(The Other) Best Reads of 2023

Notes from a paperback-loving, backlist-chasing book-lover

As we close the proverbial book on 2023, it occurs to me that, while I only drove twenty-one miles in a car last year, and flew ZERO miles (I did traverse over four-thousand miles by train and about a thousand by bus), I feel as though I’ve traveled the entire world (and beyond) through the magic of books.

One book inspired an intense Antarctic obsession after a writer took me across the Drake Passage to the bottom of the world where I watched apricot-hued clouds hover above floating glaciers while contemplating the motherhood and our impact on the climate.

In others… I crawled through a week-long blizzard during polar winter near the Arctic Circle. I languished in a submarine, swam above the Mariana Trench and flung myself near the speed of light — more than once — past the Kuiper Belt. I’ve been to art school, run with reindeer and flown with dragons. I was sentenced to death for witchcraft, led a climate revolution, hypothesized about the aliveness of a paradoxical cat, and fought greedy oil conglomerates. I’ve dodged bullets in war zones, midnight-brainstormed with Obama, and mind-melded with a pensive, gender non-binary mountain lion living in the hills of LA.

I’ve revisited the past, glimpsed — and changed — the future, mopped (real) rivers of tears from my face, experienced love, gutting loss, fiery lust, agonizing pain and simple joy of humanity through other people’s eyes and hearts, all while deepening compassion and adding to my range of perspective.

ALL OF THIS from looking at the same small set of characters in different arrangements on paper. HOW IS THAT NOT MAGIC?!

So, in the spirit of sharing, here are a few favorites (each category organized in the order I discovered them) that took me across the universe this past year:

CLIMATE FICTION

climate fiction favs from this year’s instagram posts

• The Deluge (Stephen Markley) — epic, intense, terrifying, beautiful, weirdly hopeful catapulting ride from the recent past into the near future, a must-read for anyone who straddles the line between despair and hope for a better future

• The Light Pirate (Lily Brooks-Dalton) — for those who love propulsive story, riveting characters and a subtle but absolutely gorgeous touch of magical realism

• The Last Catastrophe (Allegra Hyde) — quirky, wildly imaginative, deeply moving collection of short stories that build into the future to reveal a holistic collection full of heart

• The New Wilderness (Diane Cook) — gripping, eerie and character-based, for people who love literary fiction with a speculative twist that questions what it means to be human in an overpopulated world

SPECULATIVE FICTION

speculative favorites from my instagram

• Good Morning, Midnight (Lily Brooks-Dalton) — exquisite, mysterious, atmospheric, agonizingly gorgeous… a sweeping search to resolve regret and find belonging, identity, warmth and love, as well as the meaning of memory and the blessing — and curse — of living with “purpose”

• Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield) — sapphic, psychological, under-water trip that will leave you wondering what you just read in the best way

• In Ascension (Martin Macinnes) — spanning from the deepest waters to the farthest reaches of the universe in moody, mysterious, human and literary fashion (Booker Longlist, publishes in the US in Feb)

• This Time Tomorrow (Emma Straub) — NYC nostalgia, aimless longing, an ageless cat, time-travel, beloved character examining her life choices within the best form of escapism, wrapped in a cloak of endearing, tender humanity

• Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros) — How to Train Your Dragon meets Harry Potter… but make it very NSFW, fiercely addictive and steamy

LITERARY FICTION

a few literary favorites from my instagram

• About Grace (Anthony Doerr) — enduring story of a man coming to terms with an unusual gift, beautiful examination of character, relationships and place from the author who would go on to write All The Light We Cannot See

• Visit From the Good Squad (Jennifer Egan) — brilliant structure, characters, nuanced and interwoven storylines and unexpected deliveries of emotion… the answer to the question: Why I Read

• Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell) — for a Shakespeare-lover this re-imagined story as seen through his wife’s perspective is gorgeous, full of deep emotion and an exquisite read

• Properties of Thirst (Marianne Wiggins) — a cinematic, literary deep-dive into humanity, compassion, landscape, place, culinary arts, and water that will stick with you long after reading

• Covenant of Water (Abraham Verghese) — see Properties of Thirst, but set in India

• Leave the World Behind (Rumaan Alam) — genre-bending, character-driven story that starts as one thing and keeps evolving until you put it down and have no idea what just happened (and I *loved* the not-knowing)

• The Candy House (Jennifer Egan) — for lovers of Visit from the Goon Squad, this is a deeper dive to fill in backstory and keep discovering the power of perspective shift

• Open Throat (Henry Hoke) — one of the most innovative, imaginative novellas I’ve (ever) read: humanity as told through the eyes, ears and heart of a mountain lion living in the hills of Los Angeles

• The Great Believers (Rebecca Makkai) — character-driven, full of beautiful literary epiphanies, emotional prose and witty dialogue, this is a memorable, impactful story about finding connection across generations… a new forever favorite

• Trust (Herman Diaz) — masterful exploration of how we can be manipulated by our own preconceived notion, perspective and the power of story as seen through money and the events of the Great Depression

• How Beautiful We Were (Imbolo Mbue) — sweeping, generational narrative of exploitation and endurance, love, loyalty and family, colonialism and our connection to our environment

• Glaciers (Alexis M. Smith) — like a deep cleansing breath, this novella is a beautiful love letter to ephemera — nostalgia, memory and the delicious agony of longing

• When We Cease to Understand the World (Benjamin Labatut) — a fascinating, fiction/nonfiction-blurring, imagined examination of the inner-lives of several great scientific and mathematic minds and the emotional weight of discovery

• Greenwood (Michael Christie) — brilliant structural narrative travels with the rings of a tree through time to tell a story of family, love, the pursuit of money and protection of our environment and each other

• Burial Rites (Hannah Kent) — spellbinding prose, hauntingly atmospheric Icelandic setting and the narrative of a sympathetic “murderess” this book burned a forever bright spot into my heart

• End of Drumtime (Hanna Pylvianen) — a beautifully written, slow-burn, Finnish twist on the “mad preacher’s daughter falls for the bad-boy reindeer-herder from the wrong side of the arctic tracks” tale

• We Do What We Do in the Dark (Michelle Hart) — love, lust, loss, belonging, loneliness, marriage, estrangement, friendship, redemption, history, books, art — written beautifully and treated with tenderness and an almost melancholic adoration for the human experience

• Sirens & Muses (Antonia Angress) — big questions about art (why we create, how we value, what even is “art” and who gets to decide) examined through an emotional story of art students of varying backgrounds and financial status

• Giovanni’s Room (James Baldwin) — a brilliant study on the power of language (Baldwin’s prose!!), story, compassion and the paradox of want / repression / self-doubt / surrender and love

• Calling for a Blanket Dance (Oscar Hokeah) — brilliant structure, commanding prose that varies with each of the voices which, together, harmonize and narrate the transmutation of trauma and rage into compassion and hope

MEMOIR & NONFICTION

a few of my nonfiction & memoir favorites from my instagram

• Grace (Cody Keenan) — boundless love and respect for this intimate glimpse into the late night deadlines, caffeine-powered struggles and hard-earned triumphs of the Obama White House through the eyes of his chief speech-writer

• Hysterical (Elissa Bassist) — whip-smart, well-researched, memoir-slash-wildly poignant cultural criticism, will illicit laughter, rage and tears and should be required reading for everyone

• Tell Me Everything (Erika Krouse) — fascinating, enraging, enlightening, troubling, inspiring… it’s memoir-meets-high-stakes-private-investigation-meets-idiosyncratic-Colorado-landscape-and-sub-culture… hooked from the first page

• The Quickening (Elizabeth Rush) — Sea, sky and ice-scapes; science, discovery, and the intimacy of strangers working towards a common goal at the bottom of the world; thoughtful contemplations of birthing babies and calving glaciers… my favorite kind of memoir (and one of my favorite books of the last decade)

• A Woman in the Polar Night (Christiane Ritter) — one badass, 1930s woman’s story of surviving/adapting to the total darkness of polar winter spent traversing snow and ice to the safety near the arctic circle, full of dry humor, resilience and beauty in the secrets of this unique landscape

• On the Ice (Gretchen Legler) — read as part of my Antarctica obsession, an intimate look at the quirkiness of life at McMurdo Station through the eyes of a writer coming to grips with her sexuality and place in the world

• On All Fronts (Clarissa Ward) — Ward’s journey into journalism, she takes us bravely behind the scenes for an unflinching look at the real-time history, complexity and humanity on the front lines of several of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones (couldn’t put this one down)

• Not Too Late (Rebecca Solnit & Thelma Young Lutunatabua) — curated essays grounded in evidence, progress and hope around climate change, great for those (like me) who dance with despair on this issue

• Eve (Cat Bohannon) — the BEST kind of slow read, every page packed with fascinating backstory on how the female body has driven human evolutionary shift over 200 million years — Bohannon is a fantastic storyteller for nonfiction

It may sound silly, but putting this together reignited genuine love for the visceral experience I had traveling to each of these worlds. If you’re curious, you can find full reviews on my all-book Instagram at openbookwithlight

If you’d like to read publisher blurbs and/or purchase any of these, please check out my new virtual store-front at bookshop.org (where 10% of every purchase supports an indie bookstore of your choice… for the WIN).

Please chime in with your favorite bookish discoveries this year.

Until next time…

Cheers to all the Good Footprints we’ll make together in the 2024, my friends!