2023: The Year In Books

As 2023 comes to a close, my third full year of remote working, I managed to far surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 59 books, four books more than my previous high from last year and my third consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in late November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read (or listened) to 21,394 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the fourth time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, eleven were non-fiction and, of the remaining 48 novels, only four were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 53 e-books and two audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 44 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 61% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 22 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Selma Blair Stacy Willingham Gillian McAllister Chuck Klosterman
Gabrielle Zevin Ronan Farrow Matthew Perry Amor Towles
Jason Rekulak Emily St. John Mandel Bonnie Garmus Thomas Mullen
Naomi Hirahara Maitland Ward Busy Phillips Elliot Page
Jinwoo Chong Maureen Ryan Minka Kelly Britney Spears
Emily Henry Rebecca Makkai

Jennifer McMahon, Karin Slaughter, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Erle Stanley Gardner, Grady Hendrix, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Ruth Ware, and Stacy Willingham were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2023.

18 of the books I read were released this year, while only five of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

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Book 22 (of 52) – Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing – Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry, one of the stars of TV’s Friends, checks in with this memoir to tell us of his addictions, trouble maintaining a relationship, and how the two tie together in being caused by what he was lacking in his childhood.  Finally clean and sober, for the moment, although due mostly in part to an exploded colon which left him in a coma for two weeks and with a colostomy bag for the better part of a year.  If he is unable to resurrect his career, at least he has all that Friends money to fall back on.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is my first audiobook of 2023 and my latest attempt to enjoy a celebrity memoir and coming away at least somewhat disappointed.  Perry is a deeply flawed person and has gotten, and squandered, more chances than you or I might see.  But, because Chandler Bing was part of one of the biggest hits in television history, everyone, at least professionally, forgives if not forgets, until the show is over.  It’s tiring, to be honest.

Midseason Review – Thursdays

old-tv-set1Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the television week. Here’s our look back at my pre-season thoughts on what’s on the slate for this season.

7:00

Grey’s Anatomy – The medical drama enters its 11th season with a move to an earlier timeslot.  There are cast changes aplenty this year, so hopefully the show can continue its recent quality upswing.

I noticed that episodes of the show started piling up on the DVR somewhat this season.  I’m all caught up now, but with the big logjam at this timeslot, who knows what will happen when the show returns.

The Big Bang Theory – The show returns to Thursdays in late October, following the midpoint of the NFL season.

The show is much more relationship focused this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there hasn’t been as much interaction between the 4 original nerds without their new-found lady friends.

Bones – The show moves back to Thursdays for its 10th season.  Beyond that, there’s not much to say about the show that hasn’t already been said.

Well, the show kicked off the season by killing off John Francis Daley’s character, so there was a bit of a shake up, but the show is pretty much the same as its always been.

8:00

Gracepoint – FOX hopes that taking a successful British mystery, Broadchurch, and remaking it for an American audience while keeping the same star, David Tennant, will make lightning hit twice.

Tweaking the ending of the show ever so slightly did not make the previous 9 1/2 episodes being exact duplicates of their British counterparts a worthwhile watch.

8:30

A to Z – The pilot didn’t exactly reach out and grab me, but star Cristin Milloti, fresh from her turn as the titular mother in the final season of How I Met Your Mother, is exceedingly charming, so I will give this a longer chance to impress.

Well, the show should be wrapping up its 13 episode run soon.  If they have Cristin Milioti’s character die and have the lead guy hook up with Cobie Smulders instead, it would give the show a proper sendoff.

9:00

Elementary – Sherlock and Watson return for a third season of helping the NYPD solve their cases.

Sherlock returned from London with a new assistant, so there has been switch up to the status quo.

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CBS Upfronts

PersonOfInterestRelevance1CBS, which fell behind NBC in the battle for 18-49 year olds thanks to the NFL and Olympics, mixed up their schedule for the fall at their upfront presentation this week.  After inking a deal to simulcast 8 weeks of Thursday Night Football, The Big Bang Theory will temporarily move back to Mondays, bumping 2 Broke Girls off the schedule until November.  Katharine McPhee stars in Scorpion, which will take the 8:00 hour.

Person of Interest stays where it is on Tuesday and Criminal Minds continues on Wednesdays.  Kevin Williamson brings a new drama, Stalker, to Wednesday featuring Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q.  Once the football commitment ends at the end of October, BBT and Elementary return to Thursdays.  The Amazing Race moves to Fridays, where it will be followed by holdovers Hawaii 5-0 and Blue Bloods.  The Good Wife continues on Sundays, where it will be joined be OG CSI and Tea Leoni’s new show, Madam Secretary.

The Mentalist will start off on the bench, along with a new version of The Odd Couple, starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon.  Missing altogether is How I Met Your Dad, the “spinoff” of How I Met Your Mother that seemed like a shoe-in to get picked up.

Post Mortem – 30 Rock

30 RockOur look back at the shows that called it a day this year concludes with 30 Rock, the ratings challenged sitcom that somehow managed to survive for 7 seasons.  Way back in 2006, NBC’s fall schedule included 2 shows set behind the scenes at a network sketch comedy show.  Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip starred a post-Friends Matthew Perry and was created by wunderkind Aaron Sorkin.  30 Rock had a post-SNL Tina Fey and Tracey Morgan plus former movie star Alec Baldwin.  If you had to guess which show would last 7 years and which would last 1, you probably would have gotten it wrong.

While never a ratings powerhouse, 30 Rock was a critical darling and continued to be strong in to its final season.  Thursday nights will be less funny without 30 Rock going forward.

Post Mortem – Go On

51SmpfypsMatthew Perry has had a few different series since Friends went off the air in 2004, each one failing to catch on with the American public.  The latest, Go On, managed to at least air for a full season before getting the boot, which is a shame.

Perry played a recent widower who joins a support group to deal with his grief, which had started to affect his sports radio talk show.  The show had some rough patches early on, but had managed to find a good groove as the season went on.  Alas, NBC, which at this point is regularly losing to Spanish language programming in the ratings, decided to once again move on from their former Friend.  Hopefully, he’ll be back soon.

Midseason Review – Tuesdays

We continue our look back at my expectations for the fall television season, and today we are focusing on Tuesdays.

7:00

Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.

Nothing new to report on the Raising Hope front.  You know what you are going to get: no more, no less.

7:30

Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour.  I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.

As it turns out, I wasn’t willing to take any more, since I never went back to watch any subsequent episodes.

8:00

Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad.  Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.

Like most of Perry’s post-Friends output, a lot of the heavy lifting is left to his charm.  There are flashes of something here, though, and if the writers can figure out how to consistently offer something beyond Perry’s innate likability, they will be on to something.

New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits.  The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.

New Girl continues to impress, and has even started to find interesting things to do with Winston this year.

Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season.  The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.

Still funny, but it seems that hardly anyone is watching.  With ABC burning off episodes by airing them on both Tuesdays and Sundays, I fear we may be looking at the unhappy end of Happy Endings.

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2012 New Fall Season – Tuesdays

It’s time to take a look at the Tuesday night offerings for this season.

7:00

Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.

7:30

Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour.  I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.

8:00

Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad.  Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.

New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits.  The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.

Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season.  The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.

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