Here is the list of the books I read, in paper form, in 2023. This is not a book blog as you know, but today these titles, posted on @alexandradanewriter each time I pick one up to read, deserve a list. Sometimes I post a thought, but mostly I just document them. My process for choosing varies: the cover, the title, culled from online bookstore recommendations, book group choices, friend suggestions, ones poached from a hostess’s bedside table, indie bookstore purchases, required reading from a workshop.

If you make it to the end, read my short short evaluation list. Happy New Year!

Foster — Claire Keegan

Journey of The Heart — Daily (started) Melody Beattie

A Glove Shop in Vienna + Other Stories — Eva Ibbotson

Book lovers — Emily Henry

The Comfort Food Diaries — Emily Nunn

Wintering — Katherine May

Things I Don’t Want to Know — Deborah Levy

In Five Years — Rebecca Serle

The Cost of Living — Deborah Levy

Real Estate — Deborah Levy

Women Holding Things — Maira Kalman

No Baggage — Clara Bensen

The Best American Food Writing 2022 — Edited by Sola El-Waylly

Red Paint — Sasha taq sablu LaPointe

Blow Your House Down — Gina Frangello

Stone blind — Natalie Haynes

Just A Mother — Roy Jacobsen

Miss Bunting — Angela Thirkell

Milk Blood Heat — Daniel W. Moniz

Enchantment — Katherine May

Artful Sentences: Virginia Tufte

The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

Poet Warrior — Joy Harjo

Dear Edward — Ann Napolitano

Ma and Me — Putsata Reang

Hang The Moon — Jeannette Walls

Walk the Blue Fields — Claire Keegan

Unraveling — Peggy Orenstein

Fellowship Point — Alice Elliot Dark

In The Distance — Hernan Diaz

Go As A River — Shelley Read

The Hand That First Held Mine — Maggie O’Farrell

The Feather Thief — Kirk Wallace Johnson

The Covenant of Water — Abraham Verghese 

Yours Truly, The Obituary Writer’s Guide — James R. Hagerty

When A Crocodile Eats the Sun — Peter Godwin

Books + Island in Ojibwa Country — Louise Erdrich

Small Mercies — Dennis Lehane

Good Eggs — Rebecca Hardiman

You Could Make This Place Beautiful — Maggie Smith Memoir

Antartica — Claire Keegan

Demon Copperhead — Barbara Kingsolver

Flash Nonfiction — Dirty W. Moore

Meet Me in Atlantic City — Jane Wong

Shrines of Gaiety — Kate Atkinson

Second Star and Other Reasons for Lingering — Jody Gladding

The Bookbinder — Pip Williams

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur — Alka Joshi

The Librarianist — Patrick deWitt

The Perfumist — Alka Joshi

Lilac Girls — Martha Hall Kelly

Landslide — Susan Conley

Reinventing the Enemy’s Language — Joy Harjo

Tom Lake — Ann Patchett

Birnam Wood — Eleanor Catton

Midnight at The Blackbird Café — Heather Webber

The Women in Black — Madeleine St John

Trust — Hernan Diaz

beyond that, the sea — Laura Spence-Ash

Study for Obedience — Saish Bernstein

The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly — Margareta Magnusson

So Late in the Day — Claire Keegan

No Two Persons — Erica Bauermeister

The Lioness of Boston —  Emily Franklin

Finding Muchness — Kobi Yamada

A Bird in Winter — Louise Doughty

Mad Honey — Jennifer Finney Boylan

The Abundance — Annie Dillard

the wren, the wren — anne Enright

The Reluctant Caregiver — Devon Ervin

Returning Light — Robert L. Harris

Stolen — Ann-Helén Laestadius

Big Heart, Little Stove, cookbook — Erin French

How To Walk — Tech That Hand

A Philosophy of Walking  — Frédérick Gros

The Best American Food Writing 2023 —  Mark Bittman

When Death Takes Something From you Give it Back — Maja Marie Aidt

Spark Birds — from Orion

Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice

The Land of Lost Things — John Connelly

When I sing, Mountains Dance — Irene Solà

Terrace Story — Hilary Leichter

Absolution — Alice McDermott

North Woods —Daniel Mason

Note: The following are solely based on my personal evaluations. All of the books are worthy. All books are worthy. I close each one at the end wiser, smarter and healthier.

Best book, Fiction: Tie between Go Like a River (L. Doughty) and A Bird in Winter (S. Read).

Best book, NonFiction: You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith

Worst book: The Lioness of Boston, Emily Franklin — too many liberties with the concept “historical fiction” about Isabella Stewart Gardener.

Need to read again: When Death Takes Something From you Give it Back — Maja Marie Aidt

Thought provoking: Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice. Dystopian yet close to home.

Most read author: Claire Keegan

Most lent out to other readers: Wintering, Katherine May

Most gifted to others: Finding Muchness, Kobi Yamada

Ones I left on the airplane seat when done: Book Lovers, Emily Henry