It wouldn’t be the end of the year without a flurry of wrap up posts and stories. Since I’m a big believer in paying attention to ritual and seasons changing, I’m jumping on the bandwagon and offering up a contribution of my own. (I also love recommending books, so this is as good an excuse as any).
Thankfully, I finally started using Goodreads this year – a much overdue commitment to cataloging the vast quantity of words I tend to consume. (Also, I’m in my 40s now, so the memory ain’t what it used to be.) So, I’ve got actual tracking to tell me what I read this year and can, therefore, share the highlights with you.
Thus! If you’re looking for something new to pick up or something to gift for the holidays, here are my fan favorites from 2023.
Intellectual Nonfiction
This category is home to me, as I tend to have three to five such books going at any given time. Both in service of my coaching and my generally voracious curiosity about how we can all show up in the world better, I read a lot of books about human behavior. Here are my favorites from this year, plus an outlier about animals that is a fascinating and gorgeous exploration of the world we live in.
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander
I absolutely adore this little book. Written by the power couple of a family therapist and executive coach (Rosamund) and the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (Ben) – it’s a delightful and refreshing take on how to bring creativity, compassion, and possibility into all areas of our lives. I’m actually in the midst of my third pass through this book right now because it offers such beautiful perspective on how to show up in our lives with curiosity, generosity, and joy.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Okay, so I’m cheating a bit here since I first read this book in 2022. However! I’ve read it again at least twice this year and will probably pick it back up in 2024. As someone prone to overstuffing my schedule, the book is a gorgeous reminder to me to slow down and savor what’s right in front of me. It’s a book about time and our relationship to it. But more than that, it’s a book about identifying what actually matters in our lives and committing to living fully in those arenas – and letting go of a lot of the other shit that gets in the way.
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant
Y’all, I am an unapologetic Adam Grant fangirl, and his brand new book (just came out in October) does not disappoint. It’s broadly about learning, so it’s especially relevant to teachers and coaches. But it’s also a great primer on giving ourselves permission to make mistakes and lean into discomfort as we move toward the things we truly want for ourselves. Full of heartwarming and inspiring stories of unexpected wins and radical comebacks, it’s also a book that offers some much needed hope in the midst of dark times.
The Presence Process by Michael Brown
Even though this book had a deeply profound impact on my life this year, it almost didn’t make the list. Mainly because it’s… weird. And dense. And really challenging both to read and to do. It’s more of an experience to commit to than a book to read. The oversimplified gist is that it’s a 10-week, 30-minute/day breathwork practice designed to help you process (integrate) stuck emotions. My therapist recommended and supported me through it, and I can genuinely say it has fundamentally shifted my capacity to be present to my experience. It allowed me to integrate a lot of old emotional gunk that’s been lingering for decades. All of which being said, it’s hella weird. And hard to read. And super hard to do for ten weeks. Worth it! But I felt like a lot of disclaimers were in order. (Also, would not recommend on audiobook. This is very much a pen-in-hand kind of read)
An Immense World by Ed Yong
A bit outside my typical wheelhouse, I’m so stinkin’ glad I picked up this book. Animals are totally fascinating, y’all! Did you know that hummingbirds can see dozens of colors we can’t? And that clams have eyes!? And that vision works in frame rates (like film), which means that some animals are seeing the world in what would feel like slow motion to us?! I did not. If you like animals and science, this book is a must-read. If you just like animals, that’s also a perfectly sufficient reason to read this book.
Humorous Nonfiction
I’m giving this a separate category tag since it’s definitely a departure from the works above. I could also categorize this as a memoir, but that wouldn’t properly convey the sense that this is a pretty hilarious set of essays. Maybe next year I’ll have more than one book to add to this section.
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
I’m several years behind the times with this one, but I’m so glad I finally picked it up. Really, I should probably put Lawson’s first book on here instead, but I read them in reverse order, and I do like this one better. While my own mental health challenges are nothing compared to the author’s, that’s kind of what makes her writing wonderful. It’s both relatable and makes me feel a lot better in comparison. Lawson struggles with chronic pain and severe anxiety on top of a pretty traumatic childhood, and she writes about all of it with a charming and hilarious honesty that kept me laughing throughout.
