The Best of 2023– What to Read, What to Watch and What Podcast to listen to at year end…

It’s that time of the year when pundits (like me!) opine on the best and worst in entertainment from 2023. These recommendations you won’t find on many other lists, I guarantee it. Certainly not in Maclean’s or The Globe and Mail, or even The Guardian in the UK.

In Another Ruined Dinner Party, I offer my top three choices and honourable mentions in the following categories:

Books

Streamed movies

Streamed series

Murder, Mayhem and Suspense

Documentaries

Magazine articles

Short Fiction

Podcasts

To find a short review and sometimes a link to where to locate it, click on the hyperlink. Have a good holiday season– given what’s going on in the world.

And don’t forget: donate to support Palestinian human rights — in Gaza and the West Bank: give your donation to IJVCanada.org here. Donate –this is my one ask of you darling subscribers — for a year of interesting and varied blog posts, and a monthly post “what to watch and what to read” — and way more!

Books

Lessons

The Naked Don’t Fear the Water

Prophet Song, and here

Honourable Mentions: 1. Stranger in My Own Land 2. The Informers 3. Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found in Guantanamo 4. American Estrangement 5. Jonestown Survivors, an Insider’s Look 6. Focus. Click. Wind.

I’m very sorry that 6 out of 9 titles (above) are written by men, only 3 by women. This tells us something about who gets published, and the fact that men still dominate the publishing world.

Streamed Movies

Los Lobos

The Substitute

Small Axe

Honourable Mentions: 1. DNA 2. The Salesman 3. Fair Play

Streamed Series

Little Bird

Gloria

19-2 (from Quebec!!)

Honourable Mentions: 1. Thunder Bay, 2. The Diplomat 3. The Sopranos

Documentaries

Lac-Megantic: This is not an Accident

My Old School

If a Tree Falls

Honourable Mention: 1. Poverty in Britain– Why are millions of Brits so broke? 2. The Women and the Murderer

From left: Book cover for Prophet Song; still from Emily the Criminal, still from The Menu, poster from Summer of Soul, still from La Grande Bellezza, and poster from The Hater.