MY YEAR IN BOOKS 2023

I was a much less “productive” reader in 2023 when compared to the last few years, I barely cracked 30 books on my official list, and many of those were graphic novels, which make for pretty quick reads. But even tho’ I like to set a reading goal for the year, I’m also not trying to approach reading as a race or endurance test, and I have definitely come to realize that in the face of an exponentially increasing pool of “to be read” books both contemporary and classic I’ll never get to read (or re-read) everything I’d like to. So I am at peace with my 30 books logged this year. Looking back, I do think I might have missed a couple titles, I’ll just add them to my 2024 list if I recall them later!

Despite not tackling too many books this year I finally got around to reading a few chunky novels that had been on my list for a long time. One of the novels I enjoyed the most in 2023 was the first I completed, The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner—Jonas and I recorded an episode of our podcast Apples to Giraffes about this edgy and immersive prison novel, which will certainly see the light of day (hopefully along with more new episodes) in 2024. Reading Kushner also inspired me to revisit one of her big influences, the author Denis Johnson, and I throughly enjoyed Tree of Smoke, a sweeping novel of the Vietnam War… Moving, bizarre, and engaging. Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland was better than I expected, and I finally read the lyrical Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (extraordinary, it deserves all the praise it has racked up and I’m definitely gonna seek out this author’s (few) other books).

My biggest “discovery” of the year was Charles Portis, despite the fact that I read and loved his classic western True Grit a couple years back I was wholly ignorant of his other work and was totally delighted by a pair of his novels that I binged back to back, Norwood and The Dog of the South, both totally oddball and charming picaresques. Anyone who loves the English language owes it to themselves to delve into Portis’ oeuvre, and I’ll certainly make room for his other books in the coming years.

Many of the books on this list fit neatly into the Italo Calvino’s category “Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time To Reread” (one of many classes of books Calvino defines in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, which I re-read 1 1/2 times 2023… In full in English and partially in French). I delved back into Kane by Paul Grist (a deeply underrated comic that had a profound impact on me back in the 1990s), re-discovered The Missing Persons League by Frank Bonham, read Le Jardin Armé by David B. in the original French, bought (and read with delight) a deluxe edition of Our Encounters with Evil & Other Stories by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, re-read some Gene Wolfe, went back to the amazing Annie Dillard, and more. I guess I’ve reached the age where my natural inclination is leaning towards books from my past… Nothing wrong with that, I think, tho’ of course that means I’m even more out of touch with what is going on in contemporary lit.

Speaking of the past, I also delved into history this year, including a partial re-read of Tony Judt’s magisterial Postwar, Mary Beard’s entertaining history of ancient Rome SPQR, and The World of Yesterday, Stefan Zweig’s powerful and deeply depressing memoir chronicling (amongst other things) the rise of fascism in Europe in the days leading up to World War II. Chilling stuff, to be honest.

Best graphic novel I read this year? Probably Jordan Crane’s long-awaited Keeping Two, which I started reading way back in the day as he was serializing it. Crane really achieves a unique, only-in-comics effect in the final chapters of this meandering tale and any fans of the medium owe it to themselves to pick this one up. I was more lukewarm on what is broadly considered the “Graphic Novel of 2023,” Monica by Daniel Clowes, but it was still an excellent read… Just didn’t live up to the hype for me. I also caught up on a few Pow Pow Press books I hadn’t read yet, since I am repping the company as their Marketing Manager it was definitely part of my job to do so. I am obviously biased, but those are all some great graphic novels and worth checking out.

So below are the books I read in 2023, including excerpts from my Goodreads reviews, and links to buy the books on my Bookshop, where I get a small commission. Enjoy and happy reading in the new year!

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Great, meandering, trashy, and emotional.”

Earthbound by Blonk ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“By turns funny and depressing, but always insightful and clever.”

Catwoman: Lonely City by Cliff Chiang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“The settings, action, and very importantly the worn-in, emotive faces of the characters are all expertly drawn, and the dialogue pulls the story along at a fast clip.”

The Adventures of Sgoobidoo by Cathon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“If Garfield Minus Garfield made you chuckle, this will make you howl with laugher!”

The Outfit by Richard Stark ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review

The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New by Annie Dillard ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“A good overview of an excellent writer, observer, and philosopher.”

The Missing Persons League by Frank Bonham (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“This book made a gigantic impression on me when I read it as a kid, the mystery and dystopian setting really captured my imagination. I had forgotten the title, and it took me a long while to rediscover it.”

Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman by Éloïse Marseille ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“A wonderfully candid graphic memoir in which the author lays out her personal journey through the sometimes scary and often hilarious world of modern sex, love, and relationships, most importantly her relationship with her self.”

