Books Read (and Listened to) 2023

Posted by BLD in MT January 05, 2024

Books Read (and Listened to) 2023

Hip, hip, hooray for another year of superb reading adventures! Gosh, I love reading so much! SO MUCH! Experiencing other worlds, other lives--both real and imaginary--is so cool. I love learning, growing, and expanding myself with each book. Not only the non-fiction ones either, but with fiction, too. I saw a meme this year that said something like, "All books are self-help books. The novels are just sneakier about it." Ha! I love it. With that, I present my annual reading recap and reflections.

I found it interesting that non-fiction makes up just 30% of the books I read and yet represents 50% of the books on my top ten list (below). I may not read non-fiction as often, but when I do it really rocks my world evidently.

My Top Ten Reads of 2023 (in no particular order).

AKA My Top Ten Reads Not Counting David Sedaris' Books Because I Love Him So Much

Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion (Gabrielle Stanley Blair)
Lobster (Guillaume Lecasble)
MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Isabel Wilkerson)
Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection (Catherine Price)
The King Who Rained (Fred Gwynne)
Butts: A Backstory (Heather Radke)
Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present (Hank Stuever)
Holy Cow (David Duchovny)*
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Max Brooks)

Lobster by Guillaume Lecasble was, quite probably, the weirdest book I've ever read. I told EVERYONE about it. It relays the erotic and baffling story of a lobster from the tank in the dining room of the Titanic who has a near-death experience when the ship hits the iceberg. The lobster develops a sense of humanity and has a dramatic love affair with the passenger who ate his father. It was only about 100 pages and each was stranger than the next. I found it to be an exceptionally memorable page-turner.

A mochi snack while reading in my sunny hammock in the greenhouse. 4/15/2023

2023 Annual Stats

Number of young adult or children's books: 64
Number of adult books: 40
Number of audiobooks (both adult and YA/children): 36

140 Total Books (28 more than in 2022)

Reading in the tub is one of my very favorite things. 11/21/2023

There were a bunch of repeat reads during 2023 so it was actually 126 unique books read.

The repeats were largely Deutsche Kinderbücher (German children's books) as part of my continued journey with the German language. I would read The Very Hungry Caterpillar in English to refresh the storyline in my mind. Then I'd read the German translation, Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt, a few times, too. Or I'd find a read-a-long video on YouTube to follow. All of this involved regular help from my dictionary, too. And so it went with Wo die Wilden Kerle Wohnen, Mein Haus Ist Zu Eng Und Zu Klein, Das Kleine Ich-Bin-Ich, and Colors in German: Die Farben. Repetition is a key to learning.

I was surprised to have read enough German kiddie books to actually have it be a percentage.

The duplicate books weren't all German though. I listened to the MaddAddam trilogy in the spring...and then again in the fall. It is as if Margaret Atwood wrote this series just for me. The Year of the Flood (book two) feels particularly targeted for me as a reader. I am an ardent fan of dystopian fiction, plus I have a robust interest in environmentalism, science, vegetarianism/ahimsa, and kooky religions. The MaddAdam trilogy magically combines all those things!

I regrettably read a pair of one-star books, but I also managed a whopping 18 five-star books. That's 9x more "It-was-Amazing" reads than "I-Did-Not-Like-It" books. In fact, of the 126 different titles read last year, there were only 18 books that failed to meet my three-star benchmark. Three stars is the minimum rating for me to consider a book good. Three-star books are a sort of commonplace, run-of-the-mill kind of good, but still likable nonetheless. My average rating for the year was more than 3.5 stars. I'm pretty stoked that the "I-really-liked-it" four-star column is the tallest. My repertoire last year was mostly books that ranged from good to amazing. So, that all evens out just fine by me.

