Short stories

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

I’ve been teaching a short story by Machado in my intro to fiction class for a few years now, but I haven't read much else from her until now. Her work is often categorized loosely as “horror” which isn’t a genre I usually pick up, but I loved every single story in this book. They were beautifully written, weird, funny, and each one was so rich that it felt more like a novel than a short story.

Heartbroke by Chelsea Bieker

Bieker’s first novel, Godshot, was an instant favorite for me when I read it a few years back. It’s a dystopian coming of age story that revolves around a young girl in a Christian cult. The stories in Heartbroke have many of the qualities I loved about Godshot–witty narration, down and out characters, and dark humor. I loved every story.

Nonfiction

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

I know I’m 10 years late reading this book and that it has received some criticism and debate from the scientific world for being not especially scientific (Harari is a historian), and I can’t really speak to that, as I’m pretty sure that I’m the intended audience–a layperson with some interest in the big philosophical and scientific questions about human existence. That said, I loved this book. I listened to the audiobook and felt like I was sitting in on a semester’s worth of captivating lectures that traced human cognition through 6 million years on this planet. The major take-away for me was Harari’s emphasis on the human invention of concepts and stories to understand (and attempt to rule) the world. The results have been everything that defines humanity as we know it: our wars, revolutions, art, governments, corporations, subjugation, myths, nations, ideologies, religions, etc. The notion of social constructs wasn’t new to me, but the scale of the picture Harari paints is profound and changed how I think about humanity.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari

I also listened to this one as an audio-book and didn’t really know much about it besides that there was a fair amount of buzz around it. Turns out Hari is a bit controversial because he was part of a plagiarism scandal before he wrote this book. Nonetheless, I still really loved this book, and while I think some of the criticisms of it are valid, I still think a lot of it holds up and I found it to be really useful for better understanding why (to use Hari’s analogy) we all behave as if we’re covered in itching powder but no one stops to ask who poured the powder on us to begin with. In this analogy, the itching is our scattered attention and our irresistible urge to be constantly scrolling. He also introduced me to the phrase “surveillance capitalism”-- the widespread collection and sale of personal data by large corporations– which has helped me to make sense of how social media works, who it benefits and why it doesn't actually have to be that way. Hari might make some sloppy leaps from his hypotheses to his conclusions at times, but that doesn’t bother me too much as I’m more interested in drawing my own conclusions anyway. If you’re interested in how our current mediums for communication are impacting our cognitive function and mental health and how we can resist the worst side effects of a world lived online, this is a solid read.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez 

This book explores the history of what du Mez calls militant masculinity in the American white evangelical church. Du Mez traces the white evangelical church’s ever evolving relationship with manhood from the Victorian notions of gentleness to the muscular christianity movement of the 19th century to John Wayne to Donald Trump. She argues that the American evangelical movement has been paving the way for Trump’s brand of masculinity for decades. This was an interesting read for me, because, having grown up in the evangelical church myself,  many of the movements she discusses are things I experienced first hand. I found the phrase “militant masculinity” to be very useful as it clearly gestures to the specific marriage of religious nationalism and patriarchy; I was fascinated by the way that evangelical leaders really worked to craft this narrow vision of what it means to be a Christian man during the second half of the 20th century. But to me, the most interesting argument she makes is that evangelical Christians are less influenced by their own personal faith, church, or spiritual leaders than they are by the larger evangelical movement as a whole. 

Lighter reads

I don’t know what to call this section and I don’t want to be patronizing towards books that aren’t especially serious or literary.  I read my fair share of murder mysteries and romance and thrillers, and I think the literary world has been unfairly snobby towards “genre fiction” for a long time. Anyway, here are some favorite reads that are a little less weighty.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

This book was a delight from start to finish. Garmus tells the story of a brilliant young chemist in the 1950-60s who encounters every imaginable roadblock to success because she’s a woman; she eventually has to settle for hosting a chemistry-adjacent cooking show because the scientific world is so horrifically prejudiced that they’d rather produce no research at all than have it come from a woman. The book paints a painful picture of the kinds of sexism that women were dealing with in mid-century America, ranging from men taking credit for their work to the constant threat of sexual harassment or assault. Despite the heavy themes, the book manages to have a distinct levity throughout. There’s a certain element of fantasy to Garmus’s storytelling, and it did feel a little corny at times. I don’t mean wizards or spells, but there’s a dog with a human consciousness and a Nobokov-reading 4 year old that felt a little beyond my suspension of disbelief. Nonetheless, this is a witty, fast-paced read, and I loved finishing off the year with it. 

Jean Hallet novels

Jean Hallet writes clever and complex mystery novels that always have some sort of fun narrative device. The Twyford Code is written as a series of transcribed audio recordings from a mysterious phone, and the identity of the author is slowly revealed. The Appeal is written as a conversation between two detectives trying to solve a murder mystery, but the bulk of the book is presented as the email correspondence that they’re given as evidence. The emails are all between the cast and crew of a small town theater troupe, one who we know will be dead by the end of the story. I listened to the audio version of these two books and I loved them. I think they might be better read in book or e-book form because there are often little riddles or references that I would have liked to see in writing. 

Lucy Foley novels

Lucy Foley writes murder mysteries, but they’re not exactly the cozy kind. You’re likely to encounter some unreliable narrators and no one is ever totally innocent. But she creates a certain ambiance around her settings that I really love, and I think the sense of place that she builds is often what carries her stories. She’s a go-to if I want a fast-paced vacation read, and while I wouldn’t want to encounter any of her characters IRL, I always want to be in her Paris apartments and Scottish inns. 

Epilogue

I wanted to write short reviews of all my favorite books from 2023, but I fear I’ll never publish this if I have to write any more. Let me know in the comments if you want to hear more about a book on the list, or–better yet–let me know what books you’ve loved recently so I can add them to my reading list for this year :)

Another favorite that I’m not gonna get around to writing a full review of, but it explores themes of mass surveillance and personal data in a really entertaining and thoughtful way. Egan writes such robust characters and weaves together her plots in a chaotic but satisfying tapestry.