2023 Reading List

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  reading lists!

The Overstory (Audible).  My full review is here.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. My full review is here.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native American from 1890 to Present. My "poetic review" is here. My notes and quotes are here.

The Murder Rule (Audible).  Great beach read! In early 2022, I took a screenshot of a tweet from crime writer extraordinaire Don Winslow where he recommended this book. I forgot about about it until a year later and promptly downloaded the book to my Libby app.  4 days later I'd finished it--wow-Aussie author Dervla McTiernan can write.  Full of twists and turns and courtroom drama, the reader goes behind the scenes of the Innocence project to find out if the prisoner in question is truly innocent, or if anyone really is. 

Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War (Libby, Listened.).  Such a great collection of essays.  My review is here.

Afterlives.  Superb writing that traces the lives of three characters against the background of Tanzanian independence.  My full review is here.  

The Passenger.  Don't read Cormac McCarthy's entirely skippable book...180 pages of my life that I will never get back.  My review is here.

City on Fire (Libby, Listened). Master crime writer Don Winslow pens a fast-paced mafia thriller set in Providence, Rhode Island.  The narrative focuses on Danny Ryan and his struggle to find a place between long-warring Italian and Irish families.  I first read Winslow in his SoCal cartel thriller Savages back in 2010 and have followed his work ever since. City of Fire delivers as a classic crime tale--the best part is that its the first of a trilogy!

Khalil (Libby, Listened)  This 2021 novel takes the reader into the mind of a Moroccan/Belgian suicide bomber with his sight set on Paris. Notably, it's author is a former Algerian Army officer living in exile in France who publishes under the pen name Yasmina Khadra (his wife's first two names).  Even more notable, the French Academy awarded him its Henri Gal Grand Prize for Literature in 2011. All that to say, the story is as nuanced as one would expect from such a gifted author.  Khadra delves into the central chracter Khalil's mind as he unveils the history, influences, and methods that turned a young man into a suicide bomber.  Equal parts terrifying and stupefying, the author declines to offer any easy answers but instead paints a complex picture of the immigrant experience and the roots of modern day terrorism.  *Khadra also wrote one of my favorite novels: What the Day Owes the Night which I reviewed at Beyond Achebe.  

Dispatches From a Cowgirl: Through the Looking Glass With a Navy Diplomat's Wife.   Author Julie Tully pulls back the curtain on what it's like to be the wife of diplomat living in Africa.  With so much written about diplomats, attaches, and ambassadors, Tully fills an important void in telling the story of the vital women/spouses that form the foundation of life overseas.  As she takes the reader on the journey of their lives in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Djibouti, it becomes clear just how pivotal her role was to her husband's success. Indeed, the author regales the readers with story after story of her and her husband's lockstep coordination as they developed plans to host dinners and events--it's readily apparent that the attache life is a team sport.  The only area that I wished she'd fleshed out more were her efforts to enshrine the memory of Pilot Officer Maguire, the only American born military buried in Djibouti--I'd hoped for another chapter on that.  Overall, I can't imagine a more important book for any couple to read before heading to an overseas embassy assignment, particularly one with representational duties.  It will ensure they arrive clear-eyed as  to the rmyriad responsibilities and exciting opportunities of life overseas.

The Last Policeman. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Edgars Award (Libby) for best paperback original in 2013, the novel tells the story of a world facing pending destruction at the hand of a monster meteor.  No one yet knows where on earth it will hit but already it's upended every societal norm.  Among the changes is a huge spike in suicides--they've become so commonplace they are only nominally investigated and processed.  One day, however, Detectice Henry Palace encounters a man hung in the McDonald's bathroom that doesn't sit right with him. Author Ben Winters creates an interesting story that makes for a good beach read (or in my case, a way to break up the Napoli afternoon commute).  

The Midnight Library (Libby, Listened).   A quantum physics take on It's a Wonderful Life.  Engrossing read that will have you second guessing every significant choice you've made in your own life.  In this novel's case, its protagonist has a chance to re-explore different branches and choices that she didn't make.  Ultimately, the authors forces the readers to question their assumptions about determinism and urges each of us to embrace Socrates' directive to seek to "know thyself."

Falling: A Novel (Libby, Listened). Came across this novel via author Don Winslow's twitter feed.  This is a decent beach read thriller that takes the reader onto a plane that comes under an unconventional terrorist attack.  Frankly, I wasn't sure that the author could write an entire book over such a small slice of time but she does an admirable job of stretch out that space through the thoughts of the various characters.

