I Read 44 Books in 2023...

At the start of 2023, I came up with some New Year's resolutions. Most were fairly standard - continue to exercise, focus on my writing and get my book published (haha), and, of course, to read more. I mentioned this in a quarter-year post on this website, but 2022 and 2021 were poor reading years for me. After Covid and lockdown brought the magical habit into my life in 2020, A co-op and a refreshed school year promptly whisked it away in the subsequent years. I enjoyed reading with large chunks of time. I figured that if I couldn't spend at least an hour on it with a warm cup of coffee or a glass of wine, then what was the point?

So it was that I entered 2023. The first six months of my first job were behind me, and with the flurry of professional life I had let the habit slip even further away from me. During a call with a college friend in January, we were talking about our goals for the year. When we started talking about reading, he had a great idea: why don't we hold each other accountable? It sounded good to me on paper, but I had the glum foreboding in my heart already. I know I'd flake on the promise. I'd read maybe one or two books and then find that I didn't have time when work got too busy. That very same day, he sent me a Youtube video which changed everything.

I won't go into this prelude too much more; like I said, I already have a post on it which goes into great detail about its general points and efficacy. Suffice it to say, the thing worked. Reading for shorter periods of time with more consistency helped me knock down 44 books by 31 different authors this year! An all-time record which I hope to match or beat next year.

As with my review in 2020, the books I had already read are reflected in bold. The underlined book is the one I'm currently reading. This year, I thought I'd do the standard top five, worst two (not three), biggest letdown/surprise, and finally the overall number on recommendation. When I did this last year, there were 24 books in the selection pool. With nearly double the selection, we'll have a new twist. I'll separate these out into philosophical/non-philosophical books, with the former section including books on spirituality. They just need to let me host the Oscars already.

So… the top five for philosophy/spirituality. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was so phenomenal I read the whole thing in one sitting. I had picked it up at a Barnes and Noble and ended up staying there for two hours and buying the thing so I could finish it as soon as I got home. While it's not a true story, Hesse blends complicated metaphysics into a compelling, poignant, and solid plot with a mind-bending finale. I've spoken so much about the next two books that I won't bother with too much praise, but both Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India and Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi were fantastic introductions into the art and philosophy behind Yoga. Another predictable addition to this top five is The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. Combined, the last three books not only helped me formulate my own Karmic theory, but they showcase essentially the same philosophy from three different perspectives: Brunton the western skeptic, Yogananda the lifelong master, and Singer the unconventional multi-hundred-millionaire. The final spot undoubtedly belongs to Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Learning about the world through the lens of those who have survived unspeakable trauma is an invaluable experience, and Frankl's book was not only fantastically written, it thrives from the story being told from the perspective of a psychiatrist. Since I gave honorable mentions in 2020, I'll give one this year to The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. While it espoused many of the same principles as its powerful predecessor, Ishmael, it still prompted much reflection for my part and was well worth the read.

For conventional fiction books, my top five shakes down with some familiarity. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was emotionally powerful and had a poetic plot which fit right in with my interests both as a reader and a writer. Her sister, Emily Brontë wrote a darker tones, more mysterious book with Wuthering Heights, and it had the same punch and the same page-turning qualities as the best Victorian novels. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey depicted a chess match of wills between two skilled adversaries. The characters were full of life and vibrant despite their setting, and the ending… depressing to some, but I found it hopeful. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton takes the fourth spot on the list. While this book was actually soul-crushing, the poignancy was addictive to me. Interestingly, Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson wormed its way into this list with its scientific and precise narrative underscored by an emotional character-driven story which explored several concepts such as aging, death, sentience, and moral responsibility with deftness and class. As an honorable mention, I'll put on Aurora by David Koepp. Recency bias is strong, but what I thought would be a simplistic above-average airplane book turned out to be an intriguing look into complicated relationships amidst a global crisis. The strangeness isn't lost on me that I read two books called "Aurora" this year and both of them ended up on my list.

