The Lit List – Best of 2023

Top 10: best reads of the year

A retrospective of our favourite reading during 2023, not necessarily published this year, in fiction and non-fiction. These are books that stay with you long after the last page is read.

1. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. In an alternate America of the 1920s, Detective Joe Barrow and his wayward cigar-chomping partner Phil Drummond are called to what appears to be a ritual killing. Corruption, bootleggers, the Ku Klux Klan, and a femme fatal in the form of a First Nations princess called Moon, all stand in the way of the truth. An inventive Chandler-esque noir thriller.
2. The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. (non-fiction) Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, recounted by the youngest member of his team. A tale of mishap, misjudgment and what-might-have-been.
3. North Woods by Daniel Mason. The 400-year history of a house in the woods of New England, told through its many inhabitants. Full of humanity and wonder of nature, as well as showing how we are interconnected with every being on Earth. Inventive, mystical and beautifully written.
4. The Moth and the Mountain by Ed Caesar. (non-fiction) The true story of plucky Brit Maurice Wilson who, with no mountaineering experience and unable to fly, planned to land a De Haviland Moth plane at Everest’s base camp and thence to ascend its summit.
5. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. In fog-bound London, lonely Jack jumps at the chance to make something of his life by joining an expedition to a remote corner of Norway. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. As the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness, Jack fears he is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…
6. When we Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. A hybrid of fiction and essay exploring the psychological impact of Twentieth-Century scientific advances that changed how we understand the world. 
7. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. A fictionalised account of W Somerset Maugham’s 1921 stay in Penang, Malaya as a guest of Robert and Lesley Hamlyn. This quietly compelling novel tells of unhappy marriages, secrets and intrigue. Told in the first person by Lesley and in the third person by Willie (Maugham), the narratives convey the social attitudes of the time concerning gender, sexuality and colonialism with meticulous detail. The author’s masterful writing has great emotional depth and brings events to life.
8. The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley. A philosophical look at the infamous French witchcraft trial of priest Urbain Grandier, accused of bewitching a convent of nuns. An ambitious man undone by mass hysteria, sexual repression and his own hubris. Non-fiction.
9. The Caretaker by Ron Rash. Set in the rural Appalachians, this well-crafted novel has the feel of a Shakespearean tragedy. Rash’s writing has a beautiful rhythm, and he has a fine eye for the natural world.
10. In Memorium by Alice Winn. Forbidden love and the devastation of WW1.

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