Romantic Comedy: A Novel (Libby).  Superb beach read.  I first read Sittenfield back in 2006 and she struck me with her ability to create the an encompassing and utterly believable boarding school atmosphere.  A product of Woodberry Forest myself (albeit an all-boys school) I could attest to her mastery.  In Romantic Comedy her research is evident as she tackles the world of late night television (a la SNL) and comedy writing.  Through sketch writer Sally's viewpoint, the reader quickly gets the feeling of a clubby insider--privy to the inner machinations of a unique sub-strata of the Hollywood world.  Romantic Comedy is just what its title describes, and each page is a pleasure as Sittenfield pens perhaps the first great post-COVID COVID novel--one that is unflinching in addressing gender-power dynamics but at the same time tender in its description of all the wonderful and awful ways falling in love feels.

The Violin Conspiracy: A Novel (Libby, Listened). I came across this novel through Anne Bagel's Podcast "What Should I Read Next?" In it she spoke with musician Brendan Slocumb as he described writing his first novel, a tale equal parts mystery and commentary on racism in America.  While this debut novel may have some minor pacing and diction issues, don't let that dissuade you from this deep thrilling deep dive into the classical music world.  As an outsider, it was eye-opening to see and experience the the life of a classical musicians, particularly a black one who is not hesitant to share the myriad racist setbacks and attacks he endures (during the podcast he noted that he based all of the racism from the novel on personal experiences).

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Libby, Listened)  Loved this book! So many layers to this book: video game design, love triangles, disability, friendship, companionship--the author's ability to weave so many major life themes into one arc gives it strong Gen Z great american novel vibes.

Paradise.  

Into Thin Air. Tough, jaw-dropping read.  My son got me this as a birthday present and I tore through it in a few short days.

City of Dreams (Libby, listened). The second book in noire crime writer extraordinaire's "Danny Ryan" series, this one builds on the first books. 

Kruse's Keys: Read "The Overstory" to Understands the Roots of this World

On more than one instance, a character in Richard Powers’ Pullitizer prize-winning tale The Overstory, states that “The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”  Powers sets out to change all our minds in this sprawling (24 hours on Libby app!) story of nine people’s life-changings relationships with various trees (e.g., American chestnuts, a mulberries, maples, banyans, douglas firs, and redwoods).  Prior to reading The Overstory, I had a very baseline understanding of trees and their role in the world.  I believed that having forests was a good thing but reading headlines about 10,000 acres of rainforests disappearing each day would solicit only a small tisk from me before I went on with my day.  I lacked any emotional connection to them.  

This book changed that.  The Overstory changed my mind about trees.  It stoked my curiosity and left me mourning the loss of these incredible living giants (creatures dare I say?).  I was aghast to discover that the entire east coast was once filled with BILLIONS of chestnut trees (the redwoods of the east coast) but that they were decimated after a parasite rode in from East Asia with imported Japanese chestnut trees in 1904.  Less than three decades later, almost every mature American chestnut was gone! Learning about the hundreds of different uses for the American chestnut compounded my sense of loss.  The North American continent that existed since creation is irrevocably different and forever wounded due to this loss.  

The book’s power stems from the readers’ experience of the characters’ lives, among them a group of eco-terrorists, a ground-breaking scientist, and a paralyzed man.  Powers pens the lives of the people with the same care and attention as he does the trees–the trees in fact, probably inhabit more space in the novel (just as they do in the world).  It quickly becomes apparent how much we don’t know about trees.  With the human life cycle less than a century, the millenia-long life cycle of trees means our discoveries will never stop.  

Perhaps the most eye-opening discovery was the way in which trees communicate not only with each other but with us.  Early in her career, scientist Dr. Patty Westerford uncovers the way in which certain trees communicate but she is roundly and ridiculed by her scientific peers.  This shame sends her into academic Siberia and it is only decades later that she is vindicated through later studies.  It turns out that trees are indeed able to warn each other of marauding animals, blight and disease through spores, intertwined root systems, and ways in which we don’t yet understand.  In a speech Patty notes “Nothing is less isolated or more social than a tree.”  

While reading this book has not prompted me to chain myself to a redwood it has changed the way I interact with the trees around me in simple ways.  For instance,I downloaded the “Picture This” app and now routinely snap photos of trees to learn more about them. It reminds me of the feeling I had when I learned to read in kindergarten and would read aloud everything I saw–billboards, signs, advertisements–I had discovered a power that unlocked the world around me.  The Overstory unlocks a similar power–to discover and appreciate the world of trees whose very roots hold us all together.

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

Related reading:

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual Read my review of Patagonia founder’s manifesto here.  

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World

Greenwood: A Novel 

Natural History of North American Trees

Gaia

Key Quotes:

Beautiful writing here:

“You have given me a thing I could never have imagined, before I knew you. It's like I had the word "book," and you put one in my hands. I had the world "game," and you taught me how to play. I had the word "life," and then you came along and said, "Oh! You mean this.”

“The best and easiest way to get a forest to return to any plot of cleared land is to do nothing—nothing at all, and do it for less time than you might think.”