Reading Year in Review

What I read in 2023, including my top 5 new reads

The Yellow Books by Van Gogh

I love reading end of the year reviews of favorite books. As late December and early January roll around, the articles and podcasts start coming in, and my TBR list grows dramatically. Because I love reading the lists, I also enjoy making them myself. I've been mentally writing mine for weeks now, and finally have the chance to put it down in writing. So, without further ado, here's quite possibly the latest 2023 review post you'll read. 

I read a total of 47 books last year, of which 16 were books I had read before (some not since childhood!) I started out the year with Jane Austen's Persuasion, a book I read for the first time only three years ago but have already read three times. My last book of the year was also a reread: Milne's Winnie the Pooh. In truth, I probably heard that book a good five times through and bits and pieces of it many many more times, because it is my kids' favorite audiobook at the moment. That's okay though, I consider it to be the very best in children's literature, right up there with the Chronicles of Narnia. Unlike many children's chapter books, it can stand up to being played on repeat, and it's so fun to hear the children going around singing Pooh's hums.

When thinking about my top five reads in a year, I never include the rereads as possibilities since that would make the lists pretty sterile and same (I'm always rereading favorite books). That being said, there were a few rereads that deserve a mention. At the end of the year I finished my second read of the Iliad with my classics book club and it was unbelievably good. It's hard for a book you already love to improve so much, but this one really did. What made it especially memorable was reading Sutcliffe's Black Ships Before Troy aloud to Gwen at the same time, and thus thinking about it nearly constantly and getting to have so many fun conversations about it with her, with book club, and with anyone else who would listen. This year I also read the first three Narnia books to the kids, and it was such fun to introduce them to the stories and see them experience the whole thing for the first time. And speaking of C. S. Lewis, I also reread the Space Trilogy with the Close Reads podcast, which was absolutely a highlight of the year, and Mere Christianity with my cousin book club, which provided us with hours of great discussion every week. Finally, I also reread The Silmarillion this year, after not having read it in quite some time, and I was amazed at how moving and powerful and just so good it was. The Silmarillion always gets a bad rap for being hard and long and dry, but I am here to say that it is being undersold by this. It's much better to think of it as mythic, something that will require more attention than a novel, but will be no harder to read than Homer or other myths, and no less powerful. I unashamedly love it.

This brings us to the 30 new books of the year. A few of these were good, but not terribly memorable (e.g. Elantris, The Scarlet Letter), a few I didn't like at all, (e.g. The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, The Netanyahus), and many just lay somewhere in the middle, being good but not good enough to make the running for the top spot. But I did have a few that vied for the top and didn't make it, and so I'll start with those honorable mentions:

The Great Passion by James Runcie. This is a fictional story of a young boy in the chorus at St. Thomaskirche under the great J. S. Bach. There was a lot of sadness in this book, and a lot of beauty, and the depictions of the Bach family were just beautiful. The thing that held it back from me were the portions that were heavy on theology but didn't feel true to Lutheranism. If you aren't Lutheran and you aren't as familiar with Lutheran theology, this might not bother you, but with all of Bach's work being so tied to Lutheranism, this really stuck out to me and held it back from being a full five star read. Nevertheless, this book is appearing on the Close Reads roster for 2024 and I'll definitely be rereading it eagerly. 

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. This was such a riveting and interesting mystery, despite it being about a detective on bedrest who simply is trying to solve a mystery about King Richard III from reading historical accounts. Sounds boring, but was actually so interesting and so well done, and I went down a big King Richard rabbit hole after reading this. 

The Liberal Arts Tradition by Kevin Clark, Ravi Scott Jain. This was the best of the education books I read this year and it almost made the top five. It had so many rich and practical thoughts on Classical education, especially on math and science which tend to get the short end of the stick in Classical ed discussions. For those who want to dig in deep into the world of Classical education, this would be a great place to start (and much easier than Norms and Nobility).

A few more quick mentions: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was so well written and so good, despite being about absolutely horrible circumstances. Galbraith's latest installment in the Cormoran Strike series, The Running Grave, was, I think, her second best to date, and was unputdownable. Ashlee Gadd's Create Anyway was a helpful and inspiring read for me, a mom of many littles who wants to keep up with all her creative work but also struggles with lots of questions like "why bother?" and "how do I even fit this in?"

That brings us, finally, to my top 5 reads of 2023: 

The Sinking City by Christine Cohen. This is a new book, written for younger audiences, but it was so well crafted that it stuck in my head for months. It's been almost a year since I read it, and I still remember vividly some of the scenes, and how great of a reading experience it was. It takes place in Venice, and getting to visit Venice myself not long after reading this surely increased my appreciation for the book, but even if you've never been to Venice yourself, let this book take you on a trip there. It's got magic, mystery, high stakes, great characters, and a perfect setting. You are missing out if you don't read it.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. This was the year that Nick read most of the available Brandon Sanderson books, and he has been eager for me to share in them also. This was the first one I read, and I really loved it. It had such a heist-movie type feel to it, while also being in a well developed fantasy world with a lot of dystopian overtones (and a few fairy tale themes as well). The meshing of all these genres was so unexpected and fun for me, and the characters were really well drawn. I really loved reading this one, and while in my estimation the other two in the series don't quite live up to this first one, I would still definitely recommend it as a fun read when you have some free time for binge reading (it's pretty hard to put this one down).

Love What Lasts by Joshua Gibbs. I am a big fan of Joshua Gibbs' writing, even where I disagree with it. It's provocative and counter-cultural and sure to rile you up while also make you rethink your own assumptions. This was an excellent book about a topic I think about all the time, namely what makes some art better than other art? Is beauty objective or subjective? Can your personal taste be good or bad? Is beauty worth the cost? This book provides some compelling answers to these questions, and challenges you that the things that you like that are easy to like may not actually be good for your soul. As someone involved in making art, enjoying art, and participating in art, I know I'll be returning to this book many times in the future. 

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. When we started this book in my classics book club, we had no idea that we would all come to absolutely love it. It was so funny! It was so thought provoking! It was such a good story! I was thinking about this book for months (a good sign). It cynically looked at the modern world, while also poking constant fun at the old romantic world. It raised questions about sanity, madness, history, myth, morality, virtue, fiction, and even the value of reading books. All of this while being such a surprisingly easy (and did I mention hilarious) read. I can't wait to get back to this one and discuss it again.

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. I came late to this book, after hearing it recommended by many people for a few years. I read it with the Close Reads podcast, and while I expected to like it after hearing such rave reviews, it turns out I wasn't at all prepared for it. First of all, this is a deeply sad story. About halfway through the book I wasn't even sure I was gonna make it through. And yet there were also some parts that made me laugh out loud. The turn in the second half of the book was so powerful and made the book breathtaking and redeemed all the sad and hard parts. There's not a lot you can say about the book without giving it away, the unfolding of the story is part of the perfect experience of the book, so I will just leave you with this exhortation: if you read one of the books in my top five this year, it should be this one. I think it's a book that all readers will enjoy.