The Court Charade by Flore Vesco and Kerascoët ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Coming to this primarily as a fan of the artistic team, I found the book to be very cute and charming, but in all honesty it doesn’t have the ‘WOW’ factor that other Kerascoët classics like Beautiful Darkness or Beauty have.”

The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“This is the least fun of the “Three Californias” trilogy, probably because its the one that’s the least “sci-fi” of the lot… Here American consumerist culture, suburban sprawl, military-industrial complex, and the Cold War just keep on chugging on thru to 2027… Not much different than the Southern California I spent my own wayward youth in. “

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Not my favorite Calvino by a long shot (not even in my top 5 books by him, one of my all-time favorite authors), but rereading this one now brought certain additional pleasures that I didn’t really vibe with the first time around, maybe 2 decades or more ago, fitting this shaggy, indefinable novel of incipits, cliffhangers, and paens to the love of reading quite nicely into the category of ‘Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time To Reread.'”

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“A surprisingly propulsive telling of a life in letters during a period when, the author firmly and often convincingly argues, the world was transformed utterly, and often not for the better. Zweig narrates a version of his life story that almost completely erases the personal (his two marriages are only mentioned in passing, his children, not at all) to focus on books written and read, encounters with authors and artists both famed and forgotten, and, most of all, the inexorable march towards war and terror that tears Europe apart not once, but twice in his lifetime. “

First Love by Ivan Turgenev ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Lovely little novella from one of my fave Russian authors, this story, which at first might seem stuck in the mores and manners of 19th century Russia, slowly reveals itself to be surprisingly universal and perhaps even modern… This could be adapted in a modern fashion that would make the story seem very current.”

Keeping Two by Jordan Crane ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“I was blown away by what Crane has achieved here… He lays the groundwork to his story and characters so slowly and deliberately that by the time he gets to the final pages of this extremely dense but fast-paced graphic novel you feel utterly transported into another realm.”

Norwood by Charles Portis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“A looping, meandering picaresque road novel that’s full to bursting with outrageous characters and supremely funny and unpredictable twists and turns. Weird and heartwarming.”

The Dog of the South by Charles Portis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Another deadpan, sprawling road trip novel from the mind of Charles Portis, this one is a wonderful exploration of voice and character, populated with lots of annoying yet lovable personages… Alternately sweet, depressing, and bizarre.”

The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“An exceptional ‘realist magical’ novel that is both sweet and transcendental. Incredible writing on a sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word level, but with a strange and intimate plot that surprises on every front. A transporting, moving, and one-of-a-kind read.”

Le Jardin Armé by David B. (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Perfectly-realized mythic tales of blasphemers, prophets, warriors, and women.”

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Lovably chaotic and often full-blown silly, this was a fun romp with tons of great scenes, crazy backstories, and a charming shagginess to the whole thing.”

Penny by Karl Stevens ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Often very funny, these vignettes of feline life are best read in a similar fashion as they were originally published in the Village Voice, a page or two at a time, where the reader can enjoy the absurdist humor and really soak up the beauty of the painted comics… “

Aliens: Labyrinth by Jim Woodring and Kilian Plunkett ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Interesting artifact from another era, where a capital-A comics Auteur like Jim Woodring (Frank) got to play around with some major Hollywood IP.”

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“A wild, looping, ecstatic look at a uniquely American form of madness, brutally enacted on the urban cityscapes and jungle backwaters of Southeast Asia over the course of two decades.”

Kane: Greetings From New Eden by Paul Grist (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
Kane: Rabbit Hunt (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
Kane: Histories (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
Kane: Thirty Ninth (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review

“This highly underrated indie comics series is a masterclass in the craft of sequential storytelling… These comics were amongst my very favorites back when they were being serialized (and Grist plays wonderfully with the serial comic book format, delivering extremely tight individual issues while also building a greater story in the process) and it’s a delight to be revisiting them again now. If you’ve never gotten the chance to meet the denizens of New Eden, do yourself a favor and check these books out. Highly recommended.”

Monica by Daniel Clowes ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Perfectly enjoyable, strong book, and very much in line with the rest of Clowes’ impressive and influential oeuvre, but I can’t say that Monica stood out to me as being a career highlight or masterpiece as I feel it is being presented.”

Our Encounters with Evil & Other Stories by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell and Mike Mignola (reread) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Wonderfully energetic pulp comedy… Just so much fun to be had in these goofy tales, and the drawings are sublimely loose and kinetic.”

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review
“Great account of the mythic origins and historical rise of Rome… Lots of excellent anecdotes and strange stories that, along with Beard’s historical analysis of bigger economic and social forces, give you a greater understanding of this central and foundational moment in world history.”