Year in Review: 2023 Book List

2023 was another bicoastal year! We started in Santa Barbara, and moved back to DC in the summer. It was a hard move for me, but the upside was returning to a book nerd city — DC is easily the most literary place I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve relished access to author talks and literary events, and even just going down to the pool and seeing everyone there reading.

I attended three author talks (Pierce Brown, Ayana Mathis, and Bryan Washington) put on by two different local independent bookstores (Politics and Prose and Loyalty Books, partnered with the DC Public Library). I discovered pristine hardcover books in local Little Free Libraries. I loved every minute of the National Book Festival, where I heard talks from Amor Towles, Jesmyn Ward, Chasten Buttigieg, Camille Dungy, Joy Harjo, and George Saunders. I had more time to read in DC, and also downloaded Libby for my commute and listened to audiobooks for the first time since 2019.

Another highlight of the year was the Overeducated Women with Cats 2023 Reading Challenge. When I first came across the challenge, I thought it was hilarious and quickly started scheming which books (out of my truly absurd 1,870+ Want to Read list) would fulfill the 12 prompts. Five out of the 12 books made this year’s top 10! I’ll share the books I read for the reading challenge below.

I also participated in East City Bookshop’s Hot Summer Reading Challenge, and received four galleys!

I consumed 47 books this year, obtained from perhaps the most diverse assortment of sources yet. 15 came from Book of the Month, one from Aardvark Book Club, four from the Santa Barbara Public Library, 12 from the DC Public Library, one from the Westmont College library, and three I owned already. Four came from independent bookstores (Chaucer’s, Kramers, and Politics and Prose), one from Bookshop, two from Libby, one from a DC Little Free Library, one from Ebay, one from my dad, and one from my friend Gini.

Below I'll list all 47, and under that is my top 10 (in alphabetical order).

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi ~ S.A. Chakraborty
All This Could Be Different ~ Sarah Thankam Mathews
Banyan Moon ~ Thao Thai
Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality ~ Julia Shaw
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole ~ Susan Cain
Bridge ~ Lauren Beukes
Call Us What We Carry: Poems ~ Amanda Gorman
Camp Zero ~ Michelle Min Sterling
Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It ~ Ethan Kross
Community Board ~ Tara Conklin
Crying in H Mart ~ Michelle Zauner
A Dangerous Business ~ Jane Smiley
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands ~ Kate Beaton
Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World ~ Jacqui Lewis
Foe ~ Iain Reid
The Four Loves ~ C.S. Lewis
Happy Place ~ Emily Henry
Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion ~ Matthias Roberts
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain ~ Lisa Feldman Barrett
Infinity: Aftermath ~ Víctor Santos and Pedro Andreo
Kiss Her Once for Me ~ Alison Cochrun
The Last Catastrophe: Stories ~ Allegra Hyde
Last Night in Montreal ~ Emily St. John Mandel
Let Us Descend ~ Jesmyn Ward
Light Bringer ~ Pierce Brown
The Light Pirate ~ Lily Brooks-Dalton
Maame ~ Jessica George
The Memory Police ~ Yōko Ogawa
Meredith, Alone ~ Claire Alexander
A Message from Ukraine ~ Volodymyr Zelensky
No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Orlando: A Biography ~ Virginia Woolf
The Other Black Girl ~ Zakiya Dalila Harris
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ~ Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
Shark Heart: A Love Story ~ Emily Habeck
These Impossible Things ~ Salma El-Wardany
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ~ Gabrielle Zevin
The Unsettled ~ Ayana Mathis
Us ~ Sara Soler
The Vaster Wilds ~ Lauren Groff
We Are the Light ~ Matthew Quick

Re-read

The Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Dark Age ~ Pierce Brown
Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott
Infinity: Outrage ~ Víctor Santos and Kenny Ruiz

Audiobooks

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” ~ Zora Neale Hurston
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender ~ Kit Heyam

Top 10

All This Could Be Different ~ Sarah Thankam Mathews
Achingly gorgeous — that was my description of this novel once I finished it. Mathews’ writing is breathtaking both on the sentence level and structurally. She did a brilliant job of showing; for example, I identified with so much of the millennial protagonist's coming of age in a recession experience, but I'm not sure the word 'recession' is even in the book. We just see the characters grappling with it and not really understanding why they’re struggling to head down traditional paths of success. I eagerly await more writing from Mathews.

Banyan Moon ~ Thao Thai
I love multigenerational family sagas. I love getting into the heads of family members at odds, and understanding what they don’t as I get a front row seat to the truths shaping their lives. Each of the three main women in Banyan Moon was multilayered and rich and flawed, and as the book slowly unraveled I understood why, even as I still really liked each one of them. Thai did a brilliant job of withholding mysteries until the exact moment when those hard-earned revelations brought the characters into sharp focus. And the writing! It was so lush, and Thai wrote so many striking metaphors that evoked the whole feeling, all senses, of a thing, in such an unexpected way. 

