2023 Reading Retrospective

This year I read 101 books out of my goal of at least 40 books. Despite those numbers I really didn’t focus much on my ancillary goals. I only completed 3 out of the 9 goals that I set out to accomplish. I read 16 books by women with a stated goal of 13. I read another Joe Hill book to give him more of a chance (20th Century Ghosts almost got an honorable mention bellow especially for the story Scheherazade’s Type Writer). I read the Dubliner’s to cover the book of short stories goal.

Best Books that I read in 2023

The following are my picks for the best books that I read in 2023. They are in no particular order.

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

Chris Hadfield’s memoir, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, left an indelible impression on me. Astronauts have an intriguing perspective on things. There seems to be something about being in low earth orbit that gives them better insight into humanity. This probably stems from the army of people on the ground, and the teamwork in space it takes to survive in such an inhospitable environment. My main takeaway from this book was Hadfield’s advice to aim to be a zero.

The idea that you can be either a negative one, a zero, or a plus one in a given scenario. Often times we approach a situation aiming to be a plus one; our egos get in the way, and we end up having a negative effect on the situation. By aiming to be a zero, we can hopefully gout out of our own way and contribute to the team better than if we had striven to be the MVP all along.

Life is so Good

Life is so Good by George Dawson is a memoir of a formerly illiterate Black man. It recounts his life from growing up with his family in a single room house in Texas to learning to read in his 90’s. It’s an incredible piece of history spanning the 20th century, and incredibly inspiring. I highly recommend it.

I read it because of the controversy surrounding it being banned by the elementary school named for its author. I wanted to see what the controversy was, and went in with some assumptions that it might just be banned due to racism. After taking the time to read the book, I don’t think it belongs in elementary school. The book features a graphic lynching in the first chapter as well as language and other concepts that aren’t appropriate for children. I think that this would be more appropriate for middle school and definitely for high school students.

The Outsider

After last years list, I had someone recommend Pet Semetary to me as their favorite Stephen King book. I read that this year, and it really got me thinking about incremental repetition, which then was lamp shaded by another book I read this year Mr. Mercedes. That said the best Stephen King novel that I read this year was The Outsider. I’ve had some trouble really connecting with Stephen King, and The Outsider was the last puzzle piece that I needed to understand what I like about Stephen King: likeable characters that the author falls in love with. The character that illustrated this was Holly Gibney, who now is the titular character of King’s 2023 novel Holly. I can tell that King really connected with and likes this character. King has now featured her in five separate works.

Kindred

Kindred by Octavia Butler is about a woman who magically has the ability to travel back in time to the antebellum south. She ends up having to pretend to be a slave at the plantation her ancestors were enslaved. The magical cause to her traveling back in time is the endangerment of a young master. That young master is part of her family tree. This seems to be happening until one of her ancestors is born and escapes slavery. I found this book incredibly compelling, and while the scourge of chattel slavery is long gone in the US, there’s some scenes that resonated with me personally. I may some day write about that scene in particular, since it’s haunted me ever since I’ve read this book.

The City We Became and The World We Make

The City We Became and The World We Make by N K Jemesin showcases the birth of New York as a magically living city with several avatars. It builds an urban fantasy world that is inhabited by living cities threatened by anti-reality itself. This anti-reality is a kind of cosmic pessimism that takes the form of some very overt references to HP Lovecraft. These novels are hands down the best critique of Lovecraft that I’ve read in fictional form, and that’s in a year where I read Lovecraft Country (which is frankly a little middling (the TV show is better)).

Best Comics of 2023

I read a lot of graphic novels throughout the year. Here are some of my favorite comics that I read this year in no particular order.

The Tick

I had vague memories of The Tick on television in the 90’s. That led me to watch the Amazon Prime show. With that show’s cancellation, I was left wondering about the world of The Tick. Since then I wanted to pick up the comic, but it’s been hard to find print copies (unfortunately, I also couldn’t get a digital copy from my library either). I eventually found a copy of the original ink run.

There’s a lot more blatant remixing of comics in the book. There’s a character named Oedipus that’s based on the Marvel character Electra (who doesn’t love a good Freud joke!). There’s also a couple of pages that clearly sprang out of the artist deciding to do a master study of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper as the jumping off point for a joke. The character that I knew from the show clearly leaped from these pages, and I tremendously enjoyed reading through this book.

The Immortal Hulk

I think I was 13 when I first made the connection between the Hulk and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I believe it was the film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that really clarified that connection for me. The Immortal Hulk takes that foundation for the character and cranks it up to 11. By establishing that the gamma radiation mutation not only makes the hulk immortal, but also connects him to monstrous other worldly influences. It’s a great read with fantastic art (I really enjoyed one books use of Ben Day dots in shading). If I had one complaint it started pretty terrifying and couldn’t keep me anxious enough for me to really see it as great horror.

