I read 100 books in 2023, some of which were important. 

Well, the year is over. Last April, I decided that I was going to read 100 books in 2023, and I am pleased to report that I did it! I read one hundred and two motherfucking books this year, and I am NEVER doing it again. Going forward, I’ll be reading fifty, maybe. A hundred is too many books. I will pretend that my favorite book this year was either Lucky Red by Claudia Graves or The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, both of which I think about daily. My actual favorite book this year, though, was hands down, Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. Sorry, no amount of carefully sculpted literary beauty could compare to farm animals starting a union. My least favorite book was Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig, for reasons I will get to when I finally get around to doing the rest of these reviews. But honestly, none of that is important.

It has taken me a while after New Year to figure out how to present this list, primarily because it’s actually two lists. I read 87 books for pleasure, and I read 15 books (and counting) to wrap my head around the genocide in Palestine. October 7th and the subsequent carpet bombing of Gaza by Israel, as well as the displacement of and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, has been all I’ve been able to think or read about for months. It became incredibly clear to me, watching the responses of many of those around me cheering on the indiscriminate murder of children while claiming that the situation was “complicated,” that this lapse in my education needed to be remedied immediately. But what I learned in 15 books I already understood after one. The situation is not complicated. It is painfully, obviously straightforward. It’s genocide. If you are looking for a place to start, I recommend The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe. 

Books on Palestine:

1. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
2. Palestine: A Four Thousand-Year History by Nur-eldeen Masalha
3. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
4. Palestinian Identity by Rashid Khalidi
5. Palestine Speaks by Matteo Hoke and Cate Malek 
6. They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi
7. Mural by Mahmoud Darwish 
8. Memory for Forgetfulness by Mahmoud Darwish
9. In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi
10. Blaming the Victims by Christopher Hitchens
11. The Image and Reality of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Norman Finkelstein 
12. Method and Madness by Norman Finkelstein
13. On Palestine by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe
14. The Punishment of Gaza by Gideon Levy 
15. Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 

The Rest:

1. The Humans By Matt Haig 
2. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig 
3. Midnight Library by Matt Haig 
4. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 
5. Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner 
6. Still Life by Sarah Winman 
7. A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw 
8. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 
9. This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes
10. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan 
11. The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan 
12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
13. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle 
14. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle 
15. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
16. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
17. My Grandmothers Hands by Resmaa Menakem 
18. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
19. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut 
20. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut 
21. Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis 
22. Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom 
23. Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker 
24. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake 
25. Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett 
26. Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
27. Last Continent by Terry Pratchett 
28. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett 
29. Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore 
30. You Suck by Christopher Moore 
31. Bite Me by Christopher Moore 
32. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson 
33. An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz 
34. Guns Germs and Steal by Jarad Diamond
35. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Michael Lawrence 
36. The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey 
37. Deadly Education by Naomi Novik 
38. The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo 
39. Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
40. Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan 
41. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking 
42. White Women by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao 
43. Lost Christianities by Bart D. Ehrman 
44. Zealot by Reza Aslan 
45. God by Reza Aslan 
46. Al-Quran
47. The Stranger by Camus 
48. The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus
49. Metamorphosis by Kafka 
50. The Trial by Kafka 
51. The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein 
52. Animal Farm by George Orwell 
53. 1984 by George Orwell 
54. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
55. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 
56. The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
57. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
58. Lucky Red by Claudia Graves 
59. When Animals Dream by David M. Pena-Guzman
60. This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust 
61. Learning from the Wounded by Shauna Devine 
62. Whittling for Beginners by Rigby 
63. Medicines That Help Us by Christi Belcourt 
64. Vanguard by Martha S. Jones 
65. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne 
66. When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne
67. Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne
68. The House at Pooh Corner A. A. Milne 
69. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney 
70. On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky 
71. Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky
72. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius 
73. The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud 
74. Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin 
75. Grimms Fairy Tales 
76. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 
77. Black Adder: The Whole Damn Dynasty 
78. Dragon Flight by Anne Mccaffrey
79. Aristotle Poetics
80. Legacy of Ashes by Tom Weiver 
81. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
82. Devotions by Mary Oliver 
83. Wordsworth Selected Poetry 
84. The Essential Emily Dickinson 
85. The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens 
86. Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones 
87. Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker