New Year's Book List

 

Here are the books, articles, etc. that I spent time with in 2023. I recommend #132, #110, #26, and #62.

1. Trees of the West - Molly Hashimoto. One artist’s take on how to depict trees. 
2. The Direction of the Wind - Mansi Shah. A free ebook in which the protagonist discovers her mother didn’t die when she was 6, but moved to Paris. Nice in being fairly realistic despite too many coincidences
3. Meru book 1 - SB Divya. Alternate Earth history. Pure humans are rare. Hard for me to remember the terminology of this universe, though the writing is very good.
4. Native Star - MK Hobson. A reread, though I’ve forgotten so much of it, it feels new.
5. Thirsty Sword Lesbians - April Kit Walsh. A queer RPG guidebook
6. Rabbits - Terry Miles. A mysterious, alternate-reality game run out of an old arcade in Seattle. Hard to put down.
7. 60 Hikes within 60 Miles, 7th edition - Paul Gerard. Doing research on future hikes.
8. The Maid’s Diary - Loreth Anne White. A free ebook. Overly dramatic with a decent twist.
9. The Rookery - Deborah Hewitt. Second in a series. I think I read the first one. I am not connecting with the protagonist. She’s too single-minded and immature.
10. Edwin of the Iron Shoes - Marcia Muller. Female hard-boiled p.i. I haven’t read her stuff before. Fortunately, the library has ebooks so I can read the series from the beginning!
    
    
    
