Top Ten Books I Read in 2023
Early in the pandemic, around June 2020 after spending five weeks waiting for the world to end, I decided to make two important commitments. The first was to regularly exercise, and happily, that commitment continues just about every morning. The second was to read more, a commitment I really took to heart during 2021 and continued during 2022 and 2023. This piece will review the top ten books I read last year that made an impact on me. The full list of works will be provided afterwards.
A Word on Method
It was a light year for me, compared to the last two years. Rather than having a particular method for 2023, I devoted a great deal of my research time to writing a rough draft of an historical science fiction novel and completing a final draft on a novel about fifteen years in the making. Most of my reading occurred either in transit on trips or reading before bed, and with the whirlwind year it has been, there wasn’t much reading before lights out. Still, a total of 39 books is nothing to be upset about, and I feel that at least one of them should count for, like, a hundred.
Top 10 Books for 2023
The following works are presented in alphabetical order by author.
Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith — Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009)
I’m a sucker for a good gimmick, and Seth Grahame-Smith’s attempt to inject the zombie apocalypse into Austen’s Pride and Prejudice absolutely works for me. We return to the reign of George III, but this time after the outbreak of a zombie plague that terrorizes most of the English countryside while placing the major cities behind giant walls. Elizabeth Bennett, along with her sisters, have all been trained in the deadly arts to serve their country, often with training received from martial arts masters across the globe. Grahame-Smith performs a delightful surgery to Austen’s original work, retelling the core love story between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy against this new and exciting backdrop, while also doing his level best to retain the style and form of Austen’s prose. This is in stark contrast to the other two books which made Pride and Prejudice and Zombies the middle volume of a cash grab trilogy, with a different author (Steve Hockensmith) who makes no attempt to mimic Austen’s prose and leans a little too heavily in the questionable comedic elements. I still haven’t seen the film, but I’m making it a priority for 2024!
T.C. Boyle — A Friend of the Earth (2000)
Boyle’s look at the near future, particularly in the face of climate collapse, is eerily prophetic given our recent weather patterns. Boyle follows the life of Tyrone O’Shaughnessy Tierwater, an environmental activist working to preserve a celebrity’s endangered animal menagerie in 2025 Santa Ynez as hurricanes and flash flooding batter the overdeveloped western coast. The narrative also flashes back to the turn of the millennium, following the efforts of Tierwater, his daughter, and his second wife to turn the tide on climate collapse within a group called Earth Forever! What I find most fascinating about this book is how it can be read differently when it was released and now twenty years later. Clearly when this book first debuted, it was meant as a warning of the climate challenges we would face, based on the best science of the time, particularly that of Bill McKibben. But reading this book now, only two years away from the “future” timeline, and following Tierwater’s depressing story, the novel now serves as a testament to the failures of the environmental movement, both then and now, especially since we’ve passed the environmental tipping point and have not collectively come together as a species to stop it from getting worse. As such, Boyle’s book is as prophetic about the environmental movement as Butler’s Parable of the Sower is with regards to social justice efforts. Highly recommended.
Octavia E. Butler — Fledgling (2005)
Butler’s last published work explores her take on the vampire myth, through the experience of Shori, a 53-year-old vampire (known as the Ina), who awakens with amnesia after an attack on her modern-day community. Her survival is due in part to a genetic modification which implanted human genes from people of color into her body to increase melanin production in her skin, allowing her to survive the daylight hours. The reader follows Shori’s path of discovery, learning about herself and the members of her community, while rebuilding the networks she needs to survive in symbiosis with her human companions. Butler explores alternative family constructions and sexualities, gender roles, the slippery nature of symbiosis and parasitism, and ultimately, good old-fashioned racism from interesting new perspectives. Fledgling acts very well as the first novel for a potential series, with excellent world-building and multiples paths for expanding the stories surrounding the main characters. Unfortunately, Butler passed away in 2006, leaving Shori’s story (along with future installments of the Parable series) unfinished, mostly as sketches and ideas in the notebooks which were left behind. I was very sad to finish this work, as it meant I have read all of Butler’s published work.
