Best and Worst of 2023

What was the best book you read in 2023, and what was the worst? And/or, what book did you just enjoy reading the most?

For me, the best was Germinal and the worst was Nightwood.

For sheer enjoyment, The Green Hat wins. Just finishing it now so maybe it belongs with 2024...

I seem to have read 36 list books this year. I may need to slow down a bit.

I only read 7 books off the list this year.

My favorite was the very short but interesting Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair.

And my least favorite, which I really felt was quite a repetitive slog, was all 1500 pages of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.

I managed 23 books this year, most of which I rated 2.5 - 3 stars. Slipping below that rating (at 2/5) were Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia and Anton Reiser by Karl Phillipp Moritz.

There were no great books this year, but I gave 4/5 to each of Pavel's Letters, That They May Face the Rising Sun and Song of Solomon. Honorable mention to Perec's Life: a User's Manual for its intriguing format/structure, even if it was too long to sustain interest.

I read 7: H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker was so strange and yet fascinating, and I adored Night Boat to Tangiers by Kevin Barry.

I was unable to finish Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which I ended up tossing: that was a heart breaker because I rarely give up on a book and I usually Love GGM.
Elena's Ferrante's Lost Child was curiously vapid; I had a hard time seeing anything other than a series of events.

I read ten books off the list + a re-read of Skaknovelle by Stefan Zweig. I gave most books 4 stars, which is pretty good. I rated The Summer Book highest but there was not one book which really blew me away this year. Maybe Ulysses but I think of that one more as a great achievement than as a great reading experience. Most disappointing read was Foundation by Isaac Asimov which was much less interesting than I had expected.

>5 Henrik_Madsen: I also read The Summer Book this year and rated it 5*, one of my favorites.

I read a total of 46 books this year. My only 5* reads were The Summer Book and Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louise de Bernieres. Also had two 4.5* reads, Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee and The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx.
Of the books that I finished, my two lowest rated were both 2.5*, Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Hines and Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare.

I also did a reread of The Little Prince which will always be a 5* read for me. It is a sentimental favorite of mine.

Most solid read -- a good, well-written realistic homesteading story: The Tree of Man

Weirdest genre-bending fun? read: Stone Junction

Best battle scene: Eclipse of the Crescent Moon

Most sepia-toned quietly sad read: The Romantics

I read 12 books this year, and of those, my favourites were Under the net (surprisingly funny and touching) and Pierre and Jean (nicely done psychological study).

The ones I didn't connect with were The sun also rises (boring people are boring) and At the mountains of madness (just too long-winded).