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Showing posts from December, 2023

What I read in 2023 -- a review

Well, another year is done, and my reading list is longer than ever before. Of the 217 books I got through in 2023, here is the pick of the bunch for me (excluding rereads), followed by the whole list.  Fiction The Lonely Lands , Ramsey Campbell -- another strange masterwork that lingers in the mind long after reading. It involves some of the author's most sinuous writing, the world shifting back and forth from a dreamlike sphere to the prosaic with craft and style.  The Hawthorne series , Anthony Horowitz -- an absolutely terrific series of detective novels, still only in its fourth incarnation of a projected ten. Hawthorne is a brilliant creation and the presence of the author himself as his Dr Watson is an inspired touch. Horowitz is as ingenious as Christie in his plotting.  Wylding Hall , Elizabeth Hand -- a truly ghostly novella with some scenes that disturb even as you read them (as opposed to lingering under your skin for later haunting, though they do that too).  The Poiso