For this final episode of 2023, we finish our annual two episode best of the year extravaganza! Here we count down our top five favorite reads of 2023—and again we are joined by a cast of listeners who share some of their top books and best reading experiences of the year! Happy New Year! We will see you in 2024!

Shownotes

* Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz

* Disruptions, by Steven Milhauser

* The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman

* Solenoid, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

* Blinding, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

* After the Funeral, by Tessa Hadley

* The Dry Heart, by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Frances Frenaye

* Short stories of Djuna Barnes

* Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes

* Collected Works, by Lydia Sandgren, translated by Agnes Broomé

* Forbidden Notebooks, by Alba de Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein

* The House on the Hill, by Cesare Pavese, translated by Tim Parks

* Conversations in Sicily, by Elio Vittorini, translated by Alane Salierno Mason

* Nonfiction, by Julie Myerson

* Wound, by Oksana Vasyakina, translated by Elina Alter

* The Most Secret Memory of Men, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Laura Vergnaud

* Bound to Violence, by Yamboi Oulologuem

* My Rivers, by Faruk Šehić, translated by S.D. Curtis

* The Woman Who Borrowed Memories, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella

* The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovsky, translated by Doug Smith

* The Light Room, by Kate Zambreno

* Drifts, by Kate Zambreno

* A Ghost in the Throat, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

* Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

* Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

* The Long Form, by Kate Briggs

* Territory of Light, by Yuki Tsushima, translate by Geraldine Harcourt

* Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

* Indeterminate Inflorescence, by Lee Seong-bok, translated by Anton Hur

* If I Had Not Seen Their Sleeping Faces: fragments on death After Anna de Noailles, by Christina Tudor-Sideri

* In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes

* The Day The Call Came, by Thomas Hinde

* The Peasants, by Władysław Reymont, translated by Anna Zaranko

* Basic Black with Pearls, by Helen Weinzweig

* The Young Bride, by Alessandro Baricco, translated by Ann Goldstein

* Whale, by Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim

* Not Even the Dead, by Juan Gomez Barecna, translated by Katie Whittemore

* Losing Music, by John Cotter

* Denmark: Variations, by James Tadd Adcox

* Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike

* Blind Rider, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

* Exiled from Almost Everywhere, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

* The Garden of Secrets, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

* The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

* Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

* When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West

* The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope

* Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

* The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

* Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

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