Every year, around this time, although usually earlier when I'm not so busy, I look back at what I read the previous year and offer a top 10 list of favorite books. When I look back at 2023, I read 58 books totaling 20,347 pages, but I didn't enough great books that I'd add them to the top 10 list. So it'll be a shorter list this year, and mostly and reminder to make sure you're reading good books! I'm going to try and raise the bar this year on books that I read in hopes of having a better option for this list when I write it next, in 2025. I'll almost certainly have fewer books to choose from, as I've currently finished half as many books as I had by this point last year -- certainly not insurmountable, but when I look at that and the books I just checked out from the library, it's not looking like I'll be moving through books at the same pace. The good news is that I finally finished the first book of Ian Toll's trilogy on the war in the Pacific (Pacific Crucible, which was excellent), which I'd been telling myself to read for at least two years. I've started Erik Larson's book on the Galveston hurricane (Isaac's Storm) in 1900 and have Candace Millard's River of the Gods and David McCullough's Mornings on Horseback to follow, so it's looking like a higher quality start to the reading year.
The first book I read in the year was John Man's biography of Saladin. I'd highly recommend it if your 12th century middle eastern history is a little rusty, like mine was. I know very little about the Crusades, and even less about those on the other side of the Crusades. This was an eye-opening account of the dynamics of power and a ruler trying to unify the Islamic world. Saladin possessed some desirable qualities, especially in light of some of the atrocities of the Crusades.
The next book I read after that was Joel Dicker's The Enigma of Room 622. This was very clever and a delightful mystery that bounced from a writer's retreat to the drama of Swiss bank succession. I read a lot of mysteries last year and I love the way the action turns the page, but this one rose to the top of the pile due to the ingenuity of the plot and the clever twists that made me think. I appreciate the work that went into this -- it didn't feel lazy, like some of the others I read.
Looking back at my list, the year started out so strongly... maybe that's why it's so disappointing to realize that the last 11 months of the year didn't contain as much quality as the first month did. Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, a fictionalized account of the Spartans defense of the Persians at the battle of Thermopylae, was fantastic. I'd highly recommend it as one of the best books I've read in recent years. It's amazingly human and yet doesn't shy away from the realities of war and the exhaustion and fatigue that come with it. His Tides of War is on my list for this year.
After January, it was slim pickings for a while. Michael Horton's Recovering Our Sanity was a solidly grounded reasoning as to why we need to reject the culture of fear and let our faith ground us in the modern age. I read Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, about the lead-in to WWI -- it's heartbreakingly tragic to think of all the wasted death and the sense of inevitability of it all. This gave me an appreciation of the recent history before WWI that led into it -- I don't think I had an appreciation for how the previous fifty years shaped the attitudes within Europe at the time and how eager it seemed like many were to go to war.
H.G. Parry's The Magician's Daughter was an intriguing read about a girl caught between two worlds. Adrienne Buller's The Value of a Whale explored the sometimes absurd calculations that come along with some of the environmental movements. She rightly castigates us for trying to put a monetary value of nature and urges us to take seriously the need to improve our stewardship of the environment, because all the money in the world cannot replace aspects of the environment that we are quickly losing. Her insight into the drawbacks of carbon offsets was helpful to me as a novice in understanding that market.
I read two David Grann books. The Wager was a wild read about a shipwreck off the coast of South America. It's hard to imagine what life was like in those days, and the choices the sailors had to make often had no good outcomes. Killers of the Flower Moon was incredibly well done, although a heart-breaking tale about the corruption that comes along with wealth and the incredible lack of respect given to the Native Americans. What was done to them is inexcusable and so hard to read. I haven't yet seen the movie, as it's hard for me to sit still for that long, but Grann did an excellent job telling the story.
John Cleese's Creativity is worth reading for any engaged in creative pursuits -- it can be read in an hour and gives some helpful pointers. I'll always recommend (I hope!) Abir Mukherjee's series set in India. I read the most recent edition in June, Shadows of Men, and they're always beautifully written and give such a sense of place.
Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway was an engaging read, but I took issue with the way it ended, and that soured the book for me. It needed another chapter, in my opinion. Overall, the book was fine, but A Gentleman in Moscow stands head and shoulders above this one. Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist is an important book to read in this age of pessimism. It's at least ten years old, but similar to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (which is a great read if you haven't yet read it), it's only become more important as we all revert to thinking the end is near, driven on by social media and the news telling us about every tragic event around the world. Ridley relies upon the data and describes how life continues to get better, year after year, and the rational argument is to expect things to continue to improve.
Two others that were fun reads were Mel Brooks' All About Me and Tim Harford's Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy. I've always enjoyed Mel Brooks' work, and reading about his youth and the work he invested to arrive at the point where he could start making films was revealing when thinking about the sheer number of hours invested in perfecting his craft. Brooks gives a sense of delight to this work, and it's always fun to experience a craftsman at his work. Harford is one I found through his podcast Cautionary Tales, which is always good for hearing about a tragedy that you didn't previously know about! He brings a fresh eye to history, and this book offers up insights into things we take for granted that make our world work.
There are a few books I read that were interesting but I expected more from. Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker was an interesting exploration of CRISPR technology that led to the MRNA vaccines, but so much of it was over my head. It's fascinating to explore scientific breakthroughs and realize that while one person often gets the fame, there are usually a number of others who are on the same verge. Sophie Hannah wrote new books with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot as the main character. I checked out four from the library and felt obligated to read them all, and they were fine, I guess. Some of the plots were almost too complex. I appreciate that she's trying to have the spirit of Christie, but often I simply felt tired by the end. Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead was simply sad. The reality of drugs and oxycodone and what it does to lives and communities is heavy. I was glad I read it, but also happy to move on to something lighter when I was finished. That's a privilege, I recognize.
That's 2023 in books. There's certainly a number of others I could discuss, and many that were forgotten as soon as they were returned to the library. I hope to re-read the greatest fiction book of all time this year, which will be a delight when I can re-open Dumas' masterpiece. I look forward to all the adventures that await this year!
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