spelling

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

GGK books on the bottom row of the shelf … interesting. Very interesting.

Your taste in reading is exactly same as mine. I swear I can go on blindly reading any book you recommend and be 100 hundred percent confident that I am going to love it. Even our top 10 lists would be the same, except the fact that I have read far less books compared to you. Over the years I have come to understand your taste as a reader and for the first time I would like to recommend you something I personally absolutely love as much as you and I love Stormlight/Robin Hobb/Robert Jorden and that is Hunter x Hunter manga series by Yoshihiro Togashi. This is an ongoing manga series which started around in 1999, but due to health issues the author takes long breaks. It has currently 400 chapters released as of now and the author is working on the latest arc which is in the middle stages. Here is my selling pitch of the manga: 1. The Best Magic System I have ever read Period: This series has the best magic system I have ever read, and I have read Warbreaker, Mistborn, Lightbringer, Wot, RoTE and nothing comes close. This power system is considered to be universally to be the best in Manga as a whole. Most even agrees with it. The events, games, repercussions, plot, world building and last but not the least fights that occurs as a result of the power system are easily some of the best out there. Cradle by will wight is partially inspired by this manga series. 2. Characters: I am a character reader, for me a character driven story is my main driving force when i am reading a story, and for this reason I am absolutely in love with Robin Hobb(The best character writer out there), I love me some Rand, Fitz, Fool, Malta, Paragon, Mat, Nynaeve, Jamie Fookin Lannistor, Death from Discworld etc. And I believe you will find equally beautiful characters there. This series is all about characters living in the world of Hxh, and the world doesn't revolve around our main cast. To quote yourself, Realm of the elderlings is just about people of Fitz's world making choices the way their characters are supposed to and we see the result and the same is the case here. 3. Fights: This manga series(Anime is also out there HxH 2011 which is beautifully animated upto chapter 340 of the manga) has the best fights period. There are at least 5 major fights in the series are that are like the best written and visually represented fights ever(By visually represented I do not mean the art is godly, because the art is just decent, it is the panelling, the POV and scope and the viewing angle to maximizing the reading experience). In the Latest Arc for Manga there is a fight that I read, and I personally believe that it is not possible to write a fight better than this. 4. Arcs: Each arc is wildly different the previous arc, the first arc is your introduction to the world so the initial setup and intro we get in decently represented, and it flows beautifully. But after that each and every single arc is wildly different and a roller coaster ride of wide range of emotions from Joy, Sadness, laugh, cry, hate, etc. You will feel all range of them. 5. Unpredictibility: The ending of any of the arc is as unpredictible as a toss of a coin and yet by the time you have read the arc upto completion, you will come out with the feeling that this was the best outcome possible. 6. Current Arc Praise: Current Arc reads like Epic fantasy( would not like to spoil even the name but people even make fun of the author by calling him a novelist rather than Mangaka as each chapters reads more like a novel instead of a manga page and for a very good reason that I absolutely love). 7. Antagonists: The Villians, Who doesn't love a good villian, This series is full of villians who are some of the best written villians out there in fantasy period. I love the character of Hisoka(Absolutely Godly Character with some of the most creative and amazing powers and motivations) and 5-7 other villians as much as I love Graendal, Kennet, Kyle, Moridin, Bayez, Cersie, Padan fain. All in all the villians are like 10/10. And Some villians are POV characters that reads like the main cast. All in all I could write 100 other things on why this manga series means so much to me and why you should read it once in your life, but I would hope that you who has inspired me to read, whose tastes are so similar to my own, would love to experience the Journey that is Hunter x Hunter.

Great list! McCarthy is such a hit and miss author for me. Really liked the road. Thought Child of God was okay. Didnt really like Blood Meridian and also didnt really like Orchard Keeper

Are those rainbow books at the bottom left the rainbow set of GGK?

That’s it, we’re enemies now: The Spear Cuts Through Water is not high enough on this list. I hope to read Soldier Son, finally, this year! 😅

Cheers to moms and reasonable Canadians! Hope to get to «Augustus» in 2024! 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

I had to buy my Long Price Quartet books online.

I thought the book of the year was The Hope of Elantris at first 😝

Shame on you for your wrong views of LPQ/ I really do not understand the negative comments Soldier Son gets. I'd be willing to bet if it was part of RotE that people would love it.