In 2023, I read so many great books. Here’s a list of all the books I read in 2023 in the order I read them (not the order I enjoyed them).

When I look back at this list, four books really stand out. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (so good I read it twice—thanks Alison for the reco!), Black Cake (excellent, much better than the new Hulu series), Adrift by a great local author Lisa Brideau, and the spectacularly ambitious and immensely readable Babel by R. F. Kuang.

I also really enjoyed the Children of Time trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky and the two “Moon” books by Waubgeshig Rice. I’d also like to mention We Do This ’Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba because it is the source of an amazing quote my friend Parker taught me earlier this year: Hope is a Discipline. I think of that quote frequently when the problems of the world seem so much bigger than our efforts of repair.

I appreciate my book club for introducing me to books I otherwise wouldn’t have read. Every year when I publish this list I always get into great conversations about our favourite books, so what books stood out to you in 2023?

1. Girl, Woman, Other — Bernardino Evaristo
2. Directed by James Burrows — James Burrows
3. The Persuaders — Anand Giridharadas
4. We Are All Made of Scars — Christopher Morris
5. New York 2140 — Kim Stanley Robinson
6. A Psalm for the Wild-Built — Becky Chambers
7. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
8. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy — Becky Chambers
9. Chokepoint Capitalism — Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow
10. The Long Road Home — Debra Thompson
11. The Creative Act — Rick Rubin
12. The Myth of Normal — Gabor Maté
13. The Theory of Crows — David A. Robertson
14. The Power of Story — Harold Johnson
15. Banking on a Human Scale — George Hofheimer
16. Greenwood — Michael Christie
17. Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
18. Urban Magnets — Bruce Haden, Mark Holland & Bruce Irvine
19. Care Of — Ivan Coyote
20. Children of Time — Adrian Tchaikovsky
21. Unbroken — Angela Sterritt
22. God Human Animal Machine — Meghan O’Gieblyn
23. Power, for All — Julie Battilana & Tiziana Casciaro
24. Poverty, by America — Matthew Desmond
25. all about love — bell hooks
26. Black Cake — Charmaine Wilkerson
27. The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece — Tom Hanks
28. A Visit from the Goon Squad — Jennifer Egan
29. Truth Telling — Michelle Good
30. How to Break Up With Your Phone — Catherine Price
31. An American Marriage — Tayari Jones
32. Junie — Chelene Knight
33. Children of Ruin — Adrian Tchaikovsky
34. We Do This ’Til We Free Us — Mariame Kaba
35. The Book of Boundaries — Melissa Urban
36. Children of Memory — Adrian Tchaikovsky
37. Stamped From The Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America — Ibram X. Kendi & Joel Christian Gill
38. The Country of the Blind — Andrew Leland
39. Happy-Go-Lucky — David Sedaris
40. All That She Carried — Tiya Miles
41. Yellowface — R. F. Kuang
42. Post Capitalist Philanthropy — Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy
43. Not Here — Rob Goodman
44. Ducks — Kate Beaton
45. American Prometheus — Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin
46. Doppelganger — Naomi Klein
47. Monsters — Claire Dederer
48. The Righteous Mind — Jonathan Haidt
49. Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice
50. Adrift — Lisa Brideau
51. Moon of the Turning Leaves — Waubgeshig Rice
52. MCU: The Rise of Marvel Studios — Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, & Gavin Edwards
53. The Candy House: A Novel — Jennifer Egan
54. Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult — Maria Bamford
55. The Fire Next Time — James Baldwin
56. Babel — R. F. Kuang
57. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
58. Young Jane Young  — Gabrielle Zevin

Happy 2024, all!