This year I hit a bit of a reading bucket list goal: I read 100 books in one year. And then a few more.
I know, I know – quality not quantity, enjoyment over numbers, it’s not a competition. I have always preached that, and will always believe it.
However.
As I exceeded my reading goal of 70 books – ambitiously set after I read so much in 2022 – I thought why not go all the way to the big one-zero-zero. As someone easily distracted by social media scrolling and daydreaming, having a book goal this year has really helped me to be more conscious of how I spend my downtime. I started finding more and more slices of time in my day that I’d usually reach for my phone, and I replaced it instead with reading.
Brushing my teeth? Five minutes of an audiobook. Fifteen minute bus ride? That could be a whole chapter of my current paperback. I found the more I read, the faster I was able to read too, like exercising a muscle. Some days I could read 100 pages just by pulling my book out before bed.
Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to achieve this number again. This was the year we settled into our new house, which meant a lot of days cleaning, painting, organising, and often just having home days because there wasn’t a lot of money for big days out.
So, to honour a ridiculous landmark in my personal reading history, here are all the books I read in 2023:
The Strawberry Thief // Joanne Harris
Tap to Tidy // Stacey Solomon
Girl, Woman, Other // Bernardine Evaristo
Assembly // Natasha Brown
Spare // Prince Harry
The Halloween Moon // Joseph Fink
The Switch // Beth O’Leary
The Road Trip // Beth O’Leary
The Enchanted Wood // Enid Blyton
To Be A Gay Man // Will Young
Beyond the Gender Binary // Alok Vaid-Menon
Redhead by the Side of the Road // Anne Tyler
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches // Sangu Mandanna
Britney Spears: The Woman In Me // Britney Spears
The Trials of Morrigan Crow // Jessica Townsend
Poison for Breakfast // Lemony Snicket
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (BBC Version) // Maya Angelou
Letters on Motherhood // Giovanna Fletcher
Small Things Like These // Claire Keegan
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage // Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth // Philip Pullman
The Arrival // Shaun Tan
Scales & Scoundrels, Volume 1 // Sebastian Girner
Something is Killing the Children, Volume 2 // James IV Tynion
Oxygen Mask // Jason Reynolds
Basketful of Heads // Joe Hill
Naruto, Volume 1 // Masashi Kishimoto
Soichi // Junji Ito
Tombs // Junji Ito
The Liminal Zone //Junji Ito
Talk to my Back // Yamada Murasaki
Shadecraft, Volume 1 // Joe Henderson
Follow Me In // Katriona Chapman
Rivers of London: Black Mould // Ben Aaronovitch
A Graphic Cosmogony // Paul Gravett
Hilda and the Black Hound // Luke Pearson
Juniper Mae // Sarah Soh
Wrinkles // Paco Roca
The Paperbag Prince // Colin Thompson
How To Live Forever // Colin Thompson
Assassination Classroom, Volume 1 // Yusei Matsui
Summer Blonde // Adrian Tomine
In. // Will McPhail
The Book of Sarah // Sarah Lightman
Black Magick, Volume 1 // Greg Rucka
The Roles We Play // Sabba Khan
Chivalry // Neil Gaiman
Map of Days // Robert Frank Hunter
The Wolf of Baghdad: Memoir of a Lost Homeland // Carol Isaacs
The Skull // Jon Klassen
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow // Gabrielle Zevin
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry // Gabrielle Zevin
The Dry Heart // Natalia Ginzburg
Ghosts // Dolly Alderton
Horrorstor // Grady Hendrix
My Best Friend’s Exorcism // Grady Hendrix
Now She Is Witch // Kirsty Logan
The Mad Women’s Ball // Victoria Mas
We Had To Remove This Post // Hanna Bervoets
The Ocean at the End of the Lane // Neil Gaiman
The Cloisters // Katy Hays
Tender is the Flesh // Agustina Bazterrica
The Last House on Needless Street // Catriona Ward
Daisy Jones and the Six // Taylor Jenkins Reid
One True Loves // Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Phone Box At The Edge of the World // Laura Imai Messina
More Happy Than Not // Adam Silvera
Foster // Claire Keegan
The Truth About Alice // Jennifer Mathieu
The Appeal // Janice Hallett
Ghacher Ghacher // Vivek Shanbhag
Yellowface // R. F. Kuang
Tokyo Express // Seicho Matsumoto
Our Wives Under the Sea // Julia Armfield
Coraline // Neil Gaiman
In the Miso Soup // Ryu Murakami
Cursed Bunny // Bora Chung
Lonely Castle in the Mirror // Mizuki Tsujimura
The Virgin Suicides // Jeffrey Eugenides
Sweet Bean Paste // Durian Sukegawa
If Cats Disappeared from the World // Genki Kawamura
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London // Garth Nix
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath // Garth Nix
D: A Tale of Two Worlds // Michel Faber
The Hollow Places // T. Kingfisher
The Sentence // Christina Dalcher
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde // Robert Louis Stevenson
All My Mothers // Joanna Glen
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 // Nam-joo Cho
Fourth Wing // Rebecca Yarros
Lovesickness // Junji Ito
Island of Whispers // Frances Hardinge
In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder // Jane Monckton-Smith
Circus Mirandus // Cassie Beasley
The Crows // Anders Fager
Dreamland // Rosa Rankin-Gee
The Man Who Died Twice // Richard Osman
The Bullet That Missed // Richard Osman
Sea of Tranquility // Emily St. John Mandel
Legends & Lattes // Travis Baldree
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? // Julie Smith
The Science of Living // Stuart Farrimond
Force to Flee: Refugee Children Drawing On Their Experiences // UNHCR
Poverty Safari // Darren McGarvey
A Year In Tokyo // Christy Ann Jones
Why Didn’t You Stay? // Rebecca Humphries
I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki // Se-hee Baek
Abroad in Japan // Chris Broad
Beyond the Wand // Tom Felton
Pageboy // Elliot Page
Just One Thing // Michael Mosley
Men Explain Things To Me // Rebecca Solnit
You Have The Right To Remain Fat // Virgie Tovar
Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit // Jen Campbell
Reflecting back over a year of reading really puts the twelve months into perspective. Some of these books I feel like I read years ago, time is a funny thing! Some of these books I also barely remember at all – the downside of reading a lot. Though I think it’s probably telling of my enjoyment of a book if it impacted me so little.
What books did you love reading in 2023?
