I failed pretty miserably in my book-reading goals for last year. I did manage to reach my goal of reading 100 short stories, but fell far short of my annual goal of 25 books—ending up with only 19.
In 2024, my resolution is to quit my job so I can have more time to read.
But anyway, of those 19 books, I found some amazing reads. So here is my annual look back at the books I liked enough to award five stars to in Goodreads. The books are not in order of preference, but in the order that I read them. And to be clear, these are not necessarily books that were published in 2023, but books that I read during the year.
To see all the books I’ve been reading, click on the READING tab above. I keep a running list there of what I’m currently reading, and, if you scroll down, the books I’ve read previously, along with capsule reviews. It’s basically a slimmed-down version of my Goodreads feed.
The summaries below are essentially my Goodreads reviews of these five-star books, in some cases revised/edited with the benefit of hindsight.
So, off we go:
Sing, Unburied, Sing
By Jesmyn Ward
This is the third book of a loose trilogy by Jesmyn Ward, set in the fictional Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Bois Sauvage. Two of the three—Salvage The Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing—won National Book Awards, which earned them spots on my Books From The Teens reading list. I read Salvage the Bones some years ago and generally liked it, from what I remember, although some of the subject matter was absolutely brutal; there are extended passages about dog fighting.
Sing, Unburied, Sing, had its own brutality, but of a different sort.
And if you’re wondering, you absolutely don’t need to read these books in order. When I say “loose” trilogy, I mean just about the only thing they have in common is the setting. A couple of characters from “Salvage” made a cameo in “Sing,” but that’s about it. (I haven’t read the first book in the series … yet.)
Sing, Unburied Sing is the story, mainly, of a 13-year-old boy, Jojo, who is forced to be a parent to his 3-year-old sister because his father’s in prison and his mother is an addict and is incompetent/indifferent when it comes to parenting skills. They live with the mother’s parents, who substitute as parents for Jojo, although his grandmother is dying of cancer and his grandfather has his own problems to deal with.
The first part of the book is written from both Jojo’s and his mother’s point of view, in alternating chapters. I was really enjoying the book until about halfway through when another narrator was introduced—and then I loved it. I’ll say no more, other than it was a great read.
Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story
By Bono
I’m just going to say right here at the top that this was the best rock-star autobiography I’ve ever read.
I’ve read more than a few rock-star autobiographies (mostly chronicled here), and have often been disappointed because they seem to focus on the business and the touring and the partying and whatever, and not on what I’m most interested in, which is the SONGS. I always want to know more about what drives an artist to create a particular song—what he/she was thinking about when they wrote it, how it developed in the recording process, what it meant to them in the beginning and what it means now.
By its very title, you know that’s what you’re getting in this book. Well, not entirely: the book has 40 chapters, each one titled with the name of a U2 song, although some of them, it seemed, just served as useful chapter names, rather than focusing on that particular song. But most of the chapters provided the additional background and color that I was looking for to help me understand the songs better.
But this book was so much more than that. It’s a surprisingly cohesive narrative of Bono’s life and that of the band, both of which are remarkable in the world of rock and roll: throughout its nearly five-decade existence, U2 has had the same four members. And Bono and his wife, Alison Stewart, have been married for more than 40 years as well. I can think of no other rock bands or rock stars that can claim the same kind of constancy.
And Bono, of course, is much more than just a rock star. From the beginning, he’s been a strong and active advocate for causes he believes in: solving world hunger, Africa debt relief, ending wars, etc. This advocacy has taken him to meetings with many world leaders: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Pope John Paul, to name just a few. It sounds like name-dropping, but there are interesting stories to go with all of those people, and the record of accomplishment from working them is awe-inspiring.
Anyway, you come for the rock and roll, and stick around for the better world.
Sea of Tranquility
By Emily St. John Mandel
Of all of these books, this is the one that stuck with me the longest after I finished it. Normally, when I reach the end of a book, I’ll set it aside and immediately move on to something else. But I spent a couple of extra days with this one, going back and reading key passages, confirming the perfection of the story.
I guess you’d call this book science fiction, as it deals obliquely with time travel. I rarely read science fiction, but this one lured me in from the beginning and really set the hook near the end when everything came together. I can’t wait to read more by this author.
Bobcat (Stories)
By Rebecca Lee
I read a lot of short stories. My M.O. is to read five short stories between each full-length book I read. As mentioned above, I read a hundred stories this year, reaching that goal but not my goal of 25 books. (And if we didn’t count this collection and Dogfight, below, among the “books,” I would have been even further from that goal.)
Anyway, I own a lot of short-story collections thanks to various bargain e-book services (Bookbub, Early Bird Books, etc.), and I had been jumping around between various collections, just reading here and there. But this year I decided that if I find a story or two that I like in a particular collection, I’ll focus on that one until I finish it.
That’s how it was with Bobcat, a collection of seven stories from an author I hadn’t heard of before. All were impeccably written with a consistent craft you don’t often find in stories these days; they actually had real beginnings and endings.
The Diary of a Young Girl
By Anne Frank
Somehow I got through high school and college without being assigned to read this book. But we traveled to Amsterdam in October and I decided to read it before our trip—even though, ultimately, we ended up not touring the Anne Frank House. We’ll save that one for the next time we go there, I guess.
This was both a fun book to read and a difficult book to read. Fun because this young girl—who was actually a very good writer—shared everything about her life, even budding adolescent romances, with unflagging optimism. There were low points, of course, but on the whole she seemed to stay positive that the occupation would end and they’d be able to emerge from the Annex into a normal life again. It was difficult, of course because you, the reader, knew how the story turned out in the end.
Dogfight (Stories)
By Michael Knight
Like Bobcat, above, this is a collection of short stories that captivated me early on and had nary a clunker in the bunch. Also like Bobcat, I’d never heard of this author before, but he really excels at the short story form, with an easy-to-read style that pulls you in immediately. Definitely an author for me to explore more of.
Let Us Descend
By Jesmyn Ward
If I only read a couple dozen books in a year—and fewer than that this year—it’s rare that I read more than one book by any author that year. But this one was a stroke of luck in more ways than one. After having read and loved Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward earlier in the year, I was invited to enter a Goodreads giveaway for her new book in the fall. And amazingly, I won a copy—it was the first time I’d ever won a Goodreads giveaway. Given the good fortune and how I felt about her earlier book, I decided to read this one right away.
And I loved it. It’s the first-person narrative of a young girl born into slavery, who, in the process of being “sold” to various slaveholders and forced to walk across the South, interacts with a number of people and spirits who attempt to guide her along the way. I gobbled up the book, and didn’t want it to end.
The Sixth Extinction
By Elizabeth Kolbert
This was an eye-opening book about mass extinctions that have taken place on Earth over its long history, and about the one that’s happening right now. Others were caused by things like meteor strikes or ice ages; the author puts the blame for the current one squarely on Homo Sapiens. And of course human-caused climate change is a big part of the problem, but there are plenty of other factors, like ocean acidification caused by increased carbon levels, the loss of biodiversity as habitat like rain forests is converted for human use; and the spread of non-native species around the globe because of human travel. The book is steeped in science, but it’s easy to follow for a layman like me. Highly recommended for both science lovers and science deniers alike.
Starting On 2024’s List
The next book I’ll finish will possibly be on this list a year from now. I’m about a quarter of the way through The Overstory, a book I’ve been looking forward to reading for a long time. Now that I’m into it, I think the anticipation was justified. Ever since the beginning of 2020, I’ve been craving books about the natural world, and this one seems to fill the bill. Stay tuned to this space, and Happy New Year from Shoulblog!
Top photo by Kranich17 on Pixabay