    
11. Give Me Your Hand - Megan Abbott. An ebook the library app recommended about secrets. Don’t know if I will finish it.
12. The Talented Ribkins - Ladee Hubbard. Rambling narrative about family and belonging. Nicely done, but it moves slowly.
13. Where the Water Goes - David Owen. Life and death along the Colorado River. Written in 2017, so a little out of date as far as the current debate goes.
14.  Velvet Was the Night - Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Leonora disappears and her neighbor looks for her, as do the CIA, the KGB, and local thugs. A good romp.
15. The Goblin Emporer - Katherine Addison. A weird cross between feudal times and fringe DnD. Names are distracting in their inability to be pronounced. If you like rumor and court intrigue, you might like this. I did not.
16. Bookworm - Robin Yeatmen. A fairly horrendous tale of a woman in a loveless marriage whose husband hates that she reads.
17. A Death in the Life - Dorothy Salisbury Davis. Mystery ebook from the library. Didn’t like the heroine. Stopped reading before the end.
18. Rook - Daniel O’Malley. Reread. I forgot how good it was.
19. House of Gold - CT Rwizi. Afrofuturistic tale full of plotting, power struggles, and the search for true self not defined by assigned role.
20. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus. A woman chemist in the 1950s is transformed into a TV cooking star. Well put together, some very nice characters.
21. Index, A History of the - Dennis Duncan. A bookish adventure from medieval manuscripts to the digital age. Written by a historian, not a librarian.
22. How to Buy a DAM - MediaValet. Writing reports for work
23. DAM Survival Guide - David Diamond. Reread
24. Metadata for Content Management - David Diamond. Reread
25. The Doodle Revolution - Sunni Brown. An older book that came up in an article I was reading about how doodling helps the brain stay focused and makes people smarter. I think I once applied to work for the author...
26. You Can’t Spell Treason without Tea - Rebecca Thorne. I found a list of books recommended if one liked Legends & Lattes (which I did). This one is cozy, a tad formulaic, well-written, and just the fluff I need
27. Your Brain on Art - Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross. Using the science of neuroaesthetics to explain how the arts transform us. Fabulous.
28. Light Years from Home - Mike Chen. Yes, there is outer space and magical objects. Yet in its essence, it is a book about family and how past resentments cloud the ability to communicate in the present.
29. The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune. Magical children in a weird orphanage and the social worker is sent out to assess their situation. 
30. Writing Science in Plain English - Anne K. Greene. A reread (at least of the first chapter, I found a bookmark just after) as I try to manifest my next career.
31. The Science Writer’s Handbook - Thomas Hayden & Michelle Nijhuis eds. Everything you need to know to pitch, publish, and prosper in the digital age. Or so the subtitle claims.
32. The Art of Creative Research - Philip Gerard. Another book I’ve started before and shelved unfinished.
33. The Vanishing of Margaret Small - Neil Alexander. An odd tale meant, I think, to shed light on how poorly institutionalized people were once treated. Left me with more questions than answers.
34. The Road to Woop Woop - Eugen Bacon. Short stories. I love her descriptions though I don’t understand some of the Australian slang she uses.
35. Where Waters Meet - Zhang Ling. Family and memories. Really well written.
36. Getting to the Heart of Science Communication - Faith Kearns. A guide to effective engagement, or so it claims.
37. The Devil’s Element - Dan Egan. Phosphorus and a world out of balance. It seems to jump all over the place. The writing is good, but the editing is spotty.
38. The Ojja-Wojja - Magdalene Visaggio & Jenn St-Onge.  8th-grade protagonists, one autistic and the other trans, try to figure out an ancient town curse.
39. The Man from Primrose Lane - James Renner. Reread
40. Blacksad: they all fall down pt. 1 - Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido. I really like this series. Happy to have another volume.
41. The Well-Tempered Sentence - Karen Elizabeth Gordon. You know you are a word nerd when books on punctuation make you laugh and grin.
42. The Farmer’s Almanac 2023 - Lots of short essays and fun gardening  facts
43. Scales & Scoundrels vol 1: Where Dragons Wander - Girner, Galaad & Powell. Years ago I bought single issues. Nice to have them all bound together.
44. Cold Cold Bones - Kathy Reichs. One of the more recent books in the series. 
45. Scales & Scoundrels vol 2: The Festival of Life - Girner, Galaad & Powell
46. Unbury the Bones - Coyote JM Edwards. I thought I’d bought the ebook of Coffee, Milk & Spider Silk. And though the cover claimed I had, the other book was what came after. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could’ve since I kept waiting for the spider to show up and it never did.
47. Torn Apart - Dorothy Roberts. How the child welfare system destroys Black families and how abolition can build a safer world. I agree that the system is broken. There are some really good points here.
48. The Bone Orchard - Sara A. Mueller. Loved the concept of an orchard made of bones. The story had too much emphasis on politics and scheming for my taste.
