2023 In Reading recap

Hi pals. It’s been a minute. I went to Paris! I went to Texas! I celebrated Christmas! I got the flu!

It was that last one that proved to be my downfall for getting 2024 off to any kind of productive state. On Jan 2 I was struck down by the evil influenza, helpfully confirmed by a FLU B - POSITIVE test from the Baylor Family Medicine clinic, and I was only barely recovered enough to fly back to New York by the time my rescheduled flight rolled around. (I then had the worst travel day of my entire life, but that’s a story for another time.)

I read 63 books in 2023. That is to say: I read a number of books cover to cover, 63 times. I reread several books, some more than once. Here, in general order of completion, are the books I tackled:

Books read in 2023

• 1.             Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

• 2.             A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (RR)

• 3.             The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

• 4.             The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

• 5.             Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (RR)

• 6.             Uprooted by Naomi Novik (RR)

• 7.             Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by KJ Parker (DNF)

• 8.             These Blessed Days by Ann Patchett

• 9.             Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir RR)

• 10.          Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

• 11.          From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata

• 12.          The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Shaped Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman

• 13.          Black Swans by Eve Babitz

• 14.          Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (RR)

• 15.          No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym (RR)

• 16.          Th Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (RR)

• 17.          To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

• 18.          A Perfidious Distortion of History: The Versailles Peace Treaty and the Success of the Nazis by by Jürgen Tempke

• 19.          The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green

• 20.          Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

• 21.          Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

• 22.          Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade

• 23.          His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

• 24.          Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen

• 25.          Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb

• 26.          Witch King by Martha Wells

• 27.          Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell

• 28.          Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

• 29.          Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang

• 30.          The Red Strings of Fortune Neon Yang

• 31.          Descent of Monsters by Neon Yang

• 32.          Ascent of Gods by Neon Yang

• 33.          The Real Work by Adam Gopnik

• 34.          The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia by Mark Galeotti

• 35.          The Magus by John Fowles

• 36.          It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

• 37.          Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (RR)

• 38.          Unfortunately Yours by Tessa Bailey

• 39.          Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey

• 40.          Stay True by Hua Hsu

• 41.          Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

• 42.          The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

• 43.          A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

• 44.          The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

• 45.          The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison ( RR)

• 46.          The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• 47.          The Once & Future Witches by Alix Harrow (DNF)

• 48.          A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

• 49.          Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch (RR)

• 50.          Moon Over SoHo by Ben Aaronovitch (RR)

• 51.          Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch (RR)

• 52.          The Upstairs Delicatessen by Dwight Garner

• 53.          Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch (RR)

• 54.          Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

• 55.          The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch

• 56.          Letters to Camondo by Edmund de Waal

• 57.          Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison  (RR)

• 58.          King of Wrath by Ana Huang

• 59.          King of Greed by Ana Huang

• 60.          King of Pride by Ana Huang

• 61.          Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch

• 62.          The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann

• 63.          Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Ride and Staggering Fall  by Zeke Faux

I did a fair amount of rereading. My various work schedules have put me in a weird head space where I don’t have a lot of bandwidth for New Media—this has meant I spent a lot of time re-watching things, too. Part of the re-reading stemmed from needing to catch up on various series, notably the Scholomance books and the Peter Grant books from Ben Aaronovitch. (I’m not done with the novels from that series, and haven’t even touched the numerous novellas, graphic novels, and short stories.)

Those series were among the highlights of my year when it comes to fiction. 2023 was an absolute banger for nonfiction, however: my friend Jaime Green’s excellent book exploring the age-old question of whether or not we’re alone in the universe, The Possibility of Life, came out last year, and if you have even a passing interest in space and its mysteries I highly reccommend you checking it out. I also read The Wager, the new doorstopper from the guy who brought you Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z. As a longtime veteran of books about the Age of Sail, I thought I knew what to expect from a book about an English vessel lost at sea in pursuit of a Spanish schooner full of gold: heroism, betrayal, survival, etc. What I did not expect was the insistent refusal to remove what happened to the men of the Wager from the larger context of imperial colonialism as an English ethos; on every page, Grann frames the mentality and decision-making of these men from their historical point of view, which is as servants of an empire which required the subjugation of others to thrive. It’s a terrific read.

A nonfiction book that surprised me: Number Go Up, Zeke Faux’s book about cryptocurrency. It surprised me because, though I thought I understood how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it turns out that there is a whole lot more out there, which Faux describes in clear and compelling detail. What started out as an investigation into so-called stablecoins turns into something far stranger, as Faux follows disgraced crypto boy-king Sam Bankman-Fried from his penthouse in the Bahamas to a federal courtroom. As someone who has long believed that cryptocurrencies are just MLMs for men, it was a satisfying if frustrating read.

There were some duds this year — Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City I DNF’d about 2/3 of the way through. I couldn’t get into The Once and Future Witches, though I think that’s more on me than on the book. And Witch King by Martha Wells was disappointing, though the whale was quite cool.

Looking back on my year in reading it makes sense that I had the strongest feelings and memories about the nonfiction I read. Events around the world and in this country are unfolding so quickly, and with such dizzying and baroque cruelty, that being able to wrap my mind around a historical event or an intellectual idea felt like one small bit of order restored to the universe. Even books like Crying in H Mart or Stay True—both memoirs of loss and grief—felt like ways feeling something other than anxiety about the state of the world, even if that something was “crying on vacation.”

I’ve never been a person to set firm reading resolutions. This year, my vague reading goals are to read more, and to read differently. “Reading more” means reading on the train instead of doomscrolling. “Reading differently” for me means to seek out new subjects, new authors, new points of view.

I only finished one book in January, so I’m not off to a great start, but that’s ok. I can blame the flu, or Pluto moving out of Aquarius (an event that my more astrologically minded friends tell me is Of Great Signifiance). Regardless, I’m excited to get back to this newsletter in 2024. Let’s see where the shelves take us.

WHAT I’M READING

I just finished Alexander Stille’s absolutely buckwild book The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune. This story has absolutely everything: Polygamous relationships! Psychoanalysis! Communal living! Real estate fraud! Agitprop musical theater! Paternity shenanigans! Custody battles! Jackson Pollock! It’s a long book but a brisk read, and Stille treats what could be a sensationalist narrative with grace and tenderness towards those involved in this group. This is the second book I’ve read this year where the protagonists were deeply entrenched in the world of psychoanalysis — the people profiled in Last Call at the Hotel Imperial similarly spent most of their lives on the analyst’s couch.

HOUSEKEEPING

My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!

I’m available to hire for freelance editing services on Reedsy. You can find me on social media on Twitter, Instagram, the A Faster No Discord, and now TikTok. If you buy any of the books linked in this newsletter I receive a small commission at no cost to you.