Top 11 reads of 2023: fiction, non-fiction & poetry

2023 has been a good-ish reading year, I managed to complete ~72 books. Here are a few of the books that have stayed with me. | This is a 5-minute read.

Dec 29, 2023

Hello and Salaams my friends 👋🏾

I hope you’re having a FAB holiday season, taking things easy and resting. Reading is resting for me, so when I’m not able to make time to read, it’s usually a huge warning sign. The end of this year has been quite intense, so I’ve been unable to read as I would’ve liked. But I’ve just started Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body in the hopes that it helps me get back into my reading groove.

In the meantime, I wanted to share eleven books which have most resonated with me this year:

Fiction

Beloved by Toni Morrison: All I’ll say is I don’t know why it took me so long to read this, but I’m glad I not only managed to read it twice in one year, I also wrote an essay about it for a uni assignment. I’ve been avoiding this book because I didn’t think I was ready, but I realised it’s a must-read whether you’re ready or not.
Hunger and other stories by Lan Samantha Chang: This comprises of a novella and short stories, and if the novella (Hunger) is the only story you read in this book, it’ll be more than worth your time. Most of the stories cover the theme of the Chinese-American migrant experience.
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel: I love reading about female friendships and motherhood, so a book which combines both is a win for me. What particularly drew me to this was that both friends had planned to not have kids, but one of them eventually decided to. The narrator details how this decision impacts their friendship in a very nuanced manner.
So Late in the Day by Clare Keegan: I’ve read this short story far too many times. It’s not my favourite by the author but it has stayed with me the longest and continues to come to mind. You can read an abridged version here.
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli: This book had been on my reading list for some time, but when I saw that it was withdrawn from the Frankfurt book prize because the author is Palestinian, I bumped it up my list.

Non-fiction

Seeing for Ourselves And Even Stranger Possibilities by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan: I’ve been meaning to read this since it came out in autumn, and when I started doing some research for my thesis – focused on decentering the white gaze in literature – this book came on my radar again. Suhaiymah is a writer, poet and thinker that I greatly admire, and this book didn’t disappoint. She explores grief, love, bearing witness, and shows us different ways of experiencing the world. My friend and I are relaunching our podcast, Bookversations, and this is the first book we’ll be discussing.
Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller: This was my first introduction to Miller’s work and since then I’ve read his fiction and poetry. He has a way with words that I can’t explain. There are several times in the collection that I felt very seen, to the point where I quoted Miller in this essay I wrote about my experience living in Berlin as a Black Muslim woman.

Poetry

In Search of Equilibrium by Theresa Lola: The poems in this collection centre around Lola’s grief for her grandfather along with his struggles with Alzheimer’s. Her grandfather was a computer scientist, and I loved how Lola played around with programming languages / statements as a format for some of the poems.
Girls that Never Die by Safia Elhillo: This was recommended to me by the inimitable
Tasnim
(I read anything she recommends tbh), and I have no regrets. This is one of the books that got me through my burnout, and I am so glad I read it during a time of slowness. I know it’s one I’ll be revisiting again, especially for its themes on girlhood, vulnerability, migration, seeking home, displacement.

Rereads

These are two of my favourite short story collections, and they are by black women writers. All of the stories in these collections are a hit and gifts that keep on giving. Both of the authors have a lot of range, and this is evident in the various styles, voices and point of views they use throughout. A few of the stories are also available to read online for free, which I’ve included below:

What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah (faves: Windfalls | Who Will Greet You at Home | Glory)
Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Suicide Watch)

What have been some of your top reads for this year?

What I’m looking forward to reading in 2024

Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda
For Such A Time As This by Shani Akilah
Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas

My to-read list is quite short because I have a lot of unfinished books, and I tend to begin the year with revisiting these. What are you looking forward to reading in 2024?

Qalb Writers Collective

Discussion about this post