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole ~ Susan Cain
A rare nonfiction page-turner, Bittersweet was billed as a self-help book, but in my opinion, that’s the wrong way to approach it. It’s more of an experience, in the way a good therapy session is an experience. Sure, Cain offers practices and suggestions, but the point of the book isn't answers. The point is accepting and celebrating longing and sadness and poignancy. And I appreciate Cain's perspective as a skeptic; she brings a lot of critical thinking to her subjects and often asks the same questions emerging for me. 

Camp Zero ~ Michelle Min Sterling
This riveting cli-fi novel unfolded a harrowing vision of humanity's future, but resounded with a powerful glimmer of hope. The book prompted physical reactions in me; at times I felt my heart was racing and other times I gasped aloud. I blazed through Camp Zero because I needed to know how everyone fit together. The book was utterly chilling and compelling. 

Light Bringer ~ Pierce Brown
As I’ve been a diehard fan of Brown’s series for years, it’s really no surprise that Light Bringer makes my top 10, but oh my goodness, everyone. It was really incredible. Six books in, and it's official. The Red Rising series is my favorite modern book series. Of any genre. And the thing about Light Bringer is, after six books but especially after the two before this one, every tear-jerking, gut-wrenching, gorgeous moment in Light Bringer felt so earned. I was on a bloodydamn roller coaster along with the characters, and while reading the last 150 or so pages I was fairly certain my heart might explode. There are few books that make me feel the way the Red Rising ones do. I’m a wholehearted fan.

The Light Pirate ~ Lily Brooks-Dalton
I usually don’t pick a top book of the year, but if I did, The Light Pirate would be a serious contender. Climate fiction often feels like it’s trying to shake us into action, which certainly isn’t a bad motive, but can feed into our fear of the future. Not so with The Light Pirate. The novel unflinchingly portrayed possibly the worst climate change outcome, but with the most hopeful vision for how to navigate it. The book made me believe in humanity, and it was truly beautiful to see people be humbled and become part of nature again instead of setting themselves above it. 

Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ~ Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
LaPointe’s writing is so powerful. It feels effortless, but I understand the hours of deep forging that undoubtedly went into a book that feels this effortless. This took time, and pain. This took the effort of honesty and hard-won beauty. LaPointe's journey differs from mine, but her search for home…I feel that. Her pain of finding yourself and being honest…I feel that. This memoir is such a gift, and I am so immensely glad that I read it. Just so glad. Right book, right time, it’s kind of unbelievable. 

These Impossible Things ~ Salma El-Wardany
I loved each one of the characters in this book. I loved the sisterhood between the three very different main women. I loved how they defied stereotypes and boxes. They were just themselves. They were complicated and seemingly contradictory. I rooted for them, I felt pain for them, I cheered for them. 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ~ Gabrielle Zevin
Zevin's book was incredibly hyped, but I was delighted to discover it lived up to the hype. I was completely absorbed. Zevin did such a fantastic job of showing how the characters and their relationships would change over decades that I felt I’d been on that years-long journey with them. So many lovely, poignant moments in this one.

The Unsettled ~ Ayana Mathis
Hearing Mathis speak at Politics and Prose added to an already rich reading experience. She put the book in a societal context for me as a person who wasn't alive during the book's time period, and because it's DC, the audience asked insightful, thought-provoking questions. But the book would have blown me away even if I hadn't attended the event. There's so much going on in it. There’s racial tensions in 1980s Philadelphia, welfare in a dilapidated state under the Reagan administration, homelessness, longing for community and the unlikely ways we build it, a free Black enclave, a commune with cultish overtones, exploring the pros and cons of communities attempting to exist outside a societal system, and complicated family relationships. And through it all are some absolutely engrossing characters. I definitely want to read Mathis' first book, and look forward to more from her in the future. 

 Overeducated Women with Cats 2023 Reading Challenge

• A book by a BIPOC author
• The Other Black Girl ~ Zakiya Dalila Harris
• A book that spans multiple generations
• Banyan Moon ~ Thao Thai
• A book purchased from your local independent bookstore
• All This Could Be Different ~ Sarah Thankam Mathews
• A book that has been on your TBR list for over a year
• Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole ~ Susan Cain
• A book that passes the Bechdel Test
• The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi ~ Shannon Chakraborty
• A book by an indigenous author 
• Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ~ Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
• A book with less than 500 reviews on Goodreads 
• Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World ~ Jacqui Lewis
• A book translated from another language 
• The Memory Police ~ Yōko Ogawa
• A debut novel
• Camp Zero ~ Michelle Min Sterling
• A collection of short stories
• The Last Catastrophe: Stories ~ Allegra Hyde
• A book with a cat on the cover
• Meredith, Alone ~ Claire Alexander
• A classic you’ve always meant to read, but never got around to
• Orlando: A Biography ~ Virginia Woolf

Just one reason to love independent bookstores

This is my twelfth book list! You can check out last year's list here, or find links to prior years here.