Hello! I go through and rank my 5 favorite works I read this last year, and I even thrown in about 5 honorable mentions at the end. There's some Malazan, some Outlander, and a few excellent surprises! Enjoy!
Hooray for Who Fears Death, Warhost of Vastmark, The Way of Edan, and The Tempest! I read all those books (plus play) in 2023 as well! I just bought a book of Shakespeare's sonnets that I want to read. Wishing you a great 2024!
Considering all the things you have shown to like on your channel I would like to recommend the visual novel the house in Fata Morgana. It’s described online as “A gothic suspense tale set in a cursed mansion. "The House in Fata Morgana" is a full-length visual novel spanning nearly a millennium that deals in tragedy, human nature, and insanity.” Which is a good enough description and while I would recommend the Nintendo switch version(better art and just comes with all of the series), the steam version is perfectly fine.
I'm loving that The Wars of Light and Shadow is slowly becoming more well-known by the blogging community. I first read Curse of the Mistwraith back in the mid-90s and loved it, but the series never really entered the more mainstream conversation. That seems to be slowly changing and it's so well-deserved. Such an epic series that deserves more love!
I give Warhost the edge over Ships as well, mainly because I love a good ending and Warhost delivered. I'm starting Grand Conspiracy soon, can't wait to get further into this fantastic series!
My Top 10 reads of 2023 My Top Favorite Read of 2023, is a tie between «Under Heaven» by Guy Gavriel Kay & «The Veiled Throne» 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 Way of Edan» by Philip Chase «Bold Ascension» by Vaughn Roycroft «The Winter Road» by Adrian Selby «Salammbo» by Gustave Flaubert «The Farthest Shore» by Ursula K. Le Guin «Brigantia» by Adrian Goldsworthy Honourable Mentions «The Little Emperors»/«The Conscience of the King» by Alfred Duggan (Love very dry British humor on ambitions, politics and bureaucracy (so many great quotes!), and excellent descriptions of how (possibly) Roman Britain fell!) «Tortilla Flat» by John Steinbeck (my biggest laughs this year, Great Feelgood Read if you don’t mind some tragedy too!)
