A 202(3) Bookish Year in Review

And we’re back. Somehow, I’m sitting down for the fourth time to write my annual recap. It is customary, if not downright traditional, to lament how quickly a year passes. But even with that lens it’s a body blow how quickly time flies. The end of year, with its short days and dark nights and pinprick Christmas lights on quiet streets, is always laced with a little melancholic nostalgia. That feeling compounds for me with my birthday falling between the holidays and social media recaps flashing old pictures that I’d swear were recent, until you read the ‘you 11 years ago’ description. I say all this though with appreciation.

Most of the zeitgeist about 2023 is commentary to the tune of ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ I do get it. Wars that dominate the news (and scores more conflicts that don’t get airtime). The US presidential campaign is back into full swing, with all the deliberate wedges it includes. Rollbacks of social progress and attacks on vulnerable groups from those with power who somehow fill themselves with a manufactured righteous indignation as they wave soiled flags and claim morality. The natural world deteriorates and we collectively pretend no culpability or agency to fix it.

All of this is true. All of this was also not my focus in 2023. You still feel it, of course- and I’m privileged enough that I have the chance to view all of this from afar. But in contrast to previous years, I feel I’m bringing my head up to write this, as plugged in as I’ve felt to my day-to-day, instead of trying to come down.

I switched jobs in April and am more challenged than I have been in the entirety of my professional life. The work is complex and the hours, while not necessarily overlong, are a frenetic wave of meetings and decisions and problems and coordination. That balance of solving what I can and leaning on others and trying to be deliberate with developing my team and hoping I’m doing right by them. My son has rapidly transformed from a baby to a toddler to what is undeniably now a full-on little boy with all the wonders and demands that entails.  My brother got married and our family snuck in some travel between all the above and the day-to-day demands of life, as they are.

None of this, of course, was easy. The work, while rewarding, is exhausting, and for the first time in my career I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of office problems. My son is miraculous and I’m obsessed with watching him explore and try out new skills, but the time is draining and the days he screams or tantrums and dumps his plate of spaghetti on the floor to provoke a reaction are exhausting. I have not remotely figured out how to maintain a workout schedule under these new circumstances. Date nights with my wife, or just time to be a couple, are an uphill battle. Watching your friends get together for events you just can’t make work never gets easier. I still sleep poorly. I still, as I have my entire adult life, go through bouts of depression.

And yet- when I think back on 2023, I do so positively. In what was undoubtably a difficult year, I felt present. I feel what I did was worth doing. I found areas I wanted to be better (succeeding in some, and failing in others). I don’t look back and think it was a bad year. Let’s see if I can keep that going into 2024.

But now, after that detour- to the topic at hand. Books. Had I not been tracking via Goodreads, I might have assumed this was not a productive reading year. Yet, it was. 52 stories (which I feel is never the best KPI; some books are 150 page novellas, others are veritable encyclopedias) for nearly 23,000 pages depending on which edition you use. 48 of those were new-to-me; four were rereads (including three audiobooks I listened to with my wife on road trips or quieter nights at home). Audiobooks remain my primary method of consumption (34 of the 52); the balance were primarily physical books with a smattering of eBooks through Libby on my phone. There were some authors who are old stand bys, others who are new-to-me. Mostly fantasy but with a better mix than some years in my past. But enough stats; the full list below with rereads starred:

Unlike previous years no particular series or author jumps out as having dominated my year so instead I want to explore just a few quick ideas that popped up as I reread this list.

