Favourite Books of 2023 | Modern Books

[@stephenn3727]

Thank you Katie!

[@JodieTheReader]

Hello Katie!

[@areadersalmanacwithceleste1366]

Thanks for these recommendations! Some exciting titles to check out here!

[@LeanneRose]

So excited to read Mrs Nash's Ashes based on your rec!

[@katiejlumsden]

I think you'll love it!

[@hasteyebooks]

I'm already excited about the Nell Stevens book, added to my tbr! You always have such great recs for historical fiction too! Adding No Life for a Lady and The Manor House Governess on my list :) I'm also in for Miss Austen investigates haha. I also keep meaning to read some Sarah Waters! Oh Black Cake is another I keep hearing about and I heard the tv show is really good too!

[@Bonitolibro]

So many interesting recommendations! The exciting part is that I haven't heard anyone talk about any of these. Will check out a good bunch of them :) My favourite books of 2023 were A Ghost in the Throat and Wuthering Heights :)

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

This was a glorious romp that has reminded me of things I want to get to like the Robert Harris and Black Cake, and a few I loved myself like New Life and Portable Paradise. Thank you.

[@katiejlumsden]

So, basically, yes! Because of the way books are printed (on larger sheets that are folded and cut up), all book page counts are multiples of 16. Obviously this includes the imprint page and any blank pages at the back, so that won't always be clear from the page numbers, but it does mean there is more consistency in page numbers. There are also a few specific page counts that are more cost/paper effective - I can't remember which off the top of my head, but when I worked in-house in publishing, I had a grid of them and we'd ask typesetters to try and aim for those extents. There are lots of things you can do to achieve this - tweaking font size, leading (space between lines), lines per page, margin size, whether you have running heads, where the page numbers are, etc. Typesetters can aim for and often achieve certain page lengths, so that will be why certain page counts keep appearing. So fear not - your TBR is not haunted!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@katiejlumsden this was meant to be your reply to Mary Wilson's comment but weirdly seems to have attached to mind instead.

[@katiejlumsden]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 KZbin always does this to me! Loads a reply for ages and then puts it on the wrong message. Whoops.🤦‍♀

[@jorjastonej]

I read Black Cake with my with my in-person bookclub. I liked it, and I think the whole group did. One member had baked a Black Cake for her wedding long ago!!! I kid you not. She brought the recipe to show us.

[@katiejlumsden]

Fun! It was such a great book.

[@neusvillegasalba8419]

I loved this video! The Chosen is also in my top five.

[@reader4532]

In the U.S., the Emily Henry book is People We Meet on Vacation. I kinda vaguely get why the cover art for different countries varies, but why change the title?

[@katiejlumsden]

They probably just thought the title worked better. To me, You and Me on Vacation makes much more sense as a title for the novel, so maybe that's why!

[@jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

Quite a selection. Bleaker House sounds fun, although if I wanted to write I think I'd choose a more hospitable island like Corsica to stay on. I hadn't heard of Paying Guests but I love Sarah Waters writing, I have just finished Tipping the Velvet, her debut, and I'm considering a reread of Fingersmith.

[@Tugboat_City]

I read Act of Oblivion after hearing your Walter Scott Prize reviews and I loved the book too! I agree that Robert Harris doesn't take sides, but I do, I was rooting Naylor the whole way! 😕

[@launchedathousand]

I've been wanting to read Clytemnesta as she's such an interesting character. I think my favourite book the year was The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, which is a historical fantasy set in the Arabian seas in the 500 CE or so about a female pirate captain.

[@reader4532]

Sometimes Robert Harris chooses sides. Try Fatherland.

[@katiejlumsden]

It's on my list!

[@jamesduggan7200]

Not heard of Clytemnestra before? That's a surprise. I met her as a teenager, or maybe 20y.o.? I began reading the French writers in translation and she has a big part in The Flies (Les Mouches). It's one of those plays I confuse Sartre with Camus but I believe it's the latter. After Agamemnon returns from Troy his children are plagued by flies after murdering him for the murder of his wife, their mother. At the time it seemed interesting tho now it sounds a bit bizarre, n'est pas?

[@jamesduggan7200]

Nope it's Sartre, so I'm wrong again but that doesn't change it's binarity, which is unfortunately typical of chaotic Existentialism.

[@sketchesbyboze]

Thanks for these! I review books for an American literary catalogue and your sensibilities are very much aligned with ours, so I'm jotting down all these suggestions. I've wanted to read "Briefly, a Delicious Life" for some time.

[@katiejlumsden]

Thanks! Briefly, A Delicious Life is just amazing.

[@marinabertoldin9919]

My top 3 of the year : 1)The watchmaker of filigree street 2)Lord John and the brotherhood of the blade 3) Days without end And I have started the new year with Boyne's "The heart's invisible furies"

[@jacquelinemcmenamin8204]

My best book of 2023 Deluge by Stephen Markley

[@marky1974]

The Ghost by Robert Harris is well worth a read..good twist at the end!

[@KierTheScrivener]

I am not often pulled to historical fiction even though I love classics but I loved hearing your thoughts. I really need to get to Black Cake

[@marywilson1709]

Thank you for the favourite books celebration video! This may be a strange question. Do publishers ever try to get books to certain length? In other words, are there standard lengths for books? I have been looking at the length of the books on my TBR and found that the same page lengths come up again and again, which I find quite spooky. Particularly 256, 336 and 432 pages are very common. Is my TBR haunted??

[@katiejlumsden]

So, basically, yes! Because of the way books are printed (on larger sheets that are folded and cut up), all book page counts are multiples of 16. Obviously this includes the imprint page and any blank pages at the back, so that won't always be clear from the page numbers, but it does mean there is more consistency in page numbers. There are also a few specific page counts that are more cost/paper effective - I can't remember which off the top of my head, but when I worked in-house in publishing, I had a grid of them and we'd ask typesetters to try and aim for those extents. There are lots of things you can do to achieve this - tweaking font size, leading (space between lines), lines per page, margin size, whether you have running heads, where the page numbers are, etc. Typesetters can aim for and often achieve certain page lengths, so that will be why certain page counts keep appearing. So fear not - your TBR is not haunted!

[@sandyokey1019]

I read Black Cake in February of last year and loved it then and love it still😊. If I did a top books of the year, it would definitely be on the list.

[@novellenovels]

Sooo many great books. I will look for black cake. Your book is my favourite 😊

[@katiejlumsden]

🥰

[@Heatherskl]

I’ve picked up and put down Black Cake a few times in the bookstore. You’ve convinced me to follow through and buy it the next time I’m book shopping. Thanks!

[@katiejlumsden]

It's great!