31 Dec // Best Books (2023)
Dec 31 2023
weather: some clouds, some chill
mood: trying
music: Bakar, "1st Time"
Dear you,
Merry happy, dear readers! I come to you, at the end of this personally exhausting and globally cruel year, trying to relax. (and, I think, intermittently succeeding?) Not sure how many of you read Anne Helen Peterson's Culture Study newsletter, but she recently wrote about vacations and why they can sometimes not be restful and that the best ones (eg most restful vacations -- different from traveling!) are often ones that involve some kind of absorption. She specifically cited reading a ton and... that was obviously up my alley in a big way. Perhaps the most restful vacation of the last several years for me was spending a week in Montana at my in-laws' cabin, when I read a book a day (because I was petrified of going anywhere else, because this was summer 2021 and COVID fears felt really really real) and came home a bit rejuvenated. This should not be surprising to you, knowing me.
So this particular holiday break, I decided to do a bit of that. I gave up on trying to finish all the last 2023 books I'd not gotten to, and mostly let myself not think about the 2024 books I'm 'supposed' to be reading in order to consider for coverage or to write Indie Next blurbs for or what-have-you. Just pleasure reading, 100%. Turns out, it is still fun -- and restorative! -- to just sit around and read all dang day! I wish I had done more of it, but I did my best and that was indeed restorative as hell. Plus, as ever, a book from the end of the year reading landed on my best-of-year list, so I'm validated once again in waiting til the year is done to write it all up.
Before we get into that, some quick personal reflections on the year:
My first story was published! It's in Issue #1 of Litt Magazine, and will hopefully be available online soon-ish. Let's see if I can't sell another couple stories to places in the new year?
I hosted/curated 50-odd events for The Golden Notebook this year, including a monthly in-person reading series and a monthly IG Live pub-day chat series. It remains tremendously fulfilling, this bookselling gig, and the thing to which I'd give all of my time if I could (by which I mean 'if I could financially survive') and perhaps someday I will.
Season Three of Voyage Into Genre is in the books -- and while listenership was down (so it was across the podcasting board in 2023), the conversations were superlative. I had such a blast with everybody this season, and if that show is capped at a trilogy... well, we went out on a high note. (We'll see if it comes back! Cross your fingers, write some iTunes reviews, etc.)
In other bookish podcast news, I curated Aesop's second season of Future Fables and managed to snag amazing fables from the likes of Caleb Azumah Nelson, Stephen Graham Jones, and Regina Kanyu Wang. Also, I'm the producer for the Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast, which is pretty fucking cool and we're gearing up for another fun season plus some bonus content coming your way in advance of the 2024 prize announcement.
I'm a contributing editor at Lit Hub now, and although that means less than I hoped/thought it might (eg it's really just that I get to add some thoughts to their round-ups and blog now and then) it also felt pretty cool to get to chime in on the Best Of and Biggest lists this year.
Stereophonic at Playwrights Horizons was the best play I've seen in many, many years -- well before leaving The Public. That and a London trip in the spring reminded me that I like theater, which was no small feat. Also, I went to London in March and that was nice. Caught the most recent Punchdrunk show as well, which did a lot of creative restoring as well.
Some damn good music this year -- Aesop Rock, Margaret Glaspy, Strange Weather, Queens of the Stone Age, The Kills, The Hives, Arthur Moon, The Mountain Goats, Kali Malone... Probably a bunch of other stuff tbh but I really have no sense of what came out when? My iPod is working again so slowly I move away from the Spotify of it all...
BEST BOOKS
Alright, let's get into it.
As ever, this is highly subjective and the odds are I've absolutely forgotten to include some things I really loved, or on another day / in another year I might've shifted some books in one direction or another. And are they "the best" or are they just "the ones I found myself thinking about most frequently"? Obviously the latter.
Not using Goodreads or any other tracker (not even a notebook) has freed me from some obsessive thinking re: my reading habits, and so I don't know exactly how many books I read this year... but I'd wager it was somewhere a bit over 200? Probably the 220s, as that has been about where I've been for the last several years.
Also, this year I went back and forth about whether or not my best of list would be delineated by 2023 books and then other books, and I decided (inspired by Lit Hub) to mix it all up. The best things I read this year, the other really good things I read this year; all regardless of pub-year. Well, that's not true: I'm keeping the 2024 hits to one side, even though two of the best books I've read in YEARS -- in a long, long time, y'all -- are 2024 reads that you'll just have to wait and hear about in the coming months.
THE LISTS
FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2023
Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (2023) -- funny, strange, polyphonic, violent, heartfelt; a gripping call for abolition, a sneaky-good look at a frankly all-too-plausible future (if you think it couldn't happen, you're simply wrong), and possessed of an ending that truly took my breath away (and made me burst out into tears).
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (2023) -- unabashedly weird, and utterly hilarious. A book about upstate feral weirdos, in a way? A terrific sex comedy, with a real heart and keen sense of honesty about relationships and how strange they can be.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (2023) -- the debut of the year for sure, perfect for folks who love Jeff VanderMeer and China Miéville but also I think it'd work for people who like Catherine Lacey and Kelly Link and Lawrence Durrell. A great fantasy-city novel, a great cults/religions novel, a great self-discovery novel... just a great fucking novel.