For Want of an Editor

I’ll start by saying I appreciate the irony given my rambling writing style but the biggest sin that kept me from enjoying certain stories this year (or, at the least, enjoying them as much) was a need for a good haircut. Two caveats to start. One, I imagine it’s brutal for an author to spend hours and days and pour sweat and tears into something only to throw out entire chapters. Two, my goal is never to yuck someone’s yum. I’m going to call out a few specific books or series here that didn’t work as well for me but may have been a treat for you. But, overlong stories I think come from three mistakes:

1. Mistaking detailing for world building. World building works best when it is in service to the story. Details should explain motivations, side characters should help the plot progress, mythologies and histories must have contemporary consequences. It’s great to love the world you built! Do what George R.R. Martin does and save that for the companion book or novella.
2. Misunderstanding of a twist. Twists are excellent. But a twist needs to be something disruptive, but plausible, that was always a possibility for your story. Introducing new characters, or expansions of the world, are critical. But the plot heading one direction only for a deus ex to change the whole situation feels a waste of time.
3. Overproving a point. Once we’ve established something, don’t keep reinforcing the concept. Once you’ve shown a scenario is dangerous, we don’t need to introduce random side characters and throw them into the grinder. It is pages without plot advancement or even emotional impact.

For the yucking the yum- a few stories this year. As much as I loved the Red Rising series, Light Bringer was a slog. It’s clear Brown wants Darrow to adopt a new path. But instead of leading us through a journey, we had exposition and meta-stories literally explained to us, interspersed with redundant battle scenes. I wrote extensively about The Faithful and the Fallen earlier, so I won’t rehash now. But my biggest offender this year was Iron Flame. I may be harsh, but given the social media hype I don’t feel quite as bad about my criticality. The first book, Fourth Wing was fine. I read plenty of ‘fine’ books, I don’t mind. I didn’t get the hype but as a friend told me, “hot boys and dragons” so nothing wrong with that. Iron Flame however, could have been cut by half and been a much more potent story. We had so many people introduced only to die. Lots of will they/won’t they through needless visits. I can’t help but wonder if the goal was to turn out a sequel as quickly as possible to capitalize on the chatter around the series and they skipped the editing step.

The Fascination and Foibles of Non-Fiction

As we have established, I mostly read fantasy/science fiction. But non-fiction serves as a wonderful palate cleanser. My original and forever love is natural sciences. One of the earliest books for which I remember having an obsession was Let’s Go Dinosaur Tracking. Published in 1991, it inspired me to answer ‘paleontologist’ when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up for the remainder of my childhood. Truthfully, that desire never faded. And so- reading The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte, with its biological narrative interwoven with anecdotes about Brusatte’s work in the field or lab, was a wonderful way to reinspire that same feeling.

Non-fiction, including the wonderfully written but oft horrifying I’m Glad my Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy, can feel personal in a way that fiction does not. But with that closeness comes the situation where your feelings on the author themselves are essential to the story. One example, Bringing Up Bebe gave me ideas to chew on when it came to parenting style, but at times my irritation with the author made me second guess the viewpoints. But no one rubbed me the wrong way as badly as Frank Mortimer, author of Bee People and the Bugs They Love. I like bees. The chapters on technical bee keeping, and learning the history and biology was eminently enjoyable. But I could not stand Mortimer himself. He was the hero in all his anecdotes, everyone else boring or stupid. He epitomized the adage that if you met an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole in the morning. But if you meet assholes all day, look in the mirror.

Let’s Get Cozy

Despite the brutalities in stories like Malazan, if I had one theme for the tail end of the year, it was cozy. Kicked off by Baldree’s Legends & Lattes, diving into a story knowing everything is going to work out at the end can be a comfort. The two stories I read by Klune, as well as Baldree’s other novel, weren’t necessarily my favorites on the year. But we don’t always need everything to be suspenseful and gritty and dark and dangerous. I found my tastes drifting away from grimdark. As undeniably well produced as was HBO’s House of the Dragon, I had enough going in my day-to-day without the outside stress.

I’ll still read my fantasy epics with character deaths and violence. I’ll still play a violent game or throw on a suspenseful show once in a while. But what made 2023 work for me was the focus on where I was needed and what I enjoyed. I’m not saying hide from the bad, but to quote Hagrid “What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.” I liked finding stories that made me cozy, or feel comfortable, as we do our best to get through everything else.

If you made it this far, thank you. It’s a treat to get to sit down for a few hours and share both a little of what’s going on in my life, and what’s on my mind.

Happy New Year to you and yours.