I rang in this year on a Sara J. Maas bender, and was just thinking that I need a new series to get lost in this winter when I started Vampire Hunter D. Maybe that’ll be my next winter month obsession. In the sunshine this summer I devoured biographies of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Christian Dior. I read two Maggie Nelson books and they blew my mind. I read a bunch of philosophy books for fun, and Anne Carson’s meditations on the ancient Greek tradition of Eros.
Then I spent much of this month not reading a book or collection! Instead I went on a short story reading kick, which is maybe something I’ll start doing every winter.
Here’s what I read in 2023:
Top Whatever
Girlhood – Melissa Febos
Figuring – Maria Popova
Bluets – Maggie Nelson
A Psalm for the Wild-Built – Becky Chambers
Vulcana – Rebecca F John
On Immunity: An Innoculation – Eula Biss
The Ballad of Peckham Rye – Muriel Spark
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay – Nancy Milford
People Collide – Isle McElroy
The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
What I Read in 2023
1. A Court of Thorns and Roses – Sara J Maas (Fantasy)
2. The Bad Girl – Mario Vargas Llosa (Fiction)
3. The Flame – Leonard Cohen (Poetry)
4. A Court of Mist and Fury – Sara J Maas (Fantasy)
5. White Like Me – Tim Wise (Nonfiction/Memoir)
6. Figuring – Maria Popova (Essay/History/Nonfiction)
7. A Court of Wings and Ruin – Sara J Maas (Fantasy)
8. Girlhood – Melissa Febos (Nonfiction/Memoir)
9. A Court of Frost and Starlight – Sara J Maas (Fantasy)
10. The Storyteller – Dave Grohl (Nonfiction/Memoir)
11. Joseph Leidy: The last man who knew everything – Leonard Warren (Biography)
12. The Collected Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen
13. Hollows: Stories – Tommy Dean (Flash Fiction Collection)
14. A Mercy – Tony Morrison (Fiction)
15. The Crane Wife – CJ Hauser (Essays)
16. What We Still Don’t Know – Dawn Paul (Poetry)
17. The Origins of You – Vienna Pharaon (Nonfiction/Self-Help)
18. Vulcana – Rebecca F John (Historical Fiction)
19. Terminal Boredom: Stories – Izumi Suzuki (Fiction/SciFi)
20. Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty – Kate Hennessey (Biography)
21. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë (Judgmental Fiction!)
22. The Art of Cruelty – Maggie Nelson (Nonfiction/Philosophy)
23. Eros the Bittersweet: Essays – Anne Carson (Nonfiction/Philosophy)
24. White Fur – Jardine Libaire (Fiction)
25. On Immunity: An Inoculation – Eula Biss (Nonfiction/Philosophy)
26. Sorrow and Bliss – Meg Mason (Fiction)
27. The Ballad of Peckham Rye – Muriel Spark (Fiction)
28. Christian Dior: The man who made the world look new – Marie-France Pochna (Biography)
29. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Urban Legends – Gary Carlson and Frank Fosco (Comics/Graphic Novel)
30. Tent – Margaret Atwood (Fictional Essay / Hybrid)
31. Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma – Claire Dederer (Nonfiction/Philosophy)
32. Pond: Claire-Louise Bennett (Hybrid/Fiction)
33. Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital – Elise Hu (Nonfiction)
34. Thin Places – Kerri ní Dochartaigh (Essay/Memoir)
35. The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel (Fiction)
36. The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant – Drew Hayes (Horror/Satire)
37. Bluets – Maggie Nelson (Elliptical Essay / Philosophy)
38. A Psalm for the Wild-Built – Becky Chambers (SciFi / SolarPunk)
39. Night Vision: Seeing ourselves through our dark moods – Mariana Alessandri (Philosophy)
40. Saturday – Ian McEwan (Fiction)
41. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy – Becky Chambers (SciFi / SolarPunk)
42. Savage Beauty: The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay – Nancy Milford (Biography)
43. Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles – Kate Flannery (Memoir)
44. Houdini: The man who walked through walls – William Lindsay Gresham (Biography)
45. Birding While Indian: A mixed-blood memoir – Thomas C. Gannon (Nonfiction/Memoir)
46. Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world – Naomi Klein (Nonfiction)
47. With Walt Whitman in Camden – Horace Traubel (Biography / Published Diary)
48. People Collide – Isle McElroy (Fiction)
49. The Rabbit Hutch – Tess Gunty (Fiction)
50. They Can’t Kill Us Till They Kill Us – Hanif Abdurraqib (Essay/Memoir)
51. Wolfish – Erica Berry (Nonfiction)
52. A Flicker in the Dark – Stacy Willingham (Thriller)
53. Mislaid – Nell Zink (Fiction)
54. Discordant – Mia Dalia (Horror)
55. The Iliac Crest – Cristina Rivera Garza (translated by Sarah Booker) (Fiction)
56. The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter (Short Story Collection)
57. Vampire Hunter D – Hideyuki Kikuchi (Horror/SciFi/Dark Fantasy)
58. The Heretic – Miguel Delibes (Historical Fiction)
59. White Magic – Elissa Washuta (Essay Collection)
60. Tarot – The Library of Esoterica (History/Essay/Art)
Laura Eppinger 