The Library’s Social Media Team loves to read. So, in this series of blog posts, we’re bringing you some of our favorite books we read in 2023! Several of us (myself included) did a Goodreads challenge—feel free to connect with me there, or join a Goodreads Challenge of your own in 2024!
In 2023, I read 45 books and 7,701 pages. This is actually a small step down from last year, when I read 49 books and 9,587 pages. That surprised me! My shortest book was Pen Pals by Aaron Cometbus, which was 72 pages. The longest book I read was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which was 476 pages. You can see all the books I read on my Goodreads page.
My goal for 2023 was 45 books, which I achieved over Christmas break. In no particular order, here are some of my favorites!
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry:
An aging barber named Jayber Crow tells you his life story. Wendell Berry’s prose is excellent, and the fictional small town of Port William (in which many other Berry stories are also set) feels as real as any place I’ve ever been. Jayber Crow as a character comes to life in a way I’ve rarely experienced. My favorite “old man tells a story” book that I’ve read so far. In the months since I read Jayber Crow, I’ve found passages from it coming up in my conversations and thought life again and again.
Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck:
Steinbeck’s slice-of-life duology set in Monterey, California, about the community along a lane of sardine canneries called “Cannery Row.” I’ve been a fan of John Steinbeck’s writing ever since I read The Moon is Down in college. (I read Of Mice and Men and The Pearl in high school, but I think there’s something especially enjoyable about choosing to read something, rather than having it assigned.) I’ve always been impressed with the author’s ability to communicate a lot of meaning through very few words.
Cannery Row doesn’t have much of a plot, while Sweet Thursday has a (comparatively) solid narrative arc. I really enjoyed the character development in the second book, but I don’t think I would have appreciated it without the background of having read the first book. Finally, I’ll share this great quote from the introduction of Cannery Row:
“When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to catch whole for they will break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book—to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”
Deadpool Killustrated by Cullen Bunn and Matteo Lolli:
Deadpool Killustrated is a sequel to the acclaimed Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe series, and, in my opinion, is a far more interesting story than the original. The premise of the original series is, “What if everything you thought was funny about Deadpool…was actually just disturbing?” Everyone knows Deadpool as the comic book character who knows he’s a comic book character and makes endlessly hilarious fourth-wall-breaking quips as a result. But what if that knowledge was, instead, a source of existential dread? What if Deadpool decided to kill the whole Marvel universe in an attempt to escape his reality as a pawn for readers’ entertainment?
In Deadpool Killustrated, the titular character, having been thwarted by the endless multiverse of comic book worlds, decides to get right down to the source of these Marvel comic heroes: classic literature! If he can destroy the ideas the characters are built on, perhaps he can destroy the whole multiverse at once. By killing Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde, Deadpool eliminates The Incredible Hulk. By killing the Three Musketeers, he strikes down the very idea of a team of heroes!
But Deadpool is not unopposed—on a quest to stop him is a team of classic heroes led by none other than Sherlock Holmes! I won’t spoil the ending, but what follows is a surprisingly fascinating thought experiment exploring where our ideas come from, how stories influence each other, and what would happen if a character found a way to dramatically influence our collective imagination. Plus, cameos from countless literary classics!
I got Deadpool Killustrated (and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe) through Interlibrary Loan.
The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt:
Dr. Justin Schmidt is famous for his sting pain index used for ranking the painfulness of insect stings on a scale from 0 (completely ineffective) to 4 (excruciating). He is also known for his beautiful descriptions of how each sting feels: for example, a sweat bee is, “light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.”
The Sting of the Wild is the late Dr. Schmidt’s memoirs, which I decided to read after the legendary entomologist’s passing in early 2023. Pick up The Sting of the Wild for fascinating anecdotes and discoveries from the life of a man who helped humanity better understand the families of insects that—for better or worse—demand we pay attention to them.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir:
A man wakes up in a clinically-clean, windowless room with no memory of how he got there and only two corpses for company. By the end of the first chapter, he has discovered one crucial fact: he’s not on Earth.
Project Hail Mary is a realistic, near-future sci-fi novel that’s full of adventure—and even mystery, since the main character has to piece together what he’s supposed to be doing and how to do it! The plot is told utilizing several flashback scenes throughout, which is a storytelling device that, in my opinion, doesn’t always work well. This book, however, utilizes them masterfully: since each flashback scene is the main character actually remembering that event, the flashbacks influence the “current” plot just as much. Andy Weir’s writing is extremely accurate to science, but in a way that is surprisingly accessible. Project Hail Mary also includes one of my all-time favorite fictional friendships.
This is the longest book I read in 2023, but I read it in very few days because I just could not put it down. I honestly think Project Hail Mary might be my favorite science fiction novel I’ve ever read. Find some more of my thoughts about Project Hail Mary here.
You can see more books I read last year on my Goodreads page. Happy Reading!
Darius Mullin’s reviews reflect his personal opinions and not necessarily those of the library or university.
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