Nicholas F. Centino — Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene (2021)
Centino’s academic look at the Los Angeles Rockabilly scene succeeds on so many levels, built on decades of participant observation within the scene. I learned so much about what rockabilly is and isn’t in this book. Centino’s book is divided into four sections. The first outlines the rise and expansion of rockabilly music as a fusion of country music and rhythm and blues, and its revival in the United Kingdom throughout the 1980s. The second chapter takes a tour of the major Los Angeles Rockabilly venues and promoters, specifically those in which the demographics of the scene were changing from overwhelmingly Caucasian to Latino/a and Chicano/a. The third chapter addresses the unique and vintage dress of rockabilly style, while also charting the origins of that style in the pachuco, greaser, and zoot suit styles emulated by James Dean in the 1950s and the neo-swing movement later. And finally, my favorite chapter, which outlines the major artists and labels that have helped define the growing “Razabilly” sound, rockabilly heavily influenced by the Chicano/a and Latino/a sounds of yesteryear and today. Centino’s framework is not only great for understanding the rockabilly scene, but also provides a framework for other music-based scenes, like exotic/tiki culture, goth/industrial/darkwave culture, and the definitive music and styles of the rave scene. Recommended for music fans everywhere and rockabilly fans in particular!
Neil Gaiman — The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
The only book not pictured above. My spouse and I listened to this short novel as an audiobook on the way to Northern California, read by Neil himself, and containing some neat bonus content about the book, including a podcast interview with Gaiman. A novel that rests somewhere between young adult and adult reflection fiction, with a cleverly unnamed young male protagonist reliving childhood memories buried by magic and time. What I appreciated the most about this novel was the exciting blend of science and magic, where magical forces manipulate our known scientific elements, as far down as subatomic particles, without any complication to the narrative. It’s a skill Gaiman has mastered over the years, and a major reason he is one of the best of the modern-day fantasy genre. It’s also a very short novel, perhaps even technically a novelette or a novella, but it still tells a big story. Recommended for fans of Gaiman, obviously, but also for anyone who holds out the possibility of a reconciliation between science and magic that might be a little less cynical than Asimov.
James Joyce — Ulysses (1922)
Ulysses by James Joyce, which comes in somewhere around 265,000 words, and frankly, should be counted for at least a hundred books. I unfinished reading this about twenty years ago, when I got stuck about halfway through after realizing that I didn’t know enough about enough to really understand what I was reading. Joyce’s modernist novel follows the life of Leopold Bloom on a regular day in his life, structured and told in such a way to draw parallels between Bloom’s Day (celebrated as a literary holiday) and the journey of Odysseus/Ulysses as depicted by Homer, with the help of Stephen Daedalus, the protagonist from Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Coming back to this work, after becoming more well-read helped me hold on for this linguistic ride through the modernist era. I felt like I finally knew enough about his influences (Homer, Aristotle) and his contemporaries/legacy (Woolf, Kerouac, Burroughs) to appreciate what was being done. In fact, nearly everything I thought was unique about Woolf (stream of consciousness), Kerouac (word jazz and neologisms), and Burroughs (graphic sexual obscenities and social commentary) are found throughout this work. I spent three weeks reading this, roughly two hours a day, and I found the experience immensely fascinating and rewarding. But I was also troubled by the casual antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry embedded into the story, however accurate to the characters and as a reflection of its time. For the literarily minded, or those who like a good reading challenge.
Rose McGowan — Brave (2022)
The book which broke the seal on the worst kept secret in Hollywood, and instrumental in the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and the legions of his disgusting enablers. McGowan’s book is a combination memoir and exposé, charting her life growing up in a religious cult and the trauma experienced moving through the cult of Hollywood, along with the impact of her very public essay about her assault that sent the dominoes falling for Weinstein. What I admired most about McGowan’s book is her honesty, whether that was in exposing the actions (or lack thereof) of folks like Affleck, Tarantino, Rodriguez, and Manson, and more importantly, where her own actions were at fault and caused harm in the lives of others, particularly during her fling with Robert Rodriguez. People who have suffered sexual harassment and/or sexual assault understand the complexity of their situation, even when ending up clearly a victim of someone else’s actions. While I don’t believe her book will change the minds of those caught up in simplistic understandings of trauma, or those who still feel the need to defend men, I absolutely believe it will resonate with those who have been the victims of workplace harassment or assault, as I have.
P.L. Tavormina — Aerovoyant (2019)
The first novel in the Industrial Age series by Tavormina, which reimagines humankind after leaving a devastated Earth for Turaset, a new planet with twin suns emitting powerful radiation. Humankind required widespread genetic modifications to manage semi-regular radiation storms to rebuild as a primarily agricultural society. Aerovoyant is set at the beginning of a new Industrial Age on Turaset, with the familiar struggles between corporate profits and advancement against the long-term viability of Turaset as a planet and home. But where Tavormina’s genius really lies is within the genetic modifications made to humanity. The title, Aerovoyant, refers to one such modification which allows humans to see the gasses in the air in bright colors, which exposes the real harm of industrialization on Turaset, and sends those with the genetic trait on the run from agents of industrialization. Climate fiction has become a larger and more important subgenre of fantasy and science fiction; this is one of the best in modern times.
