The Best Books I Read Last Year

A look back at 2023.

Last time I wrote this newsletter I had a little over 200 subscribers and three days later over 1000. This is both mind-blowing and exciting (!), and I’m really thrilled to meet you all here (hopefully!) once a week. Additionally, a not-insignificant number of you chose to pay to read this newsletter which I happily relayed to my dad, who once told me that I should perhaps pursue a steadier form of employment like teaching or speechwriting¹. He was thrilled to hear it. On the topic of paid! I do have the paid option enabled (currently $5 a month and $50 a year), and for those who choose to support this newsletter financially, I am eternally grateful. It’s an investment in good book content, but also in me as a writer and that means the world. As far as content mix and what percentage of this newsletter will be paid and free moving forward, my plan is that book roundups, monthly reading check-ins and some book reviews will be free, while the deeper, critical close reads and essays will be paid. That should kick in around mid-February, but for now, everything will be free to read. And when I do make the shift, I will let everyone know.

Okay onto this week’s post. Last year I read 25 books, a ways off from my initial goal of 40—down from the previous year’s goal of 50 and adjusted mid-year from 45. Nonetheless, I’m proud of my stats, because reading is not a competition, except for when it is. I’m currently trying to stay on pace with my close friend turned reading rival, Carrie, who became a voracious reader seemingly overnight (rude!). According to Storygraph, I ended the year 60 percent of the way to goal and even though I read fewer books than anticipated a lot of them were very good (I rated nearly half of the books above 4.25) which makes up for the fact that there weren’t very many. This was also the year I learned how to DNF², so there are a few half-read books around my house waiting for me to pick them back up. My 2024 reading goals are essentially the same, with a few small tweaks. This year I want to read the books already on my shelf. I love a new release (2023 was a crazy good year for books) and I tend to get swept up in the new when there’s lots of incredible stuff that I already own. I’m also trying to read more nonfiction. With both those things in mind, I’m happy to announce I’m off to a good start. My first read of the year was NF and already on my bookshelf—was Anansi’s Gold by Yepoka Yeebo, a deeply-researched book about the Oman Ghana Fund, a decades-long con that took place all over the world. It’s twisty and reads like fiction. As far as numbers goals go, I’m aiming for 30 books, five more than 2023. Unless Carrie is also trying to read 30, in which case I’ll aim for 31.

Below are last year’s favorites, in no particular order.

A note: I’m using my Bookshop affiliate link for these, so if you purchase through the link I might earn a commission.

What Napoleon Could Not Do by Dk Nnuro

What Napoleon Could Not Do is about so many things: family expectation, personal ambition, and the validity of the American Dream (and whether it’s a worthy pursuit in the first place). It opens with Jacob, who has been trying to emigrate from Ghana to the US for the better part of a decade. He’s trying to get to his wife Patricia, who he’s never met in person. When we meet him, it is on the day of his divorce. This is in stark contrast to his sister Belinda, who has managed to move to America and marry rich, though that’s not all it’s cracked up to be either. It’s a book broken up into three perspectives, Jacob, Belinda, and Belinda’s husband, which functions as an interesting triptych. There’s the man who’s trying to reach his goals but cannot, the woman who has achieved her goals but is struggling with her life, and the man who seemingly has everything, but is still Black in America, and we all know how fucked up that can be.

Hope by Andrew Ridker

Hope is the book I expected Pineapple Street to be. It’s the funniest thing I read last year—I alternated between giggling and outright laughing every few pages. It’s the story of a well-to-do family in Brookline, Massachusetts that is completely upended when the patriarch does something illegal. But even before we get to this pivotal shift, it’s obvious that this is a family on the brink of dissolution, even if they don’t know it.

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington is a master of sparse prose. With Washington, you come for the food descriptions and matter-of-factness and stay for the inevitable moment when you’re looking at the book and saying, ‘aw,’ at how tender and gentle they can be with one another. It all really works. Family Meal follows Cam, a man who’s generally adrift after the loss of his partner. He finds solace in a childhood friend with whom he has a strained relationship, the reason for this is revealed as the book unfolds.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

It’s rare to see friendship and all its textures depicted on the page (never mind well) and O’Donoghue nails this in The Rachel Incident. It follows Rachel, who’s working in a bookstore when she meets James, a man who becomes the object of her affection and her best friend. Her love for him is all-consuming and entirely platonic. The two forge a life together and the book follows them growing up alongside each other. I really enjoyed this one, especially the dialogue, which was quippy and fun and made all of the interactions feel lived-in and warm. It was a quick read toward the back half of the year and got me out of a reading slump that seemed to go on for months—I DNFed three books in as many weeks—and I’m looking forward to whatever O’Donoghue comes out with next.

Wellness by Nathan Hill

I wasn’t initially sold on this thick tome by Nathan Hill, which is supposedly about the love story of a couple but is really about mediocrity and whiteness and gentrification and middle age. It’s a portrait of a marriage, an advanced one, a settled one, and a deep dive into the psyche of two people I believed to be varyingly unwell. It’s also a bit slow, but there’s a moment if you can hang on until around 250 pages in, where it all comes together and then you’re good until the end. True story: I hit that midway point and said holy shit so loud, my fiancé came in to check on me. If you’re not sold on the 200-pages-until thing, please direct your attention to the below.

A text exchange between me and Carrie

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

Land of Milk and Honey asks a big question: what to do with ambition at the end of the world? Things are bleak for the book’s narrator, who has dreams of being a chef even though there’s practically no food. Smog has overtaken the planet, killing the crops and making food resources scarce. People survive on mung protein sludge as supplies continue to dwindle. The main character then gets a job in a billionaire compound colony that’s flush with the fanciest food imaginable (great food descriptions here also) and has aspirations to build a haven far away from the realities below. The circumstances are ripe for tension and intrigue and the book delivers that in spades. It has everything: class warfare, rich people behaving badly, a lesbian love affair, a cantankerous cat. Absolutely a favorite read of the year.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez 

This is another book about rich people behaving badly but with a supernatural and culty twist. Our Share of Night is about a shadowy group of wealthy Argentinians who are obsessed with immortality and will do anything to attain it. Here we follow Juan, a medium-like vessel that turns into a long-clawed spirit during seances and his son Gaspar, who he’s trying to protect from the forces that want him to take Juan’s place. It’s a long, compelling read, and is the kind of book you can settle into for a few days (or weeks). Enriquez’s prose is smooth, aided by Megan McDowell’s³ translation.

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Crosby

S.A. Crosby writes perfect novels. He’s a crime noir master and has a knack for perfect pacing and tight plot. This novel follows a detective in a small southern Virginia town that’s plagued by a serial killer. The sheriff of the town, Titus, is Black, and struggling to do his job amidst racist town folk, rising tensions, and a harrowing shared history. It’s the third novel of his I’ve read (my all-time favorite is Blacktop Wasteland) and solidified Crosby as an auto-buy author for me.

Francisco by Allison Mills Newman

Newman’s prose is energetic and has a poetic quality that’s compulsively readable. Originally published in the 70’s, the work remains relevant and exciting. I love the opening lines: “I got up at eleven this mornin’ after laying around, rollin round in the bed, hugging round in the bed with this friend of mine. I say friend cause I ain’t heard him qualify the relationship yet.” Even in the 70’s, boys were on BS! But in that brief intro, I learned so much about Allison the character. That she’s pleasure-seeking but also levelheaded and self-aware. It sets the tone for Francisco, which follows Allison from sceney industry parties to friends’ houses all over California as she navigates loving a man who is married to his work and figures out who she is in the process.

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

A psychologist’s transcriber falls in love with one of the patients. That’s the basic premise of Big Swiss, which is delightful and fun and packed with unhinged characters I’d happily read more of. I devoured this one and found myself smiling at Beagin’s sharp, observant writing. There’s a lot going on, and a compelling but slightly absurd premise, which could’ve easily gone off the rails but remains firmly in Beagin’s grasp. There’s a funky bit toward the end (similarly to Vladimir, I think books like this find it difficult to be very good in the last 15 percent) but I forgave that because I liked the rest of it so much. It was my most recommended book of the first half of 2023, and as of writing this, no one has reported back to tell me they didn’t thoroughly enjoy the read.

And that’s all for now! What books did you read last year and love? Or, what are you reading at the moment? I’d love to know.

1. My dad has since become my biggest cheerleader and fan. On the day Homebodies came out, he personally called all the Barnes and Noble’s in the area to make sure they were fully stocked. He’s also been known to wear a Homebodies t-shirt and keeps a copy of the book on his desk at work.

A screenshot of a text conversation from last week

2. Book-speak for did not finish.

3. McDowell is an exceptional translator and is responsible for one of my favorite short story collections of all time—Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes. She specializes in Latin American authors, and so far, she hasn’t missed.