Another year, another book review! I’ll finish “No Country for Old Men” later today, “Tom Lake” next week, and probably something else before the end of the year (if I’m lucky) which will put me a whopping 50 for the year. So it goes when you’ve got a 2 hour daily commute.

While many of my list are trash murder books and romances to get me through long hours of driving through endless backwoods, there are some stunners I’ve finished this year. So here you are! My best books of 2023.

“Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace

Jesus Christ, what a book. Could I say I recommend it to you? Ugh. Only if you’re truly committed. I fancy myself a fast reader, and this book took me four months to finish even while on maternity leave. I had to periodically be distracted by other books because of how fabulously dense and complex the prose is on this one. I made it, but what a war.

All griping aside, Infinite Jest is as phenomenal as its reputation. If you can read it, you should. I will say I think it’s silly to tout something as “The Greatest American Novel” when the overwhelming majority of Americans could never make it though, but here we are. If anyone knows, it would probably be Stephen King. Family, drugs, and drowning in indulgence -sure sounds American to me.

“Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver

You may not expect an Award winning book to be a retelling, but Demon Copperhead more than deserves the honor. A updated version of David Copperfield which won the Pulitzer Prize this year, our story is set in Appalachia. Born a foster kid in Virginia, we watch Demon rise and fall. From poverty and abandonment to prestige in athletics, then back to bare bones as a junkie because of pain pills, his story is all to familiar to the ones you hear in rural America. Revealing the ravenous cracks in our systems of care with twists of Southern humor, Kingsolver has done it again!

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin

I waited four months to get this one through the library as did my parents. Their opinion was “Meh.” As a Millennial, I vote “”Marvelous”. Sadie and Sam meet as children and start playing games. Two people who bond superficially over a common interest, and their lives become forever entwined. Set against rudimentary video games of the 90s and evolving into the modern RPGs of today, we watch Sam and Sadie live in love and hate, triumph and tragedy, until 30 years later, they’re still playing games with each other. The book is a story of soulmates (who never kiss) and all the strange turns Millennials have made of such a concept.

The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when on phase of a relationship ends, it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin

“Principles of Dealing with a Changing World Order” by Ray Dalio

I used to read a lot more nonfiction, and while there are many books I need to share with you from those days, I’ll take the opportunity for this one. “Principles of Dealing With a Changing World Order” is precisely that. Dalio lays out his theories and hypotheses about money, power and the world, then does you one better and plays them alongside actual history. We learn how the Dutch and the English fell as world powers only to find we ourselves, the great USofA may be the next to falter. If you don’t like economics, he offers an abbreviated tour through only the most important chapters.

Honorable Mention

Those are the faves although I’ll offer you these as Honorable Mention

• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (It’s not going to make you feel good, but it is good)
• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Mothers and Daughters and the story of lost loves)
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E.Schwab (Fantastical Realism for deals with handsome devils)
• Cult Classic by Sloane Crowsley (More Millennial self-indulgence)
• Factfulness by Hans Rowling (Everything you know about the world is wrong. I promise)
• Mad Honey by Judy Picoult and Jennifer Finley Boylan (Mothers, Sons, Daughters, and Trans Life)
• The Overstory by Richard Powers (We’re all just tree symbiotes. Or at least we should think so)

Find me on Goodreads to keep up as I go.