I read nearly one hundred books in 2023. Before you start planning my ticker tape parade, I should mention that they weren’t all War and Peace. [Editor’s note: None of them were War and Peace.]
With that disclaimer, here are some I really liked:
Mysteries
II wasn’t even aware of the Slow Horses books by Mick Herron until Disney+ televised the first book with Gary Oldham.
They definitely fit my definition of a good mystery series:
- the books are the same but with slight differences (picking up the next book is like bumping into an old friend on the street);
- a singularly unique lead character, in this case the MI5 agent Jackson Lamb, kind of a cross between Jabba the Hut and Han Solo.
One caveat: read these books in order. Mick Herron is ready, willing, and able to kill off a recurring character or two at any moment.
Another good, slightly more lighthearted mystery series is Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club
This is a set of retirees (and associates) that pool their unique talents to solve cold cases. A little bit of Agatha Christie / Miss Marple for the 21st century.
Currently there are only four books in this series, so here is hoping Richard Osman stays motivated, healthy, and prolific.
Free advice to mystery writers: Don’t die. I was in my library and decided to pick up a Susan Grafton book. There weren’t any. Not A is for Alibi, not M is for Malice, not Y is for Yikes they took all her books off the shelves! Libraries are capricious and fortune favors the living!
Highfalutin
I really enjoyed Madeline Miller’s reimagining parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey from the perspective of minor characters.
These two books, The Song of Achilles and Circe, somehow remain loyal to Homer and modern at the same time. And they’re both page turners!
Now if only she would do the same for Ulysses by James Joyce – yet another book I can’t seem to get to the end of!
One Day Read
Nobody does melancholy like the Irish and this is quintessentially Irish.
Foster by Claire Keegan is a novella about a young girl from a poor family sent to spend the summer at a relative’s farm, and a reminder that both joy and sorrow are fragile things.
They made a movie based on this book called The Quiet Girl which is also good but lacks some of the punch. Two hour read but leaves an impact.
Non-Fiction
I don’t read much non-fiction. I get most of mine from podcasts, online magazines, and newspapers. [Editor’s Note: those are probably non-fiction; these days the line can be pretty fine.]
But I really liked The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski, best baseball writer not named Roger Angell or Tom Boswell. He’s definitely preaching to the choir – if you don’t like baseball he won’t change your mind. But if you do, this book is full of delights!
Books I recommend every year
I can only remember two books where I finished them and then immediately started rereading them. One was The World According to Garp by John Irving and the other was The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall.
You have to plow through the first couple of chapters of this book (they’re a little, um, scatological) but you’ll soon find yourself immersed thereafter.
I love the opening line: “If I could tell you only one thing about my life it would be this: when I was seven years old the mailman ran over my head!”
Take Two is a crackling good yarn a coming of age story a book written by me!
If you haven’t read it, you should. And if you have read it, you should read it again!
