Happy New Year! Before we get to our resolutions for 2024, we wanted to take a moment to share some of the best books we read in 2023.
Jonathan H. Liu
Both this year and last year I set myself the challenge of reading 150 books (I include graphic novels as well as middle grade and young adult fiction in the total so I set a pretty high number), but I haven’t reached it yet. I did get a little closer this year—up to 137 as of this writing, but I probably won’t finish 13 books (even comics) in the last day. I did pretty well in terms of picking books I liked, with only three books falling below my “it was okay” rating, and most of them in the “hey, that was pretty good” category. But today we’re focusing on the best! Here are some of my favorite titles from the year.
First, graphic novels: I wrote about Brooms by Jasmine Walls and Teo DuVall in one of my Halloween-themed columns; it’s a graphic novel about witches in the Deep South in the 1930s, a sort of “what if” imagining of Jim Crow laws in a world with magic. Even though it involves magic (and broom racing!), the historical setting is portrayed in a way that gives it some real weight, and the characters have a real stake in the outcomes. Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham is another favorite—I’m cheating a little with this one because it may not actually be available until next week, but I got an early copy and just read it this past week. Yang and Pham are a couple of my favorite comics creators, and this team-up is fantastic. It’s about a girl named Valentina who grew up loving Valentine’s Day, and even has a friend in Saint V, who appears to her like the little cupid from one of her cards. After learning from her grandmother that her family is cursed never to have true love, she wonders if that will be true for her—after all, she just met this charming boy at the Lunar New Year festival! It’s a story that weaves together heartbreak and friendship and Asian grandmas and awkward teenagers, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Even when I could eventually guess where the story might be going, I liked discovering the path that Yang and Pham took to get there.
The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln was my favorite kids’ book this year: not only does it include clever kids and a murder mystery in a rambling estate filled with secrets, it also has a whole lot of wordplay. The members of this unusual family were all named by pointing at random words in the family dictionary, so you end up with names like Shenanigan Swift, the main character of the book. My ten-year-old, who shares my love for wordplay, also loved it and just re-read it recently. Read more about it in this column, which features some other great books about meddling kids.
In non-fiction, I’ve got two favorites. The non-fiction book I would most recommend from this year is Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better by Woo-Kyoung Ahn, which I just shared in last week’s column. It examines the various biases and errors in thinking that many of us fall prey to, and then digs into why they happen and how we can learn to avoid or at least mitigate them. It definitely gave me a lot to think about, and I hope I can put a lot of the lessons from it to good use. The other one I really enjoyed this year that I think would be a great fit for GeekDad readers is The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life by A.J. Jacobs. A.J. Jacobs has written various books about deep dives into different things, like The Know-It-All (in which he tries to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica) or The Year of Living Biblically (in which he tries to take all of the Bible’s instructions as literally as possible). His latest quest is, as the title states, all about puzzles—from crosswords to chess puzzles to number games to jigsaw puzzles. It’s a great look at a broad range of types of puzzles, and as a bonus it includes a lot of puzzles for you to solve as well!
Two of my favorite novels this year have some similar themes, even though one takes place on Earth within a century from now, and the other is in the far future on a distant planet: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz and A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys are both books that envision a future in which humanity has learned some practical lessons about climate change, but are often still at the mercy of politics and corporations when it actually comes to taking action. They’re also fascinating in offering a more progressive version of society and imagining the new sources of tension that might arise. I wrote about The Terraformers here, and A Half-Built Garden here.
Jenny Bristol
I achieved my goal of reading 23 books in 2023! The books I chose to read had a mix of high quality, pleasant surprises, guilty pleasures, and surprising disappointments. But since this post is all about the best books we read, I’ll focus on the high quality and pleasant surprises and leave you guessing about the rest.
