2023 reading list

Let’s try this again. Last year was an abysmal failure, so we’re back on the 72-book goal.

Updates

  • 1/27/23: I discontinued the TBR list last year, but am reinstating it this year because for some reason I’m feeling good. This year’s TBR is mostly rereads, in keeping with my 2023 goals. Books are listed in alphabetical order by author surname, and will be crossed out as I finish them.
  • 1/30/23: lol I keep adding new books somebody stop me
  • 7/24/23: I’m throwing in the towel for the R.F. Kuang books this year. I just really am not feeling them right now, particularly as the Poppy War series was a frustrating read the first time. This is going to be a next-year project. And I feel like it’s ridiculous to be saying this when we’re still only halfway through the year, but I have added The Count of Monte Cristo to the TBR out of sheer optimism. We’ll see if I actually have time for it this year or not.
  • c. 9/16/23: Date inexact because somehow my recording mania deserted me, but I realized sometime between 9/16 and 9/18 that I had read 65 books, and therefore upped my goal to 82 to compensate for the 10 mangas.
  • 10/7/23: Found Black Butler 32 at BN and raised the goal to 83.
  • 10/17/23: Today I hit book #72, which if I hadn’t gone and upped the goal to 83 would’ve finished off my challenge for this year. :’)
  • 11/10/23: Raising the goal to 84 to accommodate Spy x Family 10.

Currently Reading

TBR

  1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke
  2. Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth
  3. Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
  4. House of Hunger – Alexis Henderson
  5. Redwall series – Brian Jacques
  6. Demon Copperfield – Barbara Kingsolver
  7. Pachinko – Min Jin Lee
  8. Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
  9. The Marriage Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell
  10. The Lost Queen – Signe Pike
  11. The Forgotten Kingdom – Signe Pike
  12. Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  13. Fevered Star – Rebecca Roanhorse
  14. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab
  15. Heart of the Sun Warrior – Sue Lynn Tan
  16. Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor
  17. Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor
  18. The Ghost Bride – Yangsze Choo
  19. The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
  20. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Finished

  1. Galatea – Madeline Miller
  2. Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) – Alexandra Petri
  3. Elektra – Jennifer Saint
  4. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
  5. Three Souls – Janie Chang
  6. The Snow Hare – Paula Lichtarowicz
  7. Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
  8. The Marriage Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell
  9. The Traitor Baru Cormorant – Seth Dickinson
  10. Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
  11. Ordinary Monsters – J.M. Miro
  12. The Curse of Chalion – Lois McMaster Bujold
  13. Fractured Fairy Tales – A.J. Jacobs
  14. Three Plays: Once in a Lifetime/You Can’t Take it With You/The Man Who Came to Dinner – George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
  15. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (B&N Special Edition) – Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  16. The Great Passage – Shion Miura
  17. Spy x Family 9 – Tatsuya Endo
  18. Black Butler 31 – Yana Toboso
  19. Redwall – Brian Jacques
  20. The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
  21. Mossflower – Brian Jacques
  22. Swordheart – T. Kingfisher
  23. Mattimeo – Brian Jacques
  24. Defenestrate – Renée Branum
  25. White Chrysanthemum – Mary Lynn Bracht
  26. The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True – Sean Gibson
  27. Mariel of Redwall – Brian Jacques
  28. Salamandastron – Brian Jacques
  29. The Bone Shard Daughter – Andrea Stewart
  30. Martin the Warrior – Brian Jacques
  31. Daughter of the Moon Goddess – Sue Lynn Tan
  32. A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes
  33. Heart of the Sun Warrior – Sue Lynn Tan
  34. The Bellmaker – Brian Jacques
  35. Outcast of Redwall – Brian Jacques
  36. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab
  37. The Bone Shard Emperor – Andrea Stewart
  38. Pearls of Lutra – Brian Jacques
  39. Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America – Audrey Clare Farley
  40. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  41. The Long Patrol – Brian Jacques
  42. Nimona – ND Stevenson
  43. The Bone Shard War – Andrea Stewart
  44. Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse
  45. Marlfox – Brian Jacques
  46. Fevered Star – Rebecca Roanhorse
  47. The Legend of Luke – Brian Jacques
  48. Lord Brocktree – Brian Jacques
  49. Taggerung – Brian Jacques
  50. Chobits 1 – CLAMP
  51. The Ghost Bride – Yangsze Choo
  52. Chobits 2 – CLAMP
  53. Chobits 3 – CLAMP
  54. Triss – Brian Jacques
  55. Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth
  56. Chobits 4 – CLAMP
  57. Chobits 5 – CLAMP
  58. Chobits 6 – CLAMP
  59. Chobits 7 – CLAMP
  60. Chobits 8 – CLAMP
  61. Loamhedge – Brian Jacques
  62. The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
  63. Rakkety Tam – Brian Jacques
  64. Odder – Katherine Applegate
  65. High Rhulain – Brian Jacques
  66. Eulalia! – Brian Jacques
  67. I Await the Devil’s Coming – Mary MacLane
  68. Doomwyte – Brian Jacques
  69. Black Butler 32 – Yana Toboso
  70. The Sable Quean – Brian Jacques
  71. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins
  72. The Rogue Crew – Brian Jacques
  73. House of Hunger – Alexis Henderson
  74. Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree
  75. Shady Hollow – Juneau Black
  76. Spy x Family 10 – Tatsuya Endo
  77. Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree
  78. Cold Clay – Juneau Black
  79. Mirror Lake – Juneau Black
  80. The Dark Lantern – Gerri Brightwell

DNF

  1. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) – DNF’d 2/3/23 on page 37. I know I asked for this for Christmas, but I really do not have the energy.
  2. Skull Water (Heinz Insu Fenkl) – DNF’d 4/28/23 on page 16. I’m slightly bored and I’ve lost all interest in the synopsis, to the point where I’m wondering why I picked it up in the first place. Of course, it doesn’t help that I tried to read it right after I finished White Chrysanthemum.
  3. Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo) – DNF’d 6/3/23 on page 58. I was thinking I’d at least try to make it to page 100, but then I peeked ahead to see if it would be worth even trying. It wasn’t. The writing is good and the story and world are interesting, so I’m not really sure why I have been so reluctant to read this book, though it’s probably because I don’t like Kaz much.
  4. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke) – DNF’d 11/30/23 on page 74. I really enjoy the dry English humor and the subtle ironies woven into Mr Norrell’s adventures in London, but I am so bored and this thing is like 1,000 pages long with multi-paragraph footnotes. Even though I wanted to read this in advance of reading R.F. Kuang’s Babel, which was written as a rebuttal to Strange & Norrell, at this point it’s taken me a month to get to page 74 and I honestly don’t think I’ll get anything out of this book even if I do finish it. Too bad, so sad. This one’s going in the unhaul box.