#books 2023

[jbbartram-illu]

A little something different!

I used to be a TOTAL bookworm as a kid, then sort of lost it for a decade or so, then in about 2016/17 I decided to start reading more (& also moved closer to a library & got in the habit of using it).

Fast forward 7ish years and I'm back in the habit of reading & am devouring stacks of books per year, with 2023 being my most ridiculous one yet. I somehow ended up reading 120 books? Mostly because I'm terrible at managing my library holds list & kept getting stacks of books I really wanted to read (I'm also lucky to be a really fast reader, which helps).

Anyways! All that to say - I compiled a top 22 + 19ish honourable mentions, as seen below:

My Top 22:

Tear – Erica Mckeen

Our Wives Under The Sea – Julia Armfield

The Vaster Wilds – Lauren Groff

Paladin’s Strength – T. Kingfisher

Paladin’s Grace – T. Kingfisher

Great Circle – Maggie Shipstead

Between Two Fires – Christopher Buehlman

Sisters – Daisy Johnson

How High We Go In The Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu

Moon Of The Turning Leaves – Waubgeshig Rice

The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa

The Night Ship – Jess Kidd

The Conjoined – Jen Sookfong Lee

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter – Hazel Gaynor

If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English – Noor Naga

The Annual Migration Of Clouds – Premee Mohamed

Wandering Souls – Cecile Pin

The Only Good Indians – Stephen Graham Jones

Lone Women – Victor Lavalle

Ring Shout – P. Djèlí Clark

Lucy – Jamaica Kincaid

The Bookshop Of Yesterdays – Amy Meyerson

Honourable Mentions:

The Marigold – Andrew F. Sullivan

Five Little Indians – Michelle Good

Swordheart – T. Kingfisher…and all the other books of hers (9 of them in total) I read this year!

Even Though I Knew The End – C.L. Polk

Everything Under – Daisy Johnson

Fen – Daisy Johnson

The Animals In That Country – Laura Jean Mckay

A Prayer For The Crown-Shy – Becky Chambers

The Sea Captain’s Wife – Beth Powning

Hester – Laurie Lico Albanese

Tauhou – Kotuku Titihuia Nuttall

Ducks – Kate Beaton

You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emezi

The Hatbox Letters – Beth Powning

And Then She Fell – Alicia Elliot

The Adult – Bronwyn Fischer

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch – Rivka Galchen

Lute – Jennifer Thorne

Monster – Mariel Ashlinn Kelly

Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway Series (I read 8 books from this series this yr & loved all of them!)

If you want to go through my entire list for 2023, you can read it on my website!

#books #books read in 2023 #booksyear #books 2023

[tha-kiekstah]

#i swear it wasn't only animorphs #but it was a third animorphs #Animorphs #read in 2023 #books 2023 #what i read this year

[existential-celestial]

I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan (translated by Eliza Griswold, photographs by Seamus Murphy)

#i am the beggar of the world #I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan #pushto poetry #pushto #pashtun #landai #landay #translation #books 2023 #* #grief #separation #an island mixed with blood #seamus murphy #eliza griswold

[whalelotofstudy]

stuff that recently happened

also; my cousin just got accepted to uni and i feel so happy for her!!

#studyblr #whalelotofstudy #studyspo #books 2023 #books #finished the long way to a small angry planet and almost ended up in tears

[poisonandpages]

"You keep rescuing me and I don’t know why,” Gretchen said. “But every day I tell myself my life must be worth something because you keep saving it. They can’t keep us apart. I don’t care what happens. You never stopped trying to save me."

Books Read or Re-read in 2023;

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

#this book was a wild ride #if you want to read it I strongly recommend looking up the does the dog die page on it first #horror #litedit #bookedit #books 2023 #this one has been one my to read list for a while I'm glad I finally got round to it #my best friend's exorcism #grady hendrix #file under my collages aren't good but I'm having fun anyway

[junkshop-disco]

Tagged by @magicalrocketships to post my favourite books of 2023. It's supposed to be ten but I couldn't pick two to cull so let's make it a round dozen.

Tagging @vaguemylk, @magog83 and anyone who fancies it. Show me your books!

#books #books 2023

[frozen-sea]

Another great year of reading!

#books 2023 #bookblr #mine

[magog83]

Tagged by @junkshop-disco to post my favourite books of 2023. This has been more of a fic reading than book reading year but I have still read some good ones 😊

Tagging @alba17 @minuialeth75 and @vensre if you'd like to share!

#books 2023 #about me

[gideonthefirst]

2023 Books

favorites bolded, least favorites have an [x], rereads have an *

January

The Flash: The Death of Iris West by Cary Bates, Frank Chiaramonte, Jack Abel, Vince Colletta, Frank McLaughlin

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones [x]

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir

February

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer [x]

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe by Hannah Moskowitz

March

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on a Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib

April

The Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

May

They're Going to Love You by Meg Howrey

June

July

Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008 by Chris Payne

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud*

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, books 1-7*. specifically book 7 gets a [x] for being so bad it killed the reread

Nimona by N.D. Stevenson*

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson

August

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett*

September

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 by Scott Satterwhite and Aaron Cometbus

October

Trick to Catch the Old One by Thomas Middleton

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

Wage Labor and Capital by Karl Marx

November

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Trust by Hernán Diaz

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

December

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein

A Master of Djinn by P Djèlí Clark [x]

Prosper's Demon by K.J. Parker

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World by Patrik Svensson [x]

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

#books 2023 #i kinda Liked most books i read this year. sort of crazy #personal #my storygraph is kestrells come hang out :]

[sam-loves-seb]

tier ranking all 43 books i read in 2023 based on how much fun i had reading them and not their quality of literature

#do not come for me for any of these #i'm looking at you fourth wing haters #i never said it was good i said it was FUN #but also yeah leave your discourse in the replies #i wanna hear thoughts people #also if u wanna add me on goodreads hmu i'll send u my link #anyways #books 2023 #2023 #book tier ranking

[inclineto]

Books, November - December 2023

The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature - Starhawk [there are a bunch of things about Starhawk's ethos that I find...let's say: misguided, over-dogmatic, verging on downright dippy...but one thing I absolutely cannot argue with is how joyfully observant her nature writing is]

Alanna: The First Adventure - Tamora Pierce [loved this book as a 13 year old; kind of hilarious to realize that WOW, they're all a bunch of terrible bullies and someone should maybe look into that? (one thing I will say about Tamora Pierce: she doesn't always do it gracefully, and sometimes she introduces brand new problems as she goes, but she does look back at her work, think, "I'd like a do over on that," and try again, which I have to respect)]

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller - Oliver Darkshire

A Restless Truth - Freya Marske [I was ambivalent about the first book in this series; this still has some pacing problems, but overall I liked it a lot more!]

How Can I Help You - Laura Sims [an excess of serial killers, afaik, but otherwise this gets an awful lot right about the circ desk]

Hen Fever - Olivia Waite

The Door in the Hedge - Robin McKinley

In the Hand of the Goddess - Tamora Pierce [this annotation is an apology to everyone who endured my not-like-the-other-girls years]

The Enigma Game - Elizabeth Wein

#books 2023 #books practical and pleasurable

[lucy-sky]

@gael-garcia tagged me to post top-9 book I've read in 2023... But unfortunately I've been a terrible reader the whole year, and these are the only books I've read:

No pressure tags: @jcusack, @a-supernova-girl, @munsonownsmyass and everyone who wants to :)

#tag game #books 2023

[whalelotofstudy]

2023/6/2

Oscar wilde + greenhouse

#studyblr #whalelotofstudy #studyspo #books #books 2023 #the place reminded me of 지구 끝의 온실

[poisonandpages]

"...and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to mind with ambiguous alterations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door."

Books Read or Re-read in 2023;

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

#I see a lot of people pair this book with the classic stark black and red vampire vibes #and I totally get why #but I wanted to try something a little more dreamlike because of how often Laura mentions dreams in the book #Carmilla #litedit #bookedit #books 2023 #file under my collages aren't good but I'm having fun anyway

[bruiselikeviolets]

read in 2023: nine liars by maureen johnson

The surefire way to get someone to tell you something you want to know isn’t to ask them about it. What you do is start telling the story yourself, say what you think happened, and say it wrong. People may not want to discuss things, but they will correct you, every time.

#nine liars #truly devious #maureen johnson #read 2023 #books 2023 #stuff

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

I didn’t keep a running tally so I don’t have any clue about physical books except the few I can remember but thanks to Libby I’ve got a list of what I read this past year (there were quite a few that were too awful to finish too).

Audio:

Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

Lockwood & Co: The Whispering Skull

Lockwood & Co: The Hollow Boy

Lockwood & Co: The Creeping Shadow

Lockwood & Co: The Empty Grave

I’m Glad My Mom Died

Dracula (Daily full cast podcast)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (& up to phase 4 of the original audiodrama)

Good Omens (reread, full cast)

Shakespeare for Squirrels

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

The Mermaid

The Kingdoms

The Starless Sea

Book of Night

Stars, Hide Your Fires

Husband Material

I Kissed Shara Wheeler

One Last Stop

Enter the Body

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites Fluff & Fangs Edition

The Dark is Rising (full cast podcast)

The Thief

The Queen of Attolia

The King of Attolia

A Conspiracy of Kings

Return of the Thief

Moira’s Pen

Print:

Thick as Thieves

The Woman in Me

Witches Abroad

Small Gods

Lords and Ladies

The Wicked & The Divine (10 book series reread)

Red, White and Royal Blue (reread)

#personal #books 2023 #going to try & keep an active list this year #i have so many im midway thru physically #cannot stress enough how many were just AWFUL that i quit too #listened to lots of podcasts too have that list if anyone’s curious #couple authors on here who are also On Here as in tumblr lol 2 found THRU tumblr lol #i also gained Lots of opinions on kids in the entertainment industry this year #my mom got me a book embosser so thats this years plan is to do an inventory (excel im coming for you) & clean out