I passed a lovely hour reading by this toasty, crackling fire after a nice long soak at Chico Hot Springs. 12/21/2023

I tested out an alternative to Goodreads for my book-logging last year. It is called Storygraph and I was drawn to it for a few reasons. First, I dig all the graphs, charts, and stats that are a prominent feature of Storygraph. Goodreads does provide some of this, particularly in the "My Year in Books" recap. Storygraph is more robust and stat-centric year-round. Last year I used Excel to create my own graphs. This year, Storygraph generated all the graphs and charts in this post. Storygraph has a "Did Not Finish" option that is woefully lacking in Goodreads. This isn't a huge problem for me since I basically never quit books. It is good to have options though. Lastly, Storygraph allows for half-star ratings (e.g. 4.5 stars or 2.5 stars). Goodreads uses whole numbers only and I've occasionally found myself wishing my rating system could be a little more nuanced. The social part of Goodreads doesn't really exist in Storygraph at this point. That's a bummer. I like seeing what Dee Ann and Kjell are reading. There are no ads in Storygraph though and it isn't part of Amazon's empire. So it goes. Both programs have their pros and cons. I might just embrace my literary outlandishness and...use both!

I consider David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, and Kurt Vonnegut to be on my Favorite Author podium. With Christopher Moore being the Honorable Mention. I'm glad I read enough of their books that they all made the Most Read Authors of 2023 list.

My 2023 reading objective was to complete five Kurt Vonnegut books...and I didn't quite make it, but close enough. I read four of them by the deadline: Slaughterhouse-Five (January), Blue Beard (April), Armageddon in Retrospect (October), and Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (October). I finished Cat's Cradle on January 4, 2024. Good enough.

Reading with Ginger is another of my favorite things. 10/16/2023

My reading objective for this year will be to increase the non-fiction percentage of my reading. It makes sense. If those books tend to rank higher for me and the top ten list always skews heavy with non-fiction...I should read more of that. Of course, this plan may backfire. Maybe I'll start reading non-fiction with the same willy-nilly style that I currently have for fiction. I'll read...whatever novel ya got. I'm not terribly selective. My screening process is pretty lax and/or arbitrary. So that might start happening with non-fiction, too. We shall see.

Ebooks just don't really do it for me. Clearly.

I believe I set a new personal record in 2023--longest time spent reading a book: 271 days. The book was Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby. I actually started it in October 2022 but didn't wrap it up until July 21, 2023. 271 days. It was a really good book, too, despite how long it took me to finish. A four-star! It was another book that, at times, felt like it was speaking directly to my life experience. It is a collection of essays that lent itself more to reading one here or there and then mulling it over, looking up the books or authors mentioned. A few books reviewed sounded so up my alley that I obtained a copy and read it. This all slowed down my progress with Ten Years in the Tub, naturally. It wasn't the sort of book where I wanted to sit down for a long session with it. It wasn't a race either though, so I kept going back for the next essay in due time. I hadn't heard of Nick Hornby previously. I initially picked it up because of the title and cover art. Again, like it was there on the shelf at the library waiting just for me.

Quote from Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby

I'm with Nick Hornby on this one, I guess. That said, I did contemplate making this wait-a-couple-days-between-books thing a reading goal for 2024. I can see the merits. Plus, it would be rather difficult for me being a "neurotic" reader and all...which is kind of the point of setting a goal or challenge, if you ask me. But... I couldn't bring myself to commit to it. Not when there are so many books and never enough time. Gosh, I love reading. Happy reading, friends! Happy New Year!

Comments

KatjaJanuary 5, 2024 at 10:31 PM
Eric Carle was born in the US, but his parents moved back to Germany in the 1930s when Eric was just a couple of years old. I believe that all his books after a certain point were published with a German version and an English version - as he was fluent in both languages, they weren't translated in the sense that books usually are. With some of his books ("Pancakes, Pancakes" comes to mind) if you look very closely at the illustrations, the labels on the jam jars, for instance, are in German.

Great job on the reading!
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Spécialiste de l'éphémèreJanuary 15, 2024 at 5:14 PM
Thank you for the list! I'll add many titles to mine!
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