The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Our Favourite Books of 2023 - Nominations and General Chat
1. My Work Subbing out two of my original choices:
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3.
Reproduction by Louisa HallThe Only Daughter by A.B. Yehoshua tr. Stuart Schoffman
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia tr. Zoë Perry
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World John Vaillant
The Fraud Zadie Smith
The Maniac Benjamín Labatut
- Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright- Truth & Dare by So Mayer
- I Named My Sister Silence by Manoj Rupda (tr. Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar)
Grimmish by Michael WinklerTwo Sherpas by Sebastián Martínez Daniell
Wait Softly Brother by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
1. Cuddy2. Ultramarine
3. Of Talons and Teeth
If August 2022 books were eligible I would swap out Stories of the True for Ultramarine.
Corey Fah Does Social MobilityStudy for Obedience
The Way the Day Breaks by David Roberts
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Hugh wrote: "Are we happy to ignore the 2016 Dalkey Archive edition of Whale? I think it is probably OK as the International Booker brought it a much wider audience."Definitely happy to ignore it as it didn't even get published it transpires. Indeed the ill-fated nature of that Dalkey Archive library has, over the weekend, set off something of a Twitter war between one of my favourite writers Mauro Javier Cárdenas and one of my favourite translators Anton Hur!!
Also:
Are we allowing/encouraging people who've nominated a book that's already picked to choose another - we've had two for Austral, Prophet Song and Of Cattle and Men so far (and had I not seen other had picked it we'd have had three for Of Cattle...)?
Demon CopperheadFor Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain
Losing the Plot
Most of the Barker shortlist is taken already so will add the remains two plus (for completeness of our list) the book that swept the awards
Ah! Demon Copperhead was published in the US in 2022. I forgot that it was a 2023 UK book.
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No, it just qualifies as it was published in October 2022.
Hugh wrote: "Cindy wrote: "Ah! Demon Copperhead was published in the US in 2022. I forgot that it was a 2023 UK book."No, it just qualifies as it was published in October 2022."
Thanks for the clarification Hugh!
Yes I checked carefully before posting.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Yes I checked carefully before posting."I should never have doubted you!
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Are we allowing/encouraging people who've nominated a book that's already picked to choose another - we've had two for Austral, Prophet Song and Of Cattle and Men so far (and had I not seen other had picked it we'd have had three for Of Cattle...)?"
Yes, if somebody else has nominated your choice you are free to choose another instead - multiple nominations won't add any weight. I have changed my duplicate, even though I was the first to nominate it.
Two of those have already been nominated - only one nomination is needed.
Victory CityRiver Sing Me Home
Not sure if this one is eligible, but my other favorites have already been nominated:
The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
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Hugh wrote: "Similarly Grimmish appears to have been published as a small edition in 2021 and 2022 but I don't think anyone picked it up then"Grimmish was 2023 in UK and US. 2022 in Australia with a publisher. And 2021 in Australia self-published (which as discussed elsewhere on this forum led to it later being DQd from a major Aussie book prize in 2023). Australian publication is a hard one as not many readers from here there.
Hugh wrote: "if somebody else has nominated your choice you are free to choose another instead - multiple nominations won't add any weight. I have changed my duplicate, even though I was the first to nominate it."OK I've done same with Austral and added another.
My actual best book of 2023 I've left off - Wall by Jen Craig - as no one seems to have read it so it will end up with one vote.
I have it but it'll have to wait after I read Croatian translation of Rémtörténetek, and Shimmering Details, Volume I: A Memoir and Shimmering Details, Volume II: A Memoir. It's going to take me a while.I would've added Péter Nádas' Shimmering Details to the list unread, I'm in awe of all two big giant books of his that I read, but I chose to stick to fellow queers.
Paul wrote: "My actual best book of 2023 I've left off - Wall by Jen Craig - as no one seems to have read it so it will end up with one vote."I struggled with something similar. My actual best book - Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright - may only have one vote but I went ahead and nominated it because it's such a great book and it's widely available. I Named My Sister Silence was a harder call because it's difficult to find (I had to buy it from ebay). I'm debating whether to substitute another book, even though it's outstanding, timely, and otherwise deserves its place on our list.
The first could do with some praise - of the 8 reviews on GR two abandoned the book around 50 pages.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "The first could do with some praise - of the 8 reviews on GR two abandoned the book around 50 pages."It would be worthy of that praise, as it happens.
Heard a lot of very positive things about Praiseworthy and indeed the rest of the author’s works - although suspect it is too long for me.
Looking at my top dozen reads of the year I listed elsewhere only two of them qualify for this ranking and the one that hasn’t been mentioned yet was my favorite read of the year, The Passenger. I’d consider it a unit along with Stella Maris but of course they were published as separate books so not sure how you want to treat that.
Forbidden Notebook might be eligible too.
I figured it wasn’t since it was first translated in the 50s, by a decently high profile literary figure as well, but the new translation did get a good bit of attention.
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I can accept both as valid nominations
Biography of XMonstrilio
Our Share of Night
Decided to go back to the beginning of the year. But this year has had some solid reading choices- I have a pretty big TBR of 2023 books left to read.
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North Wood by Daniel Mason is one of my 2023 favorites.
Lots of my favourites have already been picked (Blackouts, Cuddy, Soldier Sailor, The Bee Sting, Demon Copperhead, Chain-Gang All-Stars).So I will add:
Riambel
Open Throat
The Bandit Queens
Lots of my favourites have already been picked (Blackouts, Cuddy, Soldier Sailor, The Bee Sting, Demon Copperhead, Chain-Gang All-Stars).So I will add:
Riambel
Open Throat
The Bandit Queens
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The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Of Talons and Teeth (other topics)Reproduction (other topics)
Of Cattle and Men (other topics)
Grimmish (other topics)
The Bell of The World (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Niall Griffiths (other topics)Lance Olsen (other topics)
Gregory Day (other topics)
Michael Meehan (other topics)
Michael Meehan (other topics)
More...
As in previous years we will allow books first published in English in October to December 2022 or 2023, and for translations the earliest date (1 Oct 2022) may be a first English edition of an older book, no matter how old. Dead authors are allowed, as are dead translators. The start date rule may be waived for books which were very little known last year and were not on last year's list.
Note that my preference is that books published in 2022 should only be nominated if you read them for the first time this year, but that is just guidance, as I have no intention of trying to check (sometimes it takes a while for books to find the right readership, particularly when prize judges surprise us).
When nominating, please link to the book using "Add book/author" in desktop mode. If you can't manage that please include the author's name, since a title alone may be ambiguous or difficult to find thanks to the vagaries of the GoodReads search function.
These are the 70 Nominations: