After an eight year hiatus and more than a few personal changes, here’s (most of) what I read in 2023.
Nonfiction first. 2023 had much less nonfiction than some years as I found it harder to engage with. I did enjoy How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community by Mia Birdsong despite it being about 200% more woo than my usual preference. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to build community, and I appreciated the balance of pragmatism and spirituality in her approach. If nothing else, I felt like Birdsong gave me permission to keep dorky to-do lists of people I want to see and not feel bad about it. I’ve been meaning to read Maggie Nelson and started with On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint — still mulling this one over but I appreciated it. The intersection of “good at critical theory” and “got into interesting trouble in the 90s” is a good one for me.
On a darker note, I read my former classmate Sofia Al-Khan’s combination memoir and history A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America and The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet. Both give a tour through the white supremacy culture that dominates this nation’s history, from different angles and time periods. I recommend them both, cautiously.
And then to finish off the dark note, All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell explores what it’s like to work in different death industries. Campbell is an excellent writer and journalist — many of these stories are gentle and even loving, but both Campbell and this reader have trouble navigating the visceral reality of the deaths of small children, so read with caution.
I read a fair amount of new (to me) fiction, including fun YA fantasy like H.A. Clarke’s The Scapegracers and Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller, and YA SF like Charlie Jane Anders’s trilogy conclusion Promises Stronger Than Darkness. I had a moment of “creepy Scotland” reading with Francine Pine’s Toon followed by Jenni Fagan’s beautiful short ode to the victims of historic witch hunts, Hex.
I read less fewer works this year that feel like “trans literature” than 2022, though I did read many works by trans authors. I was engaged by Paris Lees’ fictionalized memoir What It Feels Like for a Girl and Casey Plett’s collection of short stories A Dream of a Woman. In a weird way I could also include Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein — one of her less successful novels, and one where she seems to be poorly grappling with what appears to be internalized transphobia. I can’t really recommend it to anyone but Winterson completists, and trans readers should definitely tread with caution.
Other fiction read in 2023:
- The Red Scholar’s Wake – Aliette de Bodard
- Split Tooth – Tanya Tagaq
- Finches – A.M. Muffaz
- Elder Race – Adrian Tschaikovsky
- Children of Memory – Adrian Tschaikovsky
- Children of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky
- We Won’t be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories – Margaret Killjoy
- Some Desperate Glory – Emily Tesh
- Tsalmoth – Steven Brust
- The Secret History – Donna Tartt
- Wrath Goddess Sing – Maya Deane
- High Times in the Low Parliament – Kelly Robson
I also had some comfort re-reads, including Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, William Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy, and the first three of Zelazny’s Amber novels.
In graphic novels, the standout Zoey Thorogood’s memoir It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth. Absolutely the best new writer and artist in the medium, just shockingly creative visuals and painfully honest writing.
Other graphic novels included:
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands — Kate Beaton
- Something is Killing the Children: Volumes 1-3 — James Tyrion IV, Werther Dell’edera, Miquel Muerto
- Incredible Doom 2 — Matthew Bogart and Jesse Holden
- Thieves — Lucy Bryon
- Finder: Third World — Carla Speed McNeil
- Bolero — Wyatt Kennedy & Luana Vecchio
- Fatale: Volume 5 — Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
- Die: Volume 4 — Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans
- Monstress: Volume 7 — Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
- Best of 2000 AD Volumes 1, 2, and 3 — Various authors and artists
In 2024 I’m hoping to re-engage with more nonfiction, and continue my slow amble through contemporary trans literature.
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