49. The Book of Cold Cases - Simone St. James. True crime blogger gets to be the only one ever to interview a woman acquitted of murder. Decent.
50. Mooncakes - Wendy Xu, Suzanne Walker & Joamette GIl. A sweet, magically inclined graphic novel about a witch, a werewolf, and a demon in the forest.
51. Unmasking Autism - Devon Price. Me learning more about myself. Very accessible.
52. Under the Whispering Door - TJ Klune. A sweet story about living a good life and being open to love & friendship.
53. The Ghost Club - Kate Winkler Dawson. A lovely audiobook that kept me company on a long drive
54. The Spider Heist - Jason Kasper. I like a good spy heist. This one was pretty okay. I picked it out because I follow the audiobook narrator on social media.
55. Taking Care - Sara Digregorio. The story of nursing and its power to change our world.
56. Greywalker - Kat Richardson. Reread
57. Even As We Breathe - Annete Saunooke Clapsaddle. Kind of melancholy.
58. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir. I love that his books do not shy away from science. I learn things about physics each time.
59. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman. Lots of twists and turns. 
60. Poltergeist - Kat Richardson. Reread
61. Once & Future - AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy. A queer retelling of the King Arthur story.
62. The Wrong End of the Telescope - Rabih Alameddine. Absolutely amazing. I loved this book!!!
63. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton. I think I’ve read this before. Good thing I got it from the library.
64. Fatal Voyage - Kathy Reichs. Reread.
65. The Better Half - Asha Youmans & Alli Frank. Very well written. Too much baby/relationship stress for me to enjoy it.
66.  Firebrands: Activists You Didn't Learn About in School - Shaun Slifer & Bec Young eds. Looking for inspiration.
67.  The Plot is Murder - VM Burns. A cozy murder mystery set in a bookstore in MI.
68.  Underground - Kat Richardson. Reread
69.  Zero Bomb - MT Hill. Bought it because of the fox sitting on a typewriter that graces the cover. The descriptive writing is better than the plot.
70.  Sins of the Black Flamingo, Collected volume #1 - Wheeler, Moore & Bonvillain. A gay superhero, curses, and great outfits. What more can one ask from a comic? 
71.  The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich -Deya Muniz. How could I turn away from a lesbian romance in a book full of cheese puns?
72.  The Bone Code - Kathy Reichs. I think this is the 23rd in the Temperance Brennan novels.
73.  Shelf Life - Nadia Wassef. Chronicles of a Cairo bookseller.  A lovely audiobook on a long drive. Very nice to have someone fluent to pronounce all of the names properly.
74.  Nettle & Bone - T. Kingfisher. Parallels to the Wizard of Oz. I would’ve arranged the chapters differently..
75.  The Lady and the Octopus - Danna Staaf. How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology. A fairly compelling audiobook that kept me busy on a long drive.
76.  The Fireman - Joe Hill. A post-apocalyptic novel about a deadly pathogen (written before COVID). Good, but about 200 pages too long.
77.  Send Noods -  Chloe Godot & Alice Potter. A wonderfully illustrated cookbook that outlines sauces, veggies, etc. to put on pasta. Gotta expand my repertoire.
78.  Broadway Butterfly: A thriller - Sara Divello. Based on a true crime story from 1923. Clearly well-researched, but the telling petered out towards the end. 
79.  Run Rose Run - Dolly Parton and James Patterson. Good story. Fairly cliche. Too long. 
80.  Murder at Kensington Palace - Andrea Penrose. Boring, hated all of the characters, didn’t finish
81.  Invisible No More - Andrea Ritchie. Police violence against black women and women of color is well documented and written. Best read in small doses to digest it all.
82.  The Dog Who Knew Too Much - Krista Davis. Fairly awful we-love-everyone small town of white people and their dogs who solve mysteries. Not the first in the series, but the only one I’ll be reading.
83.  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead - Agatha Christie. It’s got Poirot.
84.  A Skeleton in Bone Creek - Baer Charlton. Come for the bones but stay for the dog. 
85.  Bitter Medicine - Mia Tsai. Audiobook narrated by Natalie Naudus. That I-really-like-them-but-they-couldn’t-possibly-like-me crap is harder to take in an audiobook where I can’t skim over that part and just read the good parts. Nice blend of modern technology and fae magic.
86.  Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett. I don’t know what it is about Discworld, but I have the hardest time remembering what is going on every time I pick one of his books up.
87.  The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale. A shocking murder and the unmaking of a great Victorian detective. Or so the subtitle claims. True crime from 1860.
88. Chiles to Chocolate - Linda Cordell. I’ve read this before. Doing a reread now that I have my own copy.
89. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne. I don’t think I’d be as open to this one if I hadn’t read You Are a Badass.
90. Archaeology, the key concepts - Colin Renfrew ed. Found it as an ebook from the library.
91. Sing Wild Bird, Sing - Jacqueline O’Mahony. Based off of a real town that died. Not a bad fictionalization. I didn’t really like the main character by the end.
