My best books of 2023 (and other distinctions)

I read 50 books this year. It’s a nice amount of books. My favorites from this year are:

Dracula, by Bram Stoker. An absolutely bonkers good time. I have read this book before but this time around was just so much fun.

The Man Who Died Twice, by Richard Osman. I have really enjoyed this series. There’s murder here, but also wit and joy and a delightful cast of characters.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, by Lucette Lagnado. Some books feel like they were written for YOU, yes YOU, and this was one of mine this year. It spoke to every part of my soul.

Good for a Girl, by Lauren Fleshman. Another “just for me” book that helped me understand myself just a little bit better.

Viking Sallyn Veriteko, by Tuomas Rimpiläinen. This was a challenging read for me (it’s in Finnish) but it was everything I wanted to know about this case that I’m obsessed with! The author had a lot of local knowledge so I learned a lot about Turku’s recent history along the way.

Other distinctions:

Repeat reads: This year a relatively high proportion (20%) of the books I read were at least for the second time. I re-read Say Nothing, One of Us, The Indifferent Stars Above, Guest House for Young Widows, the Graceling series books 1-4, A Tale of Two Cities, and Dracula.

Worst cover: Book covers tend to be very good these days! No complaints this year.

Best cover: I mean just look at the cover for Bad Bridget.

Worst title: Hunting the Falcon. “What?”

Best title: The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. “The WHAT? Be right back, need to read this book immediately.”

Logorrhea books: Viking Sallyn Veriteko (I basically described the whole book to my mom in a series of emails as I read the book); Two Sisters by Åsne Seierstad; Young Queens by Leah Redmond Chang (Jeremy was trapped in a car on a road trip with me for a couple of hours while I told him the life story of MQOS).

I don’t keep track of book similarities/coincidences anymore but I did notice that two books I read back-to-back had the following things in common: a character on dialysis, hiding in a storage closet as a plot point, a character named Ortiz, and journaling being important to the story. The two books were Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez and All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir.