the books I read in 2023

The last book I finished in 2023 was The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I was in New York City for the New Year's weekend, catsitting at John's. John had shown me an article from Harper's on "Street Life" by Rachel Kushner from the August 2023 issue. I went to the film "All of Us Strangers" on New Year's Day. The book, the article, and the movie all circled, in their way, around the banality and disappointment and glory of everyday life and how big a role observation can play in how that works out. On the 30th, I was off galleryhopping at MoMA PS1 and ran into Janis, Sherri, Julie, and Hikmet in the Court Square subway station. I joined them in visiting the Tracey Emin and Donna Huanca shows at Faurschou in Greenpoint but then split off and went to the Whitney and LGBT Center before meeting Heidi and Dan for supper. All everyday and ordinary and glorious and, well, New York City.

The books I read this past year are listed here in chronological order of reading.

• The magician, by Colm Tóibín (2021)
• Harlem shuffle, by Colson Whitehead (2021)
• Flâneuse: women walk the city in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, by Lauren Elkin (2017)
• Piazza Carignano, by Alain Elkann (1985) - bought at a used book store in Provincetown; the Carignano Palace in Turin was one of my favorite buildings on our 2018 trip to Turin, Milan, and Genoa; the book was fine but I really enjoyed the association with the building and plaza
• Driver's eduction, by Grant Ginder (2013) - this only gets 3.17 stars on Goodreads; that's why I don't pay too much attention to review stars; I really enjoyed this book and its style
• Germania: in wayward pursuit of the Germans and their history, by Simon Winder (2010) - one of a trilogy of histories of Middle Europe; I really enjoyed all three volumes (thanks, Daniel)
• Just by looking at him, by Ryan O'Connell (2022)
• Just mercy, by Bryan Stevenson (2014)
• Mrs Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls (1982)
• Radio girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford (2016)
• Italian days: fifty things we know about life now, by Beppe Severgnini (2022)
• Danubia: a personal history of Habsburg Europe, by Simon Winder (2013)
• The art of description: world into word, by Mark Doty (2010) - it sounds like a book on cataloging ... but it's not, it is about words and putting them together
• The heart's invisible furies, by John Boyne (2017)
• The honey bus: the memory of loss, courage and a girl saved by bees, by Meredith May (2019)
• JD, by Mark Merlis (2015)
• Girl, woman, other, by Bernardine Evaristo (2019) - it took me a while to get used to the writing style but it worked: each sentence was a paragraph, not capitalized
• The library book, by Susan Orlean (2018)
• Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver (2018) - chomping at the bit, waiting for Demon Copperhead to come out in paper but did enjoy this one while waiting
• Becoming George Orwell: life and letters, legend and legacy, by John Rodden (2020)
• The promise, by Damon Galgut (2021)
• The poetics of cruising: queer visual culture from Whitman to Grindr, by Jack Parlett (2022)
• Solomon's crown, by Natasha Siegel (2023) - Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus, 12th century speculative fiction
• The address book: what street addresses reveal about identity, race, wealth, and power, by Dierdre Mask (2020)
• The last day: wrath, ruin, and reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, by Nicholas Shrady (2008)
• The personal librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (2021) - fictionalized life of Belle da Costa Greene, longtime librarian for J.P. Morgan; it took me a while to get into it but I really enjoyed it once I hit the rhythm
• Every good boy does fine: a love story, in music lessons, by Jeremy Denk (2022) - maybe my favorite book of the year
• High-risk homosexual, by Edgar Gomez (2022)
• French braid, by Anne Tyler (2022)
• Dream cities: seven urban ideas that shape the world, by Wade Graham (2016)
• The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce (2012)

I would not advise you against reading any of these books. I enjoyed some of them very much as I read them. Several of them resonated with places I have been or want to go. I bought several of them in Provincetown, over the years. Plenty of Rachels. As usual, about an even split of fiction and non-fiction. And now I've started reading Orwell's roses by Rebecca Solnit and find it thoughtful (no surprise because Solnit) and compelling.

If you want to see how Goodreads saw my year in reading, go to https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2023/6837039. There, you can click on book covers and see a summary of the book and how it is rated on Goodreads. I did read a note in one of my magazine newsletters that the author had given up on Goodreads (part of the Amazon empire) and was just using Google Sheets where she could add a column for author's gender if she wanted to. I would like a column for how I heard about a book. I know Carol recommended Orwell's roses.