My Top 10 Books of 2023

Before the year gets any more advanced or I have any new connectivity problems here are my top ten books from the last year. I didn't read as much as I have in previous years, and for various reasons the quality was overall a bit patchy as well - I wanted light and easy books, but they don't often make much of a mark on my memory so I haven't had any whittling down for this list. 

Holly Black's The Stolen Heir is first up because it's from January last year - there's no ranking here. I like Holly Black, she's one of the few Young Adult writers I've found who transcends the classification to write books that I think anyone can enjoy if they enjoy strong, emotionally complex, female characters (and male ones too), folklore, quest-based plots, and a slow burn enemies to lovers romance. I don't doubt there's any number of other writers doing it just as well, but as a middle aged woman there's a limit to how much time I want to spend finding out. Holly Black is good, this book was fun, and I'd recommend her to anyone wanting to start with YA or looking for anything on the above list.

Dark Rye and Honey Cake by Regula Ysewijn is an instant classic. Festival food from the lowlands - it's a treasure trove of beautiful images, impeccable historical research, and delicious things. There are not enough superlatives to describe this book, there are a lot of reasons to buy it. Honestly a masterpiece and a benchmark for what food writing can be. If there was a ranking this would be my book of the year - it's genuinely special and I need more people to buy it so we can enthusiastically bake things and talk about them together.

Sally Huband's Sea Bean is a book I fell hard in love with. Dr Huband moved to Shetland with her husband and young child about a decade ago at about the time she developed chronic health issues. This is a deeply personal book - partly at the insistence of her publisher, which isn't always easy to read. It's a brave thing to lay out some of these details for anyone to read. It's also beautifully written, and felt very true to me in its portrayal of island life - it was certainly a version of it I recognise and relate to. There's a lot of pressure on women to be quiet about a lot of our experiences - I'm slowly learning not to be - this book was a reminder that there are things worth sharing, and that when we do we're all stronger for it. 

Legends and Lattes - Travis Baldree. I'm very new to the concept of cosy fantasy, though I suppose you might describe early Terry Pratchett as such. Some people do it better than others, Travis Baldree does it particularly well, this book is a perfect comfort read. It's funny, gentle, and undemanding with real heart to it. I liked the characters, I cared about Viv's coffee shop, I craved a cinnamon bun. It's been big on Tik-Tok and lives up to the hype. It won't be for everyone but for me it was the right book at the right time and an absolute gem.

Maud Cairns' Strange Journey was an expected delight - I have a lot of respect for the British Library Women Writers series and this one came with excellent recommendations. It's a genre defying book - not quite sci-fi/fantasy, but what else can you call a body swap book? It was very good on female relationships and the class divide with the 2 heroines slowly coming to trust each other. Funny and wise.

Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes. Haynes has been on my radar for a while, 2023 was the year when I really started reading her. Stone Blind is angry, spikey, funny, and compelling as the Medusa myth is slightly reimagined. Greek retellings are still big and show no sign of diminishing - I have not found anyone doing it better than Haynes for my money. 

Jade Linwood's Charming is another one that sort of fits into cosy fantasy, but with added extra feminist retellings of Fairy tales in the mix. I don't think I expected much of this one, but I ended up getting a book I really enjoyed. I liked that the characters were flawed, the way they built their friendships, and what Linwood does with Prince Charming. In a year that I needed books that made me smile it delivered.

Roast Figs and Sugar Snow - an updated with added recipes Diana Henry classic. I've liked this book for a very long time, it's now even better with an exceptional new sausage recipe. It also has the most decadent brownies I've ever had the pleasure of eating in it. An absolutely wonderful cold-weather cookbook. 

Slavic Kitchen Alchemy by Zuza Zak is recipes, folk stories, legends, remedies, and kitchen philosophy. It's very good company and certainly deserves more attention than it's had in my bookshop. I really like it and will be spending a lot of time with it over the coming year. I'm especially looking forward to some of the foraging it's encouraging for the autumn. It's more than the sum of its parts which is saying a lot.

Wild Shetland by Brydon Thomason was an unexpected treat from the Shetland Times. It's a proper coffee table extravaganza of Thomason's Shetland wildlife photography. The images are beautiful, it's also a lovely book to read. A record of the island's wildlife as it is now, and a little on how it's changing. Important as well as beautiful.