For a list of my favorite books I read this year, go here >
This was a very low-key year in reading for me. I read 46 books—less than most past years, but I think still a respectable amount—roughly 40% of which were for Booklist. That’s ok. I had a lot going on at work, so reading took a bit of a back seat. I finally got around to reading all of Becky Chambers’ stuff, she’s been on my To Read list for years!
I read 26 nonfiction titles and 20 fiction. I’ve been more interested in nonfic as I get further into middle age, which isn’t something I anticipated. I discovered a new favorite author and read one of the wisest books I’ve ever read.
Books Read in 2023
Asterisks (*) indicate titles I reviewed for Booklist.
| Title | Author | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Better Stretching: 9 Minutes a Day to Greater Flexibility, Less Pain, and Enhanced Performance, the JoeTherapy Way | Joe Yoon |
| 2 | The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life * | Felix Flicker |
| 3 | Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe * | Philip Plait |
| 4 | Life Beyond Us: An Original Anthology of SF Stories and Science Essays * | Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law, and Susan Forest (ed’s.) |
| 5 | An African American and Latinx History of the United States | Paul Ortiz |
| 6 | Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions | Temple Grandin with Betsy Lerner |
| 7 | To Be or Not to Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure | Ryan North |
| 8 | Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded | Jason Heller |
| 9 | Fractal Noise * | Christopher Paolini |
| 10 | An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States | Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |
| 11 | Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks—A Cool History of a Hot Commodity * | Amy Brady |
| 12 | The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet | Becky Chambers |
| 13 | A Closed and Common Orbit | Becky Chambers |
| 14 | Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee | Daryl Joji Maeda |
| 15 | The Ghosts of Trappist * | K. B. Wagers |
| 16 | Record of a Spaceborn Few | Becky Chambers |
| 17 | Out There: The Science Behind Sci-Fi Film and TV * | Ariel Waldman |
| 18 | Ten Low | Stark Holborn |
| 19 | The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Mathematics * | Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell |
| 20 | What Does This Button Do? An Autobiography | Bruce Dickinson |
| 21 | Hel’s Eight | Stark Holborn |
| 22 | A Second Chance for Yesterday * | R. A. Sinn |
| 23 | The Galaxy, and the Ground Within | Becky Chambers |
| 24 | Gundog * | Gary Whitta |
| 25 | 42: The Wildly Improbably Ideas of Douglas Adams * | Kevin Jon Davies (ed.) |
| 26 | Money Shot (vol. 1) | Tim Seeley & Sarah Beattie, Caroline Leigh Layne (ill.) |
| 27 | Money Shot (vol. 2) | Tim Seeley & Sarah Beattie, Caroline Leigh Layne (ill.) |
| 28 | Money Shot (vol. 3) | Tim Seeley & Sarah Beattie, Caroline Leigh Layne (ill.) |
| 29 | Grace in All Simplicity: Beauty, Truth, and Wonders on the Path to the Higgs Boson and New Laws of Nature * | Robert N. Cahn and Chris Quigg |
| 30 | Space Shuttle Stories: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions * | Tom Jones |
| 31 | System Collapse * | Martha Wells |
| 32 | To Be Taught, If Fortunate | Becky Chambers |
| 33 | Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole | Susan Cain |
| 34 | Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines * | Joy Buolamwini |
| 35 | Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| 36 | A History of Fake Things on the Internet * | Walter J. Scheirer |
| 37 | 42 Reasons to Hate the Universe: And One Reason Not To * | Chris Ferrie, Wade David Fairclough & Byrne Laginestra |
| 38 | Kinning * | Nisi Shawl |
| 39 | The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening | Ari Shapiro |
| 40 | Whalefall | Daniel Kraus |
| 41 | The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History | Ned Blackhawk |
| 42 | How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite * | Dr. Chris Balakrishnan and Matt Wasowski, Kristen Orr (ill.) |
| 43 | Moon of the Turning Leaves * | Waubgeshig Rice |
| 44 | Moon of the Crusted Snow | Waubgeshig Rice |
| 45 | See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love | Valarie Kaye |
| 46 | Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin | Megan Rosenbloom |
John the Librarian 