Literary Fiction
Post-graduate school, I don’t tend to reach for literary fiction much. I read nonfiction when I want to think about stuff these days, and I just don’t tend to have the emotional bandwidth for a lot of heavy content – which takes a lot of literary fiction off the table for me. However, I do try to pick up at least a few literary fiction novels each year, and these are the two that stood out.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I wasn’t really expecting to be so drawn in by a book about video game designers, but I really liked this book. Given that it’s mostly about the complicated nature of friendship and love, that probably makes sense. It does a beautiful job of reflecting the ways that trauma can fuck up our relationships with the people we care about without it being a book about trauma.
Empty Theatre: or, The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty… by Jac Jemc
This book is totally weird and charming. It reads a little like historical nonfiction (I think? That’s not a genre I actually read), and I spent all of it wondering what was true and what wasn’t – since it’s loosely based on real people and events. While normally I grow weary of reading about unlikeable main characters, this book kept me surprisingly engaged. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck where nobody gets horribly maimed or injured. Not that the characters don’t do awful things to people in their rich-and-powerful boredom, but the way it’s written makes that more fascinating than emotionally draining.
Random Romance Novel
Random because this is not a genre I tend to dive into much, but the one I’m including here got my attention because it’s about witches. Generally speaking, if it’s got magic in it and seems like nothing especially horrible is going to happen – I’m in.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
There’s a lot I like about this book, but what stands out especially is the way it navigates identity. The white characters are labeled as white – which shouldn’t be quite so remarkable, but let’s be real, that’s not how baseline assumptions tend to go in the vast majority of western literature (romance novels, especially). The author also does a lovely job of creating relatable characters, a fun world, and a sweet, curmudgeonly romance.
Fluffy, Joyous Fiction Series
I don’t know why I’m putting this at the bottom of the list, since this is the genre that I prefer most. Saving the best for last? I suppose that since this is a life advice blog I started with the more life advice-y books, but my real life advice? Read more fluffy fiction. It’s wonderful, and we all deserve more joy and light in our lives.
Also, disclaimer, I really like long, epic books. All of these are at least 10+ hour audiobooks (300+ pages), many of them 20+ hours. So, for all of these, you’ll either want/need to be a kindle reader or an audiobook listener.
Lord of Stariel Series by AJ Lancaster
This is a yummy, expansive, five-book romance series about humans and the fae, set in a magic/gaslamp version of… somewhere not the US. The author is from New Zealand, and the audiobook narrator has a British accent, so make of that what you will. The world is rich, the characters charmingly flawed, and the series contains enough tension to be engaging without being stressful. Also, book five is a male-male romance, and it’s probably my favorite in the series.
The House Witch Series by Delemhach
I’m so very glad I stumbled on this series when clicking around in Audible, looking for something to listen to. The series is so charming and often laugh out loud funny. Set in a relatively traditional medieval fantasy world, it pushes back on standard narratives of power and masculinity. In spite of a male protagonist, it also follows the Heroine’s Journey (rather than the hero’s), which is very much the type of fiction I prefer to read. (Note: the audiobook for this is only available on Audible).
Super Powereds by Drew Hayes
Forever and always, this series will be on my list. It is my favorite series of all time, y’all. OF ALL TIME. I cannot stress enough how much I love this series in spite of the fact that I generally don’t care much about super hero stuff.
Here’s the basic premise of the world: there are humans, supers, and people with powers who can’t control them (powereds). Those with powers who want to be superheroes have to go through the Hero Certification Program (HCP) – a four year, hyper-competitive college program designed to push them to their limits and beyond. Five formerly powereds have undergone a procedure to give them control of their powers, and they’ve been enrolled in the HCP to see if they can retain control. It’s. So. Good!
Disclaimer: the total listen time for the four-book series on audiobook is 160 hours, so it’s a big commitment. Or! A gloriously long time to get to spend with the characters and the world. I’ve listened to the whole series at least three times through? Maybe four? Honestly, it’s probably going to be an annual tradition.
Drew Hayes is very much my favorite author, and if an epic saga isn’t really what you’re after, his Fred the Vampire Accountant series is actually how I found him, and those books are in the 7-10 hour range.
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