2023 in books
on the things I've read this year
Do excuse the indulgent nature of this additional post; I can’t let the year turn without a look back at my reading, a habit I’ve had for the last wee while. I hope you might get some recommendations from it too.
I usually write this with a coffee and a mince pie, knowing that the latter is about to be whisked away from me for another year. This year, I’m writing it with a glass of red wine and a veggie ragu on the stove (I’ve a friend’s teenager staying and we’re making lasagne). This year, there are the horrors of the last (almost) three months on my mind, making everything feel trivial and ridiculous. But ritual keeps us moving forward, reminding us what’s important as we look into the next year. And quite frankly, I don’t know what to do with myself if we don’t keep on keeping on.
Compiling this list reminds me, perpetual forgetter, where I read these books: High-Rise in the house of my best friends, a house they built with their own hands then sold this year as their family grew; Manifestly Haraway in the upstairs desk area of Gladstone’s Library; My Brilliant Friend at the side of a pool in Sifnos; A Thread of Violence by the fire pit at Moniack Mhor; Woman at Point Zero on the downstairs sofa of the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora in Accra, Ghana. It maps my last year, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve spent it with. It brings back the months—quite incredible ones, this year—that have, as always, flown by.
Many good pals have had books out in 2023—or have books due for release in 2024The indomitable Kirsty Logan had not one but two books out; Now She is Witch, a sumptuous witchy queer revenge quest, and The Unfamiliar, a lush and honest memoir about the road to becoming parents when you are a same-sex couple. Alice Slater’s ridiculously enjoyable ‘horrible little book’ Death of a Bookseller went straight into the bestseller charts with its snails and its grimness and its unpaid endorsement for Strongbow Dark Fruits. Thirsty Animals by Rachelle Atalla is an unputdownable thriller about a Scotland running out of water, Rodge Glass studied one of our most talented contemporary novelists in Michel Faber and Anahit Behrooz’s BFFs was one of my favourite nonfiction book of the year, all about the radical power of female intimacy. Those who’ve long been waiting for the excellent Lynsey May to release her debut novel got a treat with Weak Teeth, and Martin MacInnes made it onto the Booker longlist with the incredible In Ascension (which made me cry). Camilla Grudova brought us her much-anticipated second collection The Coiled Serpent and managed to combine custard and semen retention in the way only she can.
A good chunk of the books on the list below were research reading for my first nonfiction book, which is coming out in March 2024 as part of the 404 Ink Inklings series. It’s called Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and Failed Promises of Capitalism and you can pre-order it here. This is to say: I absolutely do not endorse all the things in all of these books, but I took so much, personally as well as intellectually, from two books in particular: Radical Intimacy by Sophie K. Rosa and Tomorrow Sex Will be Good Again by Katherine Angel.
In general it’s been a great nonfiction year. I discovered Annie Ernaux (thanks to Fitzcarraldo’s new editions of her work) and revisited Susan Sontag with Regarding the Pain of Others, her book on our responses to images of horror (an early 2023 reading choice that, it turns out, was horribly prescient). Becoming Beauvoir by Kate Kirkpatrick was a great look at a fascinating philosopher, and No Choice by Becca Andrews went deep into the history—and present—of abortion rights in America. A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell and The Observable Universe: An Investigation by Heather McCalden were very different but equally brilliant reads, the first about a Dublin murderer and our relationship to sensationalised stories, and the latter a nonlinear exploration of AIDS, the internet and the writer’s personal losses. Gathering: Women of Colour on Nature by Various is due out with 404 Ink early next year, and I really enjoyed the essays within, particularly the one by Alycia Pirmohamed.
Fiction wise, I particularly loved Boulder by Eva Baltasar and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, trans. Ann Goldstein—my first, but definitely not the last, Elena Ferrante book. I had the great privilege of an early read of The Great When: A Long London Novel (The Long London Quintet, #1), the first book in a new series about ‘murder, madness, and magic in post-WWII London’ by Alan Moore, and having enjoyed Brontez Purnell’s short fiction so much I dove into his debut novel Since I Laid My Burden Down and was not disappointed. I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning by Keiran Goddard is out in February, and it’s one of the most tender and compelling novels about working class hometowns that I’ve read. And finally, she needs no introduction, but Private Rites by Julia Armfield is going to light up the UK publishing scene in June; you can already hear rumblings of excitement if you listen hard enough (/open Goodreads for one second). Think wetter, think familial conflict, think aching queer love.
