My Favorite Reads of 2023

I had a great 2023 when it came to reading. With the birth of my daughter and also being hired to teach a couple history classes as a professor, I had much less time to read in 2023 than in the preceding few years. I read seven less books in 2023 than in 2022. Yet I had a greater percentage of books I liked in 2023. So, I figured I'd write a post about some of my favorites!

To be totally clear, none of these choices were written last year. I very rarely read books the year they come out. These are just books I read for the first time last year.

 Anyway, I like to read a wide variety of topics and genres, so I didn't make a numbered list. I'm not sure how you could possibly numerically rank a history book you really liked versus a fantasy novel you really liked. Instead, I choose books by category, looking at some of the types of books I read the most and choosing a favorite for each. I chose three fiction and three nonfiction categories, as I read each in roughly the same amount.

All of these books, by virtue of being on this list, come highly recommended from me if you're looking for books to read yourself.  That said, a couple do come with caveats. Anyway: enjoy!
 

US LITERATURE: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
by Zora Neale Hurston

This book follows a black woman, Janie Crawford, as we get to know her life from her teenage years to her life as a forty-something year old woman in the South. It seems to take place roughly around the time Hurston wrote it, the 1930s. Crawford, who is raised by a grandma born into slavery, attempts to carve her own path in the world while trying to figure out what it means to love. An interesting aspect of this book is that it doesn't focus much on racism despite its setting. Racism is acknowledged, but it's mostly in the background. Hurston seemed more interested in telling a story about black life and community and pain and love, without worrying about the relation of these things to white people. There are very few books out that I know of like this one, and even fewer that are written as well.

 

WORLD LITERATURE: Crime and Punishment (1866)
by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Who knew classic Russian literature could be so compelling and readable? This book follows Rodion Raskolnikov, a broke university student in Russia who murders a greedy old pawn broker. The crime happens early on; the rest of the book is about Raskolnikov dealing with the weight of what he has done while trying to deal with the investigation, as well as drama within his family. This novel is great because it's a blend of the best parts of classic literature and a crime thriller: it's got all the depth, psychological insights, and existential angst of classic Russian literature, but it's also got the tension, pacing, and juicy drama of a crime thriller. There were nights I couldn't put it down. If you want something that is equal parts substantive and compelling, you gotta give this a read.

 

SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY: Black Sun (2020)
by Rebecca Roanhorse

The book follows multiple characters as they prepare for a winter solstice that will also coincide with a solar eclipse. A prophecy foresees a big event happening during that eclipse. The story is about the lead up to, and day of, that eclipse. It is full of political intrigue, moral ambiguity, and characters in deep conflict, but none of it feels forced or seeped in the sort of grim-dark cynicism I find exhausting in a lot of today's genre fiction. There are certainly elements of grimness and darkness and cynicism, but there's also a vibrancy and earnestness that I found refreshing. Beyond that, the characters are well-defined, the world is richly built, and the stakes are crystal clear. My only real issue is that the story... doesn't end on a cliffhanger per se, but it definitely doesn't feel like a stand-alone story. Unlike all the other books on this list that I recommend unconditionally, I recommend this one only if you're okay reading a trilogy.

US HISTORY: An Indigenous People's History of the United States (2014)
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

One of the most famous history books of the last couple decades, this one is worth the hype. I'd explain what the book is about, but it's pretty clear from the title: a history of the Indigenous people within the US. It's one of the best history books I've ever read: scholarly but passionate, accessible but substantive, factual but fierce. An absolute must-read for understanding not just Native American history, but US history as a whole- you cannot properly understand this country unless you understand Native American history. Again: this book is fully worth every bit of hype of it gets.

WORLD HISTORY: Open Veins of Latin America (1971)
by Eduardo Galeano

This book covers the history of Latin America ever since the start of European colonization. It could have easily been a thousand pages, but it's not. The version I have is only 285 (not counting endnotes, index, bibliography, etc). The reason Galeano is able to be so brief is that he organizes the book around the exploitation of specific Latin American resources (agricultural crops, precious metals, etc) and how it creates an economic infrastructure of dependency, poverty, and inequality in Latin America. The main focus is on the structure and history of that framework, with him dipping into bits and pieces of the histories of different Latin American countries to help explore that greater focus. This way of organizing the book helps keep everything grounded and brief while still covering everything adequately. The book makes no attempt to be impartial, but considering the historical legacy of the West in the Americas, there's no reason for it to be.

 

SOCIAL COMMENTARY: Blood in My Eye (1972)
by George Jackson

Man... I'm not sure how to even begin to talk about this one. And yet, that's sort of the thing I'm supposed to do here since I decided to write a post about my favorite 2023 reads. So okay, here it goes: this is a call to arms by a revolutionary black man incarcerated in the US prison system. Jackson is equal parts fierce, direct, strategic, sharp, and deeply intelligent. Jackson was a member of the Black Panther Party and a co-founder of the Black Guerilla Family, Jackson read widely and saw the horrors of capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism for what they were (and still are). This book won't be for everyone- you have to already have an understanding about systems of inequality and oppression going in or else it'll scare you off. But man, if you're ready for it, it's a real gut punch.