Invincible

It’s strange to think about, but one of the things that I love the most about Invincible is the artistic shortcuts that it takes. There’s many repeated panels with dialogue added to change the meaning of the panels in the sequence. There’s a single panel of the Pentagon that is used to establish location probably dozens of times. All of this was done to crank out the books as fast as possible to keep the monthly schedule. It’s done so well that it feels like a choice. It’s not laziness just to stay in print. Especially with consideration for the multi-book arcs that Kirkman sets up to run throughout, which nicely layer the story for both monthly readers and those like me, who read the trades. Also bottom line it’s a subversion and exploration of superhero tropes a la the Watchmen (though certainly not on the same level as Watchmen).

Honorable Mentions

The following books are books that I’ve read in 2023 that I’d like to give an honorable mention to, but didn’t make my short list. They are in no particular order.

Educated

Educated is the memoir of a historian, Tara Westover, who left here fundamentalist Mormon background to pursue higher education. This book really paired well with a book that I didn’t finish this year: Arguably by Christopher Hitchens. Both books had me thinking about cultural capital, and what pieces of culture that I’ve had the privilege to read that others may not even be aware of.

One chapter in particular stuck out to me. Tara Westover is in a history class at BYU. She says something out of hand that the professor takes as joking about the Holocaust, and chastises her for being so crass. She doesn’t understand what is going on, and spends time in the library immediately after class to try and understand what she was missing. She had never really known anything about the Holocaust, and was deeply horrified by what she learned in the library that afternoon. That chapter had me thinking about what knowledge I have that I might be taking for granted.

A Scanner Darkly

I’m not a big fan of Phillip K Dick. I enjoy the movie Blade Runner more than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I read A Scanner Darkly because it had been on my to read list for a while, and they were covering it on Philosophers In Space. I didn’t think much of it until I read the postscript and listened to the podcast episode. The imagery of Fortune vs Nemesis acting out in drug users’ lives reverberated in my head for a while. Listening to the podcast elevated a book that would have been a bit more middle of the pack last year.

A Psalm for the Wild Built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy

As part of trying new things (and keeping up with Philosophers In Space), I read a pair of solar punk novels: A Psalm for the Wild Built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers. If you’re at all curious about solar punk, this feels like a good place to start. Becky Chambers is excellent at world building, there was an interesting message about how we balance our existence with nature, and overall it was a nice wholesome experience.

Daisy Jones & The Six

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, is a mock memoir written about a fictional rock band that burned out after their debut album. I mainly read it because my wife recommended it, and a TV miniseries came out this year. I really enjoyed the mock memoir framing including the meta narrative twist in who the fictional memoir writer is. It’s fun, emotional, and has great characters.

The Testaments

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is the sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale. I happened to listen to the audio book for this, and it features a voice contribution from Ann Dowd (Aunt Lydia in the TV show adaptation of the Handmaid’s Tale). Those chapters read by Ann Dowd elevated the novel for me. She does so well at characters like this including in other pieces that I’ve enjoyed: The Leftovers, and Hereditary. I also enjoyed the timeline shifting, and getting to learn more about the decline of the United States and rise of Gilead. I don’t think that this a sequel that goes above and beyond the original, but it was a great read.

The Power

The Power by Naomi Alderman is a biting satire about a world where women suddenly have electric powers. As a result the world goes through an upheaval as the gendered power dynamics change. I found it’s portrayal of hierarchy and power as the root of certain gender inequalities to be rather compelling, and would recommend reading the book.

Worst Books of 2023

I didn’t have many books that I disliked this year. Unfortunately, there were still a few that I finished but still just didn’t like by the end.

The Invisibles

I read the Invisibles because it is allegedly one of the influences on The Matrix. I tried to get into it, but it felt too 90’s edgy, and I just couldn’t connect with the material. There was one fantastic chapter that subverted expectations, but it felt wasted in a book that I really did not enjoy.

Ian Fleming - James Bond

This year while I was trying to read through all of the over 100 essays in Arguably by Christopher Hitchens, I ran into a comment that you’re either an Ian Fleming man or John La’Carre man. I’ve at least read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, so I had my suspicions that I was the latter. I decided to put this to the test when I found the first three James Bond novels at the library. They removed all doubt. I hated them. I don’t remember why I committed to reading three of them (maybe because they were short?). After Casino Royale, I realized that this was maybe too ridiculous and misogynistic for my taste. Live and Let Die layered in some racism that felt very uncomfortable. Finally Moonraker, which I probably liked the best, was just on the bad side of mediocre. I found it a slog to get through these books, and I do not recommend them.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

The brass tacks on why I didn’t like this book was that it felt like Jamie Loftus should have just made a podcast. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had text copy instead of an audio book, but in that format, it just felt like I was listening to a podcast series in book form. Also to fit the title, the book was just a bit too horny.