Well, hello.
I hope you’re all having a peaceful Christmas break (if indeed it even is a Christmas break for you – if not, I see you, as someone who often had to work over Christmas in Christmases past).
As a consequence of having spent most of my adult Christmases in a newspaper office, I’m still not really used to this in-between bit. So I’m not sure I have a handle on whether a newsletter like this, at this time of year, will be gratefully received – or not. All I know is that I would be nosily interested in a list like this, if someone else published it, so here we are.
As discussed previously, I have certain rules for myself when it comes to sharing what I’m reading for this newsletter. I never want it to feel like homework. For me, or for you. I try very hard to read only what I’m genuinely interested in, not what I feel I should read. I also try not to apologise for recommending ‘big’, popular books that you’ve probably already heard of, or to talk down my own tastes or feelings about what I’ve read.
In short, I want my recommendations to feel true to how I read in real life – as a human, not a literary critic, books editor, or some other person whose job it is to stay one step ahead of the publishing cycle. Reading is a huge pleasure for me and I have no wish to over-professionalise it.
Accordingly, all the books listed here (bar a couple I was asked to read for work purposes) are things I’ve read for all the random reasons anyone reads anything: because it caught my eye in a bookshop or on Instagram, because it was lent to me, or because my local library happened to have it in stock, when they didn’t have something else. They’re things I’ve read before bed each night, listened to while driving and doing housework, or picked up to distract myself waiting for an appointment.
Because this is an unadulterated list, not everything here is a wholehearted endorsement. But where I’ve really enjoyed a book, I’ve included a link to what I thought about it, if I’ve shared it before in a previous newsletter, as well as a link to my virtual bookshop, where you can buy it, should you wish.
I don’t tend to include negative reviews in this newsletter (there’s enough savagery in the world already) and there were only two books I didn’t/couldn’t finish this year – I’ll confess what they were to paying subscribers, at the end of this post…
Are you ready?
Everything I read in 2023
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries
The Stranding, Kate Sawyer (What I thought about it: here)
Adrift: On Fertility, Uncertainty, and the Wilderness of the Body, Miranda Ward (What I thought: here)
The Muse, Jessie Burton
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Year of The Cat, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (What I thought: here)
Swan Song, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Lessons In Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
The Hero Of This Book, Elizabeth McCracken (What I thought: here)
Really Good, Actually, Monica Heisey
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?, Lizzie Damilola Taylor
Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness, Kathryn Schulz (What I thought: here)
Breaking Through Depression, Dr Philip Gold
Casting Off, Elizabeth Jane Howard
Wild Hope, Marisa Bate (What I thought: here)
This Ragged Grace: A Memoir of Recovery and Renewal, Octavia Bright (What I thought: here)
Assembly, Natasha Brown (What I thought: here)
Bad Summer People, Emma Rosenblum (What I thought: here)
The Burning Chambers, Kate Mosse
Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies In 19th-Century Britain, by Jessica Cox
The Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue (What I thought: here)
Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld (What I thought: here)
The Infertile Midwife, Sophie Martin
The Mothers, Brit Bennett (What I thought: here)
Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld (What I thought: here)
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (What I thought: here)
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope, Anne Lamott
The Startup Wife, Tahmima Anam (What I thought: here)
No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-two Stories of Almost Parenthood, ed. Kat Brown (Out next year, but available to pre-order here)
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Gilmore Perkins
Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton (my one and only re-read this year)
You Could Be So Pretty, Holly Bourne
Impossible Creatures, Katherine Rundell
So Late In The Day, Claire Keegan
Audiobooks
Empire Of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe (What I thought: here)
Milk: An Intimate History Of Breastfeeding, Joanna Wolfarth (What I thought: here)
Why Women Grow, Alice Vincent
Radically Content, Jamie Varon
Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards, Anita Bhagwandas (What I thought: here)
We Are What We Wear, Lucy Siegle
How To Do Nothing, Jenny Odell (What I thought: here)
The Success Myth, Emma Gannon (What I thought: here)
Company Of One, Paul Jarvis
The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks
Sabotage, Emma Gannon
Slow Horses, Mick Herron (What I thought: here)
Things I Don’t Want To Know, Deborah Levy (What I thought: here)
Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter, Angela Hui (What I thought: here)
Ultra-processed People, Chris Van Tulleken
Dead Lions, Mick Herron
Real Tigers, Mick Herron
And the two I couldn’t finish…
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