Books read in 2023

📚 I had a strange reading year; at times, I was not reading. This was possibly caused by reading more nonfiction this year than fiction.

And reading fiction is just easier for me. Overall, I’m happy with the books I’ve read this year. And it does not bother me that I did not reach my reading goal.

And I also wrote two book reviews, more than I expected.

The best books (I read) of 2023

In the fiction category, I have one recommendation

The cover of The Curio Cabinet.

The Curio Cabinet: A Collection of Miniature Stories by Carol Beth Anderson my review

On the nonfiction side, I have five recommendations

I was unable to reduce these anymore. I’ve read so many good books this year. But these are the ones I think about the most—especially the first two.

The cover of Less is More.

The cover of Wild Mind, Wild Earth.

• Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel
• Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction by David Hinton

The cover of What's Our Problem?.

The cover of On Writing Well.

• What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban my thoughts on the book
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser

The cover of The indie author.

• The indie author by Jasraj Singh Hothi

Reading statistics

The goal for this year was to read 20 books – three books per month. I’m currently on book 21, so I missed my goal of 36 books by quite a considerable margin. I think the reason for this was that I was reading some long nonfiction works and focused on reading all the nonfiction books I had in my to-be-read stack. Reading nonfiction takes more energy and time, especially when you want to read them in a way to remember what you learned (see Review of “How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens”).

Eleven of the 20 books were nonfiction, so I nearly reached my goal of reading one nonfiction book per month. And I’m happy with this, as I learned quite a lot this year with the books I’ve read.

Plans for next year

For next year, I changed the plan a bit; I think it makes sense to reduce the expected book amount to two books per month: one fiction and one nonfiction. The goal for next year is to read 24 books.

For most of the year, I read at least two books simultaneously. This was an experiment, and it worked when I combined a fiction with a nonfiction book. It also allows me to read when I’m tired and can’t read nonfiction.

List of all Books in 2023

• The Crystal Mages by Jane Shand
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser
• Understanding comics: the invisible art by Scott Mccloud
• Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hicke
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
• Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction by David Hinton
• Blueprint for Revolution by Srdja Popovic
• From word document to book by Jas Hothi
• The indie author by Jasraj Singh Hothi
• The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
• Earthside by Dennis E. Taylor
• The Curio Cabinet: A Collection of Miniature Stories by Carol Beth Anderson
• The intelligence illusion by Baldur Bjarnason
• The Selection by Kiera Cass
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• The Cleaner, the Cat and the Space Station by Fay Abernethy
• The Elite by Kiera Cass
• Learning to Fly Alien Spacecraft by Fay Abernethy
• The One by Kiera Cass
• What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban

Still reading right now

• Adversary by Janet Edwards

• /books-read