Oh, now for the worst two. I don't like disparaging books too much, as I know how much it takes just to write a cohesive narrative for 300 pages, but some books just stuck out as poorly crafted. Philosophically, I found Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy to be little more than an obscure rant on art. Its concept of the duality in the Apollonian and the Dionysian was interesting, but not enough to make that book any less of a slog. Speaking of slogs, The Quest of the Overself by Paul Brunton felt like trying to decipher hieroglyphs. I got a few intriguing meditation techniques out of it, but outside of that… The whole thing felt like a dramatic overture and even a little snobby. To be fair to Brunton, he is British, so snobbiness might come out of habit.

For the fiction downers, I'll throw The Dark Half by Stephen King into the octagon. It was… decent, but not up to the par for King's work, especially when compared with the books of his I re-read later in the year. It felt like a book spawned from a specific scene in King's head rather than an interesting character deep-dive or a concept exploration. Michael Crichton's Congo was led by a simply unlikeable set of characters, one of which in particular had no redeeming qualities. When characters lose a reader's interest, the hilarity of the plot gets exposed, and that's exactly what happened with Congo.

The letdown category might seem similar to the "worst of", but the two books I'll talk about here were ones that I thought would be fantastic. I'll switch it up and start with fiction. Despite having loved Pride and Prejudice, I was lost in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I understand it's satirical, but I think the difference in time period and writing style become most apparent in satire. Since I'm not enveloped in Austen's Victorian age, the things at which she pokes fun are either quaint or quizzical to me. I thought Seneca's Letters from a Stoic was okay… but I wasn't expecting just "okay". I have my reservations about Stoicism, and he did little to dispel them.

Now, let's talk about the biggest surprises. Philosophically, it has to be A Search in Secret India. As I've said in the past on this site, I never gave eastern philosophy much credit, and so I was expecting to throw this book in the pile helmed by T. Lobsang Rampa's The Third Eye; a book deluded in polytheistic religion masquerading as spirituality. I couldn't have been more wrong. For fiction, I was taken aback by The Picture of Dorian Gray. When I initially read it, I thought the concept was rather simplistic: capturing youth and losing humanity in the process. However, I think I suffered something of a quarter-life crisis later in the year and began obsessively thinking about the fickleness of youth and beauty. As such, it inspired one of my best short stories, set to be published in 2024 on this very website. 

Okay, here's the big one. The overall number one selections. In the category of philosophy, the best book of my 2023 reading list goes to… Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. In reading this book you can experience a philosophy written by a wholly unique man. His influences are clear, but only the amalgamation of his own pain and suffering and his intellectual perspective could have produced such a perfect product. Not only is it a life-changing book, but it's written with simplicity and brevity in mind, making it easy to pick up and begin reading.

In the category of fiction, the best book in my 2023 reading list is… Brave New World by Alduous Huxley. Now, I know what you're thinking: it didn't make the top five but it gets crowned as the number one? Yes, because it, along with The Stranger by Albert Camus both toe the line between philosophy and narrative fiction. I didn't want them to hog spots on the top five list for either fiction or philosophy, so I decided to give them both shoutouts here. While both had a decidedly bleak outlook, Brave New World struck a rare zone with me with dystopian novels. It scared the hell out of me, but to a degree that gave me reflection rather than outright fear and paranoia. Its concept of Soma - the government-approved and mandated drug which numbs people from getting too excited made me look at the way I used my cellphone with a whole new and horrifying light. The plight of Bernard, whose righteousness is only self-flagellation driven by cowardice, struck a unique chord with me. John the Savage's story seemed only a sad testimonial of a grim future.

So that concludes the 2023 book review! For a brief reflection, I'll say that I don't regret reading any one of these books, even the ones which fell flat or were outright unenjoyable to me. They all represent steps on a journey which I hope will continue throughout my life. Looking back, it's interesting to me to see what books made the 2020 top five. The number one book for that year was Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. So I suppose I have a type, after all. Coming out of this, I'm more excited than ever to begin 2024 reading just as much and as deeply as I did in 2023, if not more.