It’s the second day of the week! It’s also time for a Top 5 Tuesday update. Top 5 Tuesdays was initially created by Shanah @ the Bionic Bookworm but is now currently being hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic: Top 5 old (not new) authors of 2023

This one’s a newbie this year but since we always do new authors, tell us about your fave authors you read books from who you’ve previously read books by.

Virginia Woolf

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? so goes the play by Edward Albee. For sure, I was one of those who was daunted by the name alone. She was ubiquitous! I was finally able to overcome this intimidation back in 2018 when I read Mrs. Dalloway. She managed to make me inhabit the titular Mrs. Dalloway with her stream-of-consciousness. So this is Woolf? I thought. I was fascinated, wanting to read more of her works. It did take time but I was finally able to make good on this promise this 2023. Almost half a decade since my first novel by Woolf, I read my second, Orlando. It was as compelling as Mrs. Dalloway, making me want to explore her oeuvre further. It sure feels great being back in Woolf’s part of the literary world.

Iris Murdoch

There is just no way around it. I love Iris Murdoch. Thanks to must-read lists, I was able to encounter the Irish-British writer. Her novel, The Sea, The Sea (1978), immediately piqued my interest. It was the winner of the 1978 Booker Prize but it seemed to hold a magic beyond it. Sure enough, there was. I read the book way back in 2018 and I relished every moment of it. It also made me want to explore Murdoch’s oeuvre further. This finally came true half a decade later, just like in the case of Woolf, when I read Under the Net. While both books share similar elements, each one is distinct. I was just glad to find myself back in her literary territory.

Douglas Adams

Oh gee. Douglas Adams was another writer whose last book I read was back in 2018. Interestingly, it is the same case as Woolf and Murdoch. It was in 2018 when I read the first book in his famed The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. I am not a fan of science fiction but his satire won me over. Over the following years, I kept promising myself I would read the rest of the series. It would also take almost half a decade but I was finally able to rest the last four books in the series earlier this year. As expected, it was a fascinating literary journey. I was not expecting anything less from Adams.

José Saramago

It has also been some time since I read my first novel by Nobel Laureate in Literature José Saramago. I think it was in 2020, during the first year of the pandemic, that I was finally able to read my first novel by the Portuguese writer, The Double. I have long been anticipating his works because he was a familiar presence in must-read lists. Interestingly, I obtained a copy of Raised from the Ground way back in 2018, during the first Big Bad Wolf Sale, making it the first novel by Saramago I have a copy of. Unfortunately, it was left to gather dust on my bookshelf, prompting me to add it to my 2023 Beat the Backlist Challenge. Saramago, as always, delivered.

J.M Coetzee

From one Nobel Laureate in Literature to another. South African writer J.M. Coetzee was a writer whom I first encountered through must-read lists, a case it shares with several writers on this list. His Booker Prize-winning novel, Disgrace, was part of my first Booker Prize Month back in 2018; The Sea, The Sea was also a part of it. Although I was not entirely convinced by Disgrace, I was still looking forward to reading more of Coetzee’s works. Years after my first encounter, I finally read my second novel by Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello. Unlike the first, this novel really made me appreciate Coetzee’s talent. Now, I can’t wait to read more of his works.

Below is a bunch of “old” writers who I loved revisiting this year. I can’t believe I read that many different writers this year!