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
Alexandra Dane 