Year 2023 Final Bracket

Finding the Best Book of 2023

This is the post that I've simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded writing for the last month or so. I'm excited to share the best books I've read in the last year, but I'm not looking forward to having to deny the crown to some really great books.

I'll start off with the best of each genre, like I did last year.

Best in Genre

Spiritual Work: Interior Freedom, by Fr. Jacques Philippe

Christian Living: The Theology of Home, by by Carrie Gress, Noelle Mering, and Kim Baile (photograper)

Fiction (Fantasy): The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (audiobook)

Fiction (Classic): The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni

Fiction (Historical/Realistic): The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (audiobook)

Auto/Biography: The Seashell on the Mountaintop, by Alan Cutler

Literary Criticism: The Narnia Code, by Michael Ward

Nonfiction: With All Her Mind, edited by Rachel Bulman

Reread (besides Searching for and Maintaining Peace or other winners): The Ordinary Princess, by M. M. Kaye (read aloud)

I added a genre for "Christian Living" this year. These were books that usually had real-life stories from the life of the author intertwined with reflections or suggestions on living out the faith in everyday life. These works had Christian or Catholic ideas explicitly mentioned in the work, but they aren't at the high theological levels of spiritual classics or books about prayer and the interior life.

Even with the addition of this category, I still found that several titles that were the best of their genre could easily have gone into a different genre. These books include With All Her Mind (Christian Living), The Lord of the Rings (Classic), and The Seashell on the Mountaintop (Nonfiction).

I noticed I had very few rereads this year - only three or four. I'd like to see that reread number go up a little bit in the coming year, and I wouldn't be upset if some of those rereads were books I encountered for the first time in 2023.

Monthly Winners

January: Snow Treasure

February: Abel's Island

March: The Heart of Perfection

April: With All Her Mind

May: Interior Freedom

June: The Betrothed

July: The Seashell on the Mountaintop

August: The Narnia Code

September: The Lord of the Rings

October: The City of Ember

November: No Turning Back

December: The Grace of Enough

I did indeed have 12 winners this year, but as you can see, I took The Lord of the Rings out of the bracket because I just can't have it compete with other books. Its excellence can be assumed, so the competition will take place amongst the remaining 11 books, and that will be difficult enough. Also, I have not considered Searching for and Maintaining Peace for competition in the bracket because that book is reread regularly every year and is always excellent.

Five monthly winners were works of fiction; three Christian living; one a spiritual work; one an autobiography; one nonfiction; and one literary criticism.

So, it turns out the title of this post is a red herring. The competition was so fierce that I needed to pick two winners! I know I forced myself to pick a single winner in the past, but this year, it was hard. The two winners are also in a comparing-apples-and-oranges situation. How can I decide if a convicting spiritual tour de force has more merit than an insightful work of classic literature? They are both winners in their respective fields.

I read some really great books this year, and the bracket reflects it. I felt like only one book was really out of place on this winners bracket, and that was January's selection, Snow Treasure. This was a book that I read in the month I got married, and that was the month before I determined I needed to be more intentional about accessing books, and not just going with whatever was available through the public library audiobook selection or Librivox.

My hope is that next year's bracket can be as full of wonderful books as this year's has been. I hope you encounter books that bring you delight and change your life in 2024.