92.  Redemption - Deborah Ledford. Cop drama that was more about family connections
93.  Pirate Nemesis - Carysa Locke. First in the telepathic space pirates series. It is how you would expect such a book to be.
94.  Unf*ck Your Intimacy - Faith G. Harper. Reread
95.  The Peripheral - William Gibson. I saw the tv show and needed to read the book.
96.  Tastemakers - Mayukh Sen. Seven immigrant women who revolutionized food in America
97.   Deadly Decisions - Kathy Reichs. Reread
98. Shadows of the Lost - Maxym M. Martineau. Magical beasts and gay love. What’s not to like? It does feel as if it is late in a series (though apparently it is not)
99. Lives in Ruins - Marilyn Johnson. Archaeologists and the seductive lure of human rubble. I’ve read both her other books (one on cremators and the other on librarians).
100. No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir - Ani DiFranco. Made better as an audiobook read by Ani herself.
101. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin. Finally, my library hold has arrived. I’ve waited 4 months.
102. Live Right and Find Happiness - Dave Barry. I used to find him quite humorous.
103. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk. Hauntingly lyrical. Several times I’ve wanted to write down sentences to use as mantras to live by.
104. Just Stay Away - Tony Wirt. A dad and the vindictive kid in the neighborhood. I did not like it.
105. The King of Poisons - John Parascandola. Arsenic, baby! History of and current medical uses.
106. Tremors in Blood - Amit Katwala. Murder, obsession, and the birth of the lie detector.
107. Two Nights - Kathy Reichs. Not part of the Temperance Brennen series.
108. The Princess Bride - William Goldman. Because.
109. Making the Monster - Kathryn Harkup. The science behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I really liked it and will probably reread it.
110. The Healthy Smoothie Bible - Farnoosh Brock. I needed more variety in my blender.
111. Wicked Plants - Amy Stewart. A book of botanical atrocities, yay!
112. Death and Croissants - Ian Moore. All the reviews said it was super funny. I don't know why a protagonist who is nervous and always being overrun by the opinions and demands of others is humorous.
113. The Man in the Macintosh Suit - Rina Ayuyang. 1929. A migrant worker in rural CA, with a law degree from the Philippines. Depression-era noir.
114.  Hakim's Odyssey book 3 from Macedonia to France - Fabien Toulmé. Really well-done story of Syrian migrants.
115. Flying Kites - The Stanford Graphic Novel Project. A story of the 2013 California prison hunger strike. With that many artists involved, the fact that there is no change in style is amazing.
116. The Thorn Puller - Hiromi Ito. Lyrical. The translator’s notes at the end of each chapter are distracting.
117. A Conspiracy of Bones - Kathy Reichs. Another one I haven’t read before. Yay, libraries!
118. The Spy Coast - Tess Gerritsen. I do enjoy a good spy story. This one has some nice twists.
119. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States - Sarah Vowell. Her writing is still really good. I am less and less interested in her topics.  Different lives.
120. Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann. It’s been on my list of things to read for a while. Discovered I have it as an audiobook. Woohoo!
121. It Walks By Night - John Dickenson Carr. Neato 1920s mystery set in Paris, A tad predictable.
122.  Artemis - Andy Weir. Initially, I had trouble getting into it (another book about the moon?) but his writing is good and the story got better
123. The Inheritor’s Powder - Sandra Hempel. More arsenic? You know it!
124. Two Old Broads - ME Hecht and Whoopi Goldberg. Stuff you need to know that you didn’t know you needed to know.
125. Practice to Deceive - Ann Rule. First time reading one of her books. Very good writing. Makes real events read like fiction.
126. I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jeanette McCurdy. I always liked the characters she played, but am glad she is doing what makes her happy now.
127. Book of Secrets - Chris Roberson. Reread.
128. The Village Healer’s Book of Cures - Jennifer S Roberts. Set in the 1600s, I think. Witch hunts and botanical lore collide. Kind of trite.
129. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay. A fictional(?) portrayal of a possibly real disappearance of 3 boarding school girls in Australia circa 1900. 
130. Made to Kill - Adam Christoper. Reread
131. The Drunken Botanist - Amy Stewart. Plants, the alcohols they make, and recipes for cocktails. 
132. Under the Naga Tail - Mae Bunseng Taing & James Bunseng. A true story of a Cambodian survivor of Pol Pot’s genocide campaign.
133. Cryptofauna - Patrick Canning. Weird. Not sure I like any of the characters much. Some nice imagery though.
134. Looking After Your Autistic Self - Niamh Garvey.  A self-care approach to managing your sensory and emotional well-being. We all need help sometimes.
135. Cartographers - Peng Shepherd. Really good
136. Avenue of Mysteries - John Irving. Audiobook on a long drive.
137. Some regular blogs with essays a/o links to articles that I read several times per week

• Book Riot Libraries
• Literary Hub
• MedPage Today
• QxMD
• The Walrus

138. Some regular podcasts I listen to often lead to me reading portions (or all) of articles and Wikipedia pages

• This Podcast will Kill You
• In Defense of Plants
• Ologies
• Lost Women of Science
• Gastropod