For me, this twixtmas period has involved a lot of thinking about the future; about how we can change it, how we can be within it, about complicity and complacency and freedom and language. My to-read pile is stacked with books that will challenge me and comfort me; books that will teach me how to think more critically about my place in the world and show me how things must, and could, be different.
One of my first reads of 2024 will be a book publishing in February: Namesake, by Palestinian-British author N.S. Nuseibeh and I would encourage you to read writings by Palestinian authors too. 2024 must bring freedom for the Palestinian people—not just freedom from the ongoing, devastating genocide, but freedom from occupation, from dehumanisation, from the decades of oppression they have faced. 2024 must bring change.
To you and yours, and everyone else—here’s to a better year for all.
2023 in books, in full:
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Brought to Light by Alan Moore, Joyce Brabner, Bill Sienkiewicz, Tom Yeates, Paul Mavrides & Sam Parsons
In Search of Mycotopia by Doug Bierend
The Houseguest by Amparo Dávila, trans. Matthew Gleeson & Audrey Harris
Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan
Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson
Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
Mrs March by Virginia Feito
Mothercare by Lynn Tillman
The Sky is Falling by Lorenza Mazzetti, trans. Livia Franchini
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Shy by Max Porter
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Thirsty Animals by Rachelle Atalla
BFFs by Anahit Behrooz
Playwriting: A Backstage Guide by Dan Rebellato
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia, trans. Zoë Perry
Porn: An Oral History by Polly Barton
Pessimism is for Lightweights: 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance by Salena Godden
Made in Italy: Food and Stories by Giorgio Locatelli
Fresh Dirt from the Grave by Giovanna Rivero, trans. Isabel Adey
Space Crone by Ursula K. Le Guin
Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions by Jean-Paul Sartre, trans. (I think) Philip Mairet
Rule of the Robots by Martin Ford
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Augustina Bazterrica, trans. Sarah Moses
Alien by Alan Dean Foster
The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Weak Teeth by Lynsey May
Michel Faber by Rodge Glass
She’s a Killer by Kirsten McDougall
Boulder by Eva Baltasar
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
Radical Intimacy by Sophie K. Rosa
Tomorrow Sex Will be Good Again by Katherine Angel
Abolish the Family by Sophie Lewis
In the Spirit of Spark by Ali Smith
Eunuch by Kristina Carlson, trans. Mikko Alapuro
The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps by Michel Faber
Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates
My Work by Olga Ravn
Deep Sniff by Adam Zmith
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
Happening by Annie Ernaux, trans. Tanya Leslie
Mrs S by K. Patrick
High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
Manifestly Haraway by Donna Haraway
The Xenofeminist Manifesto by Laboria Cuboniks
This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright
A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir, trans. Patrick O’Brien
Young Bloomsbury by Nino Strachey
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, trans. David Boyd and Lucy North
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Becoming Beauvoir by Kate Kirkpatrick
The Coward by Jarred McGinnes
The Years by Annie Ernaux, trans. Alison L. Strayer
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, trans. Ann Goldstein
Vehicle by Jen Calleja
Do Your Own Thing by Richard Phoenix
The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir, trans. Lauren Elkin
Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key
The Unfamiliar by Kirsty Logan
No Choice by Becca Andrews
A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell
Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell
Living with Robots by Ruth Aylett
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning by Keiran Goddard
Quinn by Em Strang
Africa’s Tarnished Name by Chinua Achebe
The Queens of Sarmiento Park by Camila Sosa Villada, trans. Kit Maude
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Seven Empty Houses by Samantha Schweblin, trans. Megan MacDowell
Illuminations by Alan Moore
The Rooftop by Fernanda Trías, trans. Annie McDermott
Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, trans. Heather Cleary
Killing the Angel in the House by Virginia Woolf
Politics of Reality by Marilyn Frye
Our Bloc: How We Win by James Schneider
Perfume by Patrick Süskind
Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
Pity by Andrew McMillan
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, trans. (I think) Sherif Hetata
Race by Toni Morrison
African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou, trans. Christine Schwartz Hartley
The Great When: A Long London Novel (The Long London Quintet, #1) by Alan Moore
From Troubled Dreams Under a Glare of Sky by Various
The Observable Universe: An Investigation by Heather McCalden
Weird Walk: Wanderings and Wonderings through the British Ritual Year by Various
The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova
Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Wintering by Katherine May
Gathering: Women of Colour on Nature by Various
Dare to Sketch by Felix Scheinberger
Love and Money, Sex and Death by McKenzie Wark
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Great list. I wish you had a sentence to write about all the books you read. Very curious to know what you thought of Moby Dick, Porn, and the McKenzie Wark.
(my list: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1610717582885281792.html)