Virginia Woolf — Mrs. Dalloway (1924)
The novel where Woolf finds her stride with her stream-of-conscience form. Mrs. Dalloway is a somewhat misleading, perhaps even subversive title, because the novel follows the story of two individuals, starkly juxtaposed against one another. The titular Mrs. Dalloway is spending a summer’s day preparing for a party in the evening, performing a journey through London in much the same way that Leopold Bloom does through Dublin in Ulysses, giving us Woolf’s wry look at middle-to-upper class life within London society. But juxtaposed against Mrs. Dalloway is Septimus Smith, a World War I veteran suffering from intense bouts of shell shock, and some heavily insinuated feelings for Evans, his friend who had died during the war. I find I identify more and more with Woolf’s wry take on British society during her lifetime, even as I struggle with her not so hidden prejudices within her work. But what I appreciated the most from Mrs. Dalloway is the balance that Woolf finds between moving the story forward, and spending a moment or two on a tangent, related to the present story perhaps only by emotion or feeling or thematically, then moving right back to the inevitable end points for both characters.
Michelle Zauner — Crying in H Mart (2021)
My spouse and I listened to about two-thirds of this memoir on the way back from Northern California, read by Zauner, and I was glad I found a paper copy in December to finish reading it. Zauner’s memoir is centered mostly around the complicated relationship with her mother, from her earliest memories to her mother’s final battle with cancer, and the wreckage that followed. I struggled listening to this memoir at first, after losing my mother awhile back and never getting a chance to reconcile before she passed, but I also found Zauner’s reflections to be therapeutic for helping me work through my own childhood trauma. Throughout Crying in H Mart, Zauner uses the vehicle of the Korean foods she made with her mother to help make sense of what happened over the years, as those of us who deal with grief often do when confronted by powerful sense memories. I missed Zauner’s calming voice in the last third, but enjoyed seeing how her grief could be transformed into the debut album for her award-winning music project, Japanese Breakfast. Highly recommended!
The Full List
Here is the full list of works I read in 2023, listed in alphabetic order by author, then by publication date. Overall, I read somewhere around 39 different works, ranging in size from short stories and essays to incredibly lengthy tomes. Happy to provide any thoughts in the comments on the rest!
Atwood, Margaret — Two-Headed Poems
Austen, Jane and Grahame-Smith, Seth — Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Baldwin, James — Nothing Personal
Besley, Adrian — Monty Python’s Flying Circus: Hidden Treasures
Biles, Simone — I Know This to Be True: On Family, Confidence, and Persistence
Boyle, T.C. — A Friend of the Earth
Burroughs, William S. — Blade Runner: A Movie
Butler, Octavia E. — Fledgling
Callenbach, Ernest — Ecotopia
Carlin, George — Napalm and Silly Putty
Carter, Janica; Bauer, Judy; Bernstein, Eytan; and Ng, Adrian — Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
Cathcart, Thomas and Klein, Daniel — Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates
Centino, Nicholas F. — Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene
Chaudhary, Vivek — Kabaddi by Nature
deBirmingham, E.D. — Siege Perilous
Dick, Philip K. — Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
Dukes, Rachel — Frankie Comics
Gaiman, Neil — The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Perry, Imani — South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Hockensmith, Steve — Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls
Hockensmith, Steve — Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After
Howard, Robert E. — The Tower of the Elephant
Jamison, J.R. — Hillbilly Queer
Joyce, James — Ulysses
Kerouac, Jack — Book of Sketches
Le Guin, Ursula K. — Hard Words and Other Poems
Lithgow, John — Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown: Verses for a Despotic Age
McGowan, Rose — Brave
Moore, Christopher — Noir
Moore, Christopher — Shakespeare for Squirrels
Rymsha, Charlene — Healing Burnout: A Journal to Find Peace and Purpose
Sapkowski, Andrzej — Sword of Destiny
Schneider, Nathan — Thank You, Anarchy: Notes From The Occupy Apocalypse
Ste. Just, Danielle — The Disk Mirror Solution
Tavormina, P.L. — Aerovoyant
Troyer, Dixon — Moon People: The Journals of Lordiah
Vonnegut, Kurt — Timequake
Woolf, Virginia — Mrs. Dalloway
Zauner, Michelle — Crying in H Mart
