My Year in Books

Everybody’s doing their New Year’s thing. My New Year’s thing is a list of books I enjoyed reading over the past year. My goal for the year was to read 53 books. Unless I race through Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash in the next day and a half, it looks like I’m at 52. Not bad.

2023 was a really weird year for me and reading. There were several books I was looking forward to—one for years—that turned out to be total duds. One I couldn’t even finish. But these disappointments drove me to look further afield than I usually do to find something good to read, and I guess I’m grateful for that.

I loved two books by men who, as far as I can tell are straight and cisgender. I can’t remember the last year that happened. Maybe never since I’ve started keeping track? Anyhow, what follows is an annotated list of books I enjoyed reading in 2023.

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North Woods by Daniel Mason (September 2023)

Mason tells the story of a place by documenting its people. There are ghosts, which I mention because I enjoy ghosts. But it’s Mason ability to conjure a community of distinct voices that truly astonishes.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith (September 2023)

Incisive, upsetting historical fiction is one of my very favorite things. Bonus points if the story is based on actual historical absurdities. Smith hit me right in the sweet spot. NB: I loved protagonist Eliza Touchet. It seems that some people don’t love her.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron (September 2023)

I guess this book is connected to a whole series. I found that it worked very well as a stand-alone novel. It’s a sort of deconstructed thriller, one more focused on characters than moving the plot along.

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James (January 2024)

This is a magical realism Western that interrogates America’s settler-colonial legacy while also exploring generational trauma and the concept of reparations. If this sounds like a huge bummer, I’ll invite you to circle bat to “magical realism Western.”

No Judgment by Lauren Oyler (March 2024)

I read Lauren Oyler’s novel Fake Accounts and I did not love it. I felt like she was trying to turn social commentary into a story because she wanted to make a novel and, in my opinion, the story wasn’t great. This, however, is a collection of essays and it turns out that when Oyler isn’t trying to write a novel she can write one hell of a story.

The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas (April 2024)

The constant across Thomas’s novels is that she is not afraid of anything. This story is going to make so many people so mad! But it’s also going to keep those people turning pages and make them think about subjects they would probably prefer to avoid. Now that Hilary Mantel is gone, Thomas might be my favorite living author.

Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet (March 2024)

This is a singular, very entertaining, utterly heartrending novel that will absolutely fuck your shit up. 

Reproduction by Louisa Hall (June 2023)

Hall has offered Mary Shelley superfans a wonderful gift, and she deserves a special prize just for her unflinching look at pregnancy, childbirth, and the early days of being a mother.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (March 2023)

Is this an eco-thriller? Is it a psychological mystery? Is it both and some other indefinable third thing? Yes. Yes, it is.

Honorable mention to three nonfiction books I’ve been making my way through very slowly:

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon, and The Slow Moon Climbs: The Science, History, and Meaning of Menopause by Susan P. Mattern.

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Thanks for reading. I would wish all y’all a happy new year, but… I mean. Instead, I wish you a resilient new year. Stay strong. Stay kind. Smash the patriarchy.

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