Books I read in 2023
Dec. 31st, 2023 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resoluteThis is the most reading I've done in YEARS. Somewhere around the end of 2015 or so, my ability to read just ... left? I couldn't listen to podcasts, I couldn't focus on reading, it was miserable. In 2016 I discovered that I could re-read certain authors, and that I could read new books by a scant handful of authors. (Alas, Agatha Christie is not likely to be putting out new books.) (Seanan McGuire and T. Kingfisher are, thankfully, very much alive and also put out a staggering number of books each year.) That's how it held, until early spring of this year, 2023. And slowly, carefully, I have been reading new-to-me books. Ones in bold I particularly enjoyed.
Fiction:
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Becky Chambers
Paladin's Faith, T. Kingfisher
Starter Villain, John Scalzi
A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand
Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno Garcia
Death in Fancy Dress, J. Jefferson Farjeon
Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher
Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle
Blood is Another Word for Hunger, Rivers Solomon
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon
Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz -- This is the book that is sticking with me. It was amazing, and thought-proviking, and hope-filled, and EASY TO READ. So often when people say a book is thought-provoking they mean it's difficult. This is not difficult.
A House with Good Bones, T. Kingfisher
Non-fiction:
What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic, Annie Kotowicz
Honest Aging, Rosanne M. Leipzig
How to Keep House While Drowning, K.C. Davis
Guide to the Longbow, Brian J. Sorrells
Traditional Archery, Sam Fadala
Beginner's Guide to Traditional Archery, Brian J. Sorrells
Started but not finished yet: (These are books I fully intend to finish, but my ability to read them is not fully back yet.)
The Oxford History of Britain, Kenneth O. Morgan
How Infrastructure works, Deb Chachra
The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal
The Witch King, Martha Wells
The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History, Kassia St. Clair
The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry
A History of Britain, Simon Schama
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitious 14th Century, Barbara W. Tuchman
DNF:
The Gift of Imperfection, Brene Brown -- It turns out that Brene Brown is not really speaking to my specific emotional and mental health needs, and I rage-quit this book as well as Daring Greatly.
Re-reads:
I listen to audiobooks at night to help me sleep. Which means I re-listen to books I already know, as that way I won't miss an entire new-to-me book. My audiobook re-reads for 2023 included Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayer, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Like, as much of their works as are on audiobook on Google Play Books. I also listen to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by James LeCarre, and a couple very dry history books read by men with a British accent. I tried listening to the Rivers of London books because the narrator is AMAZING, but the plots are too engaging and I stayed awake listening to them. Same with Terry Pratchett on audiobook, the stories are too good and I stay awake to hear them.
Other re-reads are:
The Honor Harrington series, by David Weber, up to War of Honor
The works of T. Kingfisher - I didn't bold any of these up above, but I just fucking love all of T. Kingfisher's work. This is, as you may know, the not-secret pseudonym of Ursula Vernon. (She started out writing middle grade fiction as Ursula Vernon, and hence uses a pen-name for the works she imagines a parent of a middle-grade child might have apoplexy over.) Full disclosure, Ursula is a friend of mine and as a former editor I have published her work. But, jfc, I love her books. Ursula writes in every genre except lit-fic. The Saint of Steel books, aka the Paladin Romances, are, naturally, romances. Each one has, however, a gory murder mystery to be solved by the protagonists as they fall in love. Also, this is a fantasy setting. Nettle & Bone is straight fantasy. The Twisted Ones is straight-up horror, as is The Hollow Places, and A House with Good Bones. She also does re-tellings and re-imaginings of public domain stories, such as What Moves the Dead, or, The Raven and the Reindeer. Oh, and Digger is a comic that won a Hugo Award, about a wombat engineer who gets sucked into the machinations of gods both living and dead. Okay, maybe she doesn't do EVERY genre, but there's a lot of ground if you want to try something.
Fiction:
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Becky Chambers
Paladin's Faith, T. Kingfisher
Starter Villain, John Scalzi
A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand
Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno Garcia
Death in Fancy Dress, J. Jefferson Farjeon
Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher
Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle
Blood is Another Word for Hunger, Rivers Solomon
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon
Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz -- This is the book that is sticking with me. It was amazing, and thought-proviking, and hope-filled, and EASY TO READ. So often when people say a book is thought-provoking they mean it's difficult. This is not difficult.
A House with Good Bones, T. Kingfisher
Non-fiction:
What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic, Annie Kotowicz
Honest Aging, Rosanne M. Leipzig
How to Keep House While Drowning, K.C. Davis
Guide to the Longbow, Brian J. Sorrells
Traditional Archery, Sam Fadala
Beginner's Guide to Traditional Archery, Brian J. Sorrells
Started but not finished yet: (These are books I fully intend to finish, but my ability to read them is not fully back yet.)
The Oxford History of Britain, Kenneth O. Morgan
How Infrastructure works, Deb Chachra
The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal
The Witch King, Martha Wells
The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History, Kassia St. Clair
The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry
A History of Britain, Simon Schama
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitious 14th Century, Barbara W. Tuchman
DNF:
The Gift of Imperfection, Brene Brown -- It turns out that Brene Brown is not really speaking to my specific emotional and mental health needs, and I rage-quit this book as well as Daring Greatly.
Re-reads:
I listen to audiobooks at night to help me sleep. Which means I re-listen to books I already know, as that way I won't miss an entire new-to-me book. My audiobook re-reads for 2023 included Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayer, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Like, as much of their works as are on audiobook on Google Play Books. I also listen to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by James LeCarre, and a couple very dry history books read by men with a British accent. I tried listening to the Rivers of London books because the narrator is AMAZING, but the plots are too engaging and I stayed awake listening to them. Same with Terry Pratchett on audiobook, the stories are too good and I stay awake to hear them.
Other re-reads are:
The Honor Harrington series, by David Weber, up to War of Honor
The works of T. Kingfisher - I didn't bold any of these up above, but I just fucking love all of T. Kingfisher's work. This is, as you may know, the not-secret pseudonym of Ursula Vernon. (She started out writing middle grade fiction as Ursula Vernon, and hence uses a pen-name for the works she imagines a parent of a middle-grade child might have apoplexy over.) Full disclosure, Ursula is a friend of mine and as a former editor I have published her work. But, jfc, I love her books. Ursula writes in every genre except lit-fic. The Saint of Steel books, aka the Paladin Romances, are, naturally, romances. Each one has, however, a gory murder mystery to be solved by the protagonists as they fall in love. Also, this is a fantasy setting. Nettle & Bone is straight fantasy. The Twisted Ones is straight-up horror, as is The Hollow Places, and A House with Good Bones. She also does re-tellings and re-imaginings of public domain stories, such as What Moves the Dead, or, The Raven and the Reindeer. Oh, and Digger is a comic that won a Hugo Award, about a wombat engineer who gets sucked into the machinations of gods both living and dead. Okay, maybe she doesn't do EVERY genre, but there's a lot of ground if you want to try something.