Year in Review - 2023

We find ourselves here again at the end of another year, wishing I had spent more time reading. Is there ever enough? No, probably not. But this year I especially slacked thanks to lots of tangents into various genres, and a lot less mental energy than ever before. That’s dad life!

The obvious explanation this year is…babies are hard! Or if not hard, they require a lot of time and attention. And when you aren’t keeping your eyes on them, you are keeping them closed because you’re so damn tired. All of that eased as the first year went on, but that still didn’t really translate too well with my reading hours. Oh well.

This was a funny year in books for me (which is starting to feel like a pattern). Looking through the list, I can’t help but notice that most of it screams, “I’m a dad now!” I read basically what felt interesting in the moment, and that led to bouncing around a lot. But there seemed to be a common theme: lots of men dealing with momentous circumstances of responsibility. Multiple historical figures and polymaths. A classical hero, an unexpected prince, an astronaut making a groundbreaking discovery. A grieving father, a perplexed author, and the many, many men suffering from an unfair justice system. All that, plus three parenting books. Most of these were not premeditated picks — I promise — but aren’t too surprising as a bunch.

Even though many of these felt right at the time I started, it was a very up and down year in terms of quality and enjoyment. Lots of hard truths and existential dread, many hard-to-sit-through bummers. Maybe taking on so much nonfiction was the problem. It just doesn’t propel me forward like fiction does. But I did learn some incredible things about history and society in general, and of course, fatherhood. Things I could only get from this string of books. I have no regrets — and funnily enough, most of my highest ratings were the nonfiction ones! — but it’s probably time for some more fun-fun reads next year.

The stats this year are pretty disappointing. The lowest in pages and books total in ten years, and the years before 2013 don’t really count since most of my reads were school-related and that was the year I basically started my personal reading. I averaged a 4.2 rating, which isn’t surprising with such a low book count and lots of incredible tales, including 6(!) legit non-parenting book five stars. Yet, there were still some I wanted to throw out the window. In many ways, the motto this year seemed to be “the highs are high, and the lows are low.”

Because I can’t narrow it down, the highlights of the year are all the five stars. Those are:

A Heart That Works

The New Jim Crow

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

The Invention of Nature

The Song of Achilles

And the best book of 2023, a harder decision than I’ve had in a while, is:

AMERICAN PROMETHEUS

It’s just so massive in its scale. At times thrilling, gut-wrenching, and beautiful. I don’t know if I’ll ever read another biography this grand, and it may even give a lot of fiction a run for its money. It definitely outdid the movie in my opinion. Never thought I’d choose a nonfiction read as the year-end winner but here we are! The rest could honestly all be tied for second. I didn’t plan to read most before the year started, but I left each so happy to have read them, all for reasons of their own.

I wrote in last year’s review I was hoping 2023 would see me reading more of what I felt like reading with some parenting and 52+2 books thrown in, and I basically did just that. But I think 2024 should be more about the fun ones. Not the 700 page biographies or any more Stephen King. I let a lot of good habits fall off a cliff this last year out of convenience, but 2024 is the year to get back on track. I’d really like to break a reading record again, in a good way. I think it’s doable as long as I don’t get in my own way. But if my daughter starts walking soon, I may be even busier than before.