The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager (2019) -- I picked this up at The Lost Bookshop in Delhi, NY because I wanted to get something and the cover intrigued me. It's a slim little book, telling stories about siblings and stories over a span of centuries, following the eternal return of Halley's Comet. Daring structure, delightful results.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, tr. by Megan McDowell (2023) -- what a spectacular read this was! Scary, moving, sexy, funny, and immense. It has the epic scope of David Mitchell's best, bouncing through time and across continents, but it is more ambitious and more successfully so. Indelible images: a blackened claw of a hand with golden nails, a boy watching two men embrace, children turning in horror as a door closes somewhere else in a house...
The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green (2023) -- in the same way that Ed Yong's An Immense World changed how I saw, well, the world around me, so too does Jaime's book. I've been looking forward to this book for years and it did not disappoint, a nerdy and joyous look at what life might look like out in the stars and how we need to better understand what life means here on Earth in order to go looking.
Open Throat by Henry Hoke (2023) -- a mountain lion tries to understand humanity, in late-capitalism and full-fire-season Los Angeles. The most incisive book I read this year, when it comes to exploring the human mind, and it was about a mountain lion. What do you know?
The Skull by Jon Klassen (2023) -- loved it so much I got the skull tattooed on my forearm. Not just for children!
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (2023) -- Catherine Lacey is probably my favorite working writer? Top five for sure? Everything she writes is ambitious and iconoclastic: she wants to create on her own terms, in her own way. Biography of X is an alternate history, it's a fictional biography, it's a travelogue, it's about art and partnership and sacrifice and it is so deeply layered that I think I'll be reading it over and over for years to come.
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (2023) -- the latest-breaking 2023 release to make this list, I picked it up after the Booker win (my first attempt at his work despite my friend Will having been telling me to read Paul for years now) and ooh golly did it shred my nerves. A stirring and unputdownable look at how quickly things can go bad under fascism, how swift the move from "it can't happen here" to "what is happening?!" to "oh god, it is happening" can really be. Humane, scary, all too timely.
The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman (2023) -- probably the most overlooked book on this list, but it is so extreeeemely my shit! A group of street urchins invent immersive theater in London in 1601. Weird, playful, lightly magical, totally London, totally theatrical. If you liked A Tip for the Hangman, this is for you (and vice-versa).
Little Blue Encyclopedia (For Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante (2019) -- I so rarely go in for a blind-date-with-a-book not because I don't love the idea but because it's rare that I find something I don't already know about. But I was Atticus Bookstore Café in New Haven this fall and stumbled across one that described a book about friendship, a Twin Peaks-esque TV series, fiction bands... and I was sold. Turned out to be one of the most exceptional reads of the year. Structurally, it's an encyclopedia of the characters from said TV show, but told as a means of processing trans-ness, grief, and unrequited love for a friend who has died. A thorough delight.
There is No Antimemetics Division by QNTMn (2020) -- Mike Kelleher, who runs the Windham-Campbell Prize, stopped me after one of our podcast interviews this summer to tell me about this weird book he was reading. It intrigued me and I ordered it (despite needing to do so through Amazon) and holy shit did it intrigue me further. A fix-up of some SCP stories, it bends your brain and delivers on the action too. Smartest thriller I've read in a long time.
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (2023) -- How Tesh pulled this off... I even got to talk to her about it and I'm still in awe. It's a book about fascism and deprogramming, from the point of view of an initially infuriating space-Nazi teen. She believes she can save humanity; she learns that humanity isn't what she thinks it is. Should be required reading for everybody, these days.
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (2021) -- Speaking of fascism. This is possibly the scariest book I've ever read? I was physically shaken by this book (silly of me to read it on a mini-vacation, pool-side; Dani at one point was like "...you don't look well" and I replied, "yeah I'm... not.") in a way that I've never previously encountered. Albion is rotten to the core.
Huh, turns out there were a bunch of books dealing with fascism and injustice on this list. Something in the water?
OTHER NOTABLES 2023
These are other books I read this year that I really liked, that I was excited to press into people's hands, that I still think about a lot. All are 2023 unless otherwise noted.
Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott, Blue in Green by Wesley Brown (2022), The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, The Guest by Emma Cline, Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney, The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis, A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand, Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway, Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper (2021), Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989), The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw, Station Six by S.J. Klapecki, The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut, The Shining by Dorothea Lasky, Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter, White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link, Take What You Need by Idra Novey, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (2002, I think I'm reading this once a year at this point, it's just too fucking good not to), The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn (2022), Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia (2014), A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather, Edenville by Sam Rebelein, Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth, The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab, The Endless Vessel by Charles Soule, Spa by Erik Svetoft & trans. Melissa Bowers, Family Meal by Bryan Washington, Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig, Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, Jewel Box: Stories by E. Lily Yu, Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra & trans. by Megan McDowell (2012), Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
2024 PRE-ORDER WORTHIES
Pre-order these NOW. From your local indie bookstore. Trust me, and also thank you from all of us at indie bookstores and also all writers everywhere. The Bertino and the Link in particular have landed on my all-time favorites shelf, already.
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (Jan)
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke (Jan)
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott (Feb)
The Book of Love by Kelly Link (Feb)
The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers (Feb)
The Mars House by Natasha Pulley (Mar)
James by Percival Everett (Mar)
The Audacity by Ryan Chapman (Apr)
Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon (Apr)
Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know about the Films You're Too Scared to Watch by Emily Hughes (Sept)
Well, that's enough. Time to get back to reading, or watching, or sitting, or otherwise making merry. I hope you're all warm, well, safe, sound. 2024 is going to be a roller coaster, to say the least. May you and yours come through it safely, may we find joys and things worth celebrating, may there be bounties around every corner! Oh and if you want something in the mail on your birthday...
xo
D