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 32 (of 52) – Blind Spots

Blind Spots – Thomas Mullen

After a global pandemic destroys the world’s ability to see, technology steps in to fill the void.  When reports of criminals who are able to blur themselves out reach the police, they are skeptical until one of their own experiences the same thing.  While he tries to figure out what is going on, the rest of the department looks at him as the likely culprit of a number of murders, leading to a standoff just as the President is coming to town.

Thomas Mullen makes his debut appearance on  my shelf with Blind Spots, which made its way onto a best of 2023 list so far earlier this month.  After my recent good experience with contemporary sci-fi, I decided to give it a shot.  I had a hard time getting into it at first, but things picked up about a third of the way through.  Overall, it was a good time.  If I happened to come across more of Mullen’s work in the future, I would definitely give it a go.