The High Quality
The House By the Sea by May Sarton
I’d previously read May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, and both of these are collections of her journals in her older years, living alone. May Sarton could really write, and I enjoyed these non-fiction descriptions of her life and everyday. She captures important points about being a woman, aging, living alone, and the greater world (these are from the early ’70s, though the types of problems we deal with today are pretty much the same ones as we had 50 years ago). I’ve written down so many quotes and excerpts from both of these books. I know I’ll go back to them time and time again.
The Pauper’s Prince by Rebecca Burgess
The Pauper’s Prince is a printing of a serial webcomic that Bex has been putting out there on Instagram. It’s a story about different kinds of love, neurodivergence, class, and society. Bex is much further along with the story on Instagram than what’s contained in the printed three volumes, but I love this series so much that I needed to own a copy of it. Can’t wait to buy the future volumes. Bex has also written (and I have also read in 2023) Speak Up!, a book about a minimally speaking autistic girl that was also fabulous.
This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian
This is a slow-paced and poignant graphic novel telling the story of a couple moving out into the country, to the middle of nowhere, and starting a homestead. I describe it as a sipping book, something you’ll want to savor and take your time with. There aren’t a lot of words, and the drawings are a bit spare, but the mood it creates effectively brings you along on their journey. This book brings up a lot of challenges of living in the country, as well as moving from a population center to a rural area and adjusting to how differences are received. Here’s a link to my full review at GeekMom.
A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
I saw this book recommended in my autistic circles, particularly because it’s written by an autistic author. It’s a middle grade novel and it won a bunch of awards, but my high expectations were met! The main character is an autistic girl, and we learn about her lived autistic experience as the book unfolds. Some of the people in her family are also autistic. The others may not be, or they may just not be diagnosed yet. It’s a great book and I look forward to reading the author’s other works!
The Pleasant Surprises
The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm
It’s often a gamble when it comes to whether a book is going to resonate with you or not. But I figured this one would be good because it’s Jenni Holm, creator of the awesome Babymouse series! With The Lion of Mars, she has proven that she can write compelling novels for kids as well as graphic novels. This novel was completely enjoyable, and I got much of the family to read it as well. It’s about living and growing up on Mars. But there is so, so much more to it. I recommend this one highly and widely.
The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
This one, by itself, wasn’t a huge surprise since it was a sequel to the last book I read last year (The War That Saved My Life, which I discovered because it is a Newbery Honor Book), but the two books together were a pleasant surprise. Despite having won an award, you never know whether you’ll enjoy reading what someone else deems as quality. I enjoyed both of these books immensely. These are for middle grade, probably, but the historical setting was immersive, and the characters and storytelling well done. If you enjoy period stories about disability, acceptance, love, trauma recovery, and self-discovery—there is a lot packed into these two books—you’ll like these.
I can’t wait to see what gems I encounter in 2024!
Robin Brooks
As mentioned in my 2023 resolutions post, I read lots of fantasy novels this year, and they feature strongly in my favorites round-up.
Three books stood out and it’s hard for me to separate them.
The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan is the book I wish I’d written. It opens almost as a fantasy police procedural whodunnit, before broadening its scope into a medieval political thriller with added necromancy. This was a world to become completely absorbed in, one that felt like a credible kingdom facing existential threats both internal and external. With some memorable and beautifully rendered characters, Justice of Kings set a new benchmark for modern traditional fantasy.
One of my other favorite modern fantasy writers is Jen Williams. She blew my socks off with Talonsister. The constituent parts of the novel ought not to work. You would have thought it would have been impossible to weave them into a coherent narrative, yet Williams had me on the edge of my seat as she created a thrilling work of imaginative fiction. Three disparate strands that included a lost jungle city, sentient griffons, and an alternate Britain steeped in Green Man-style myth, combined to make an epic novel with a tremendous cliffhanger. I can’t wait to see what the second and final book brings.
At the death of the year, I read The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson, a book I haven’t had a chance to review yet. After a quiet start, The Lost War left me hanging out for more. This is lucky, as book 2, The Bitter Crown, is already available! Set in the land of Eidyn, the series is a Celtic-infused fantasy set in a country ravaged by war. The magic system is subtle, and much like my other two choices, the book has a wonderful cast of characters. Of the three books I’ve chosen, The Lost War is probably the most traditional fantasy but it wears its influences lightly, to be very much its own thing. Its innovation was like a breath of fresh air. The book takes us in some very unexpected directions and I can’t wait to read The Bitter Crown to see what will happen next.
Following on from one of my 2022 novels of the year, The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin gave us The World We Make. This has become a truncated trilogy because the author says that writing the books and the background behind them was becoming too depressing. It’s easy to see why. Of all the literary devices I have read in many many years, Jemisin’s personification of the New York boroughs, and in this latter installment, the world’s biggest cities, is the most fascinating, thought-provoking, and downright intriguing. Whilst the themes in the books are worrying (especially as we move into an election year), the stories themselves are not depressing. They’re riotous and joyful. The world definitely needs to be a little more Jemisin.
Another book I didn’t find time to review this year was Sylvain Neuvel’s Until The Last of Me, follow-up to A History of What Comes Next. These books offer an alternate history of the Space Race, where a stranded alien is trying to nudge history along to bring humanity to the point where it can sustain interplanetary (and beyond) space travel. The blending of history and fiction makes these novels a joy to read, especially when combined with the central character’s irreverent tone, and chapter titles that draw on classic songs of the era, in which the novel is set. Book three, For the First Time Again, is already available and I’ll hopefully be reading it early in 2024.
My standout favorite book however of 2023 is Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. So good I read it twice.
I’m a sucker for a nested narrative. Especially if you can throw in some self-referencing too. Sea of Tranquility contains reflections of (at least) two of Emily St. John Mandel’s other books, Glass House and Station Eleven. I’d not read Glass House before picking reading Sea of Tranquility, but have now done so. You don’t need to have read Glass House but I guess it helps complete the square.
This is one of the most artfully constructed novels I’ve ever read. Nominally, it’s science fiction. There’s time travel and futuristic narrative strands, but I think even those who don’t enjoy sci-fi will find much to love about Sea of Tranquility. It deftly examines the human response to COVID-19 and pandemics in general. Not so much what we did at the time, but how lockdowns and the fear of contagion have altered us at both the societal and individual levels.
It examines the nature of reality and our relationship with technology, as well as being a gentle meditation on how we, as a species, cope with life. Sea of Tranquility is a novel I could read again and again. Once you reach the end it’s hard not to turn it back over and start again. It has been my standout read of this, and quite possibly any other year.
Mariana Ruiz
The highlights of this year for me were mostly oldies, some works in translation, consistent quality comic compilations, and, of course, works by master storyteller Stephen King. On the pile of old books that I tend to find at thrift stores, a must was Amy Tan (she is a wow author) and surprisingly, Lee Child, with his clipped sentences and crazy dynamics.
I didn’t get a chance to review Fairy Tale on the site, but let me tell you, storytelling and ease of writing are something to be deeply admired. A dark staircase hidden from view, that leads to another world where you get to fight giants and steal their gold, really? With an evil dragon as a bonus, in this day and age? It feels like something he wrote to read to his grandchildren, one chapter at night every night, and I am intent on doing just that, with my teenager!
A highlight of the year for me was Giovanna Rivero’s debut in English, Fresh Dirt from the Grave. She is a wonderful Bolivian storyteller with twenty years in the industry, very well known outside our national borders, and has been teaching Latin American literature in the US for a decade now. If you’re remotely curious about the new Latin America Gothic, I encourage you to look her up.
In the same fairy tale trope, the best board book for me was Tom Gauld’s The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess, with his casual approach and innovative little scenes, between a board book and a comic book, it is well worth a thousand reads.
As for the consistent quality comic books, two authors kept being the best at what they do: Stan Sakai, with a solid 30 years running, and Mike Mignola, with more than 25 years in the industry. Even though their approach is very different (Sakai works alone, accepting only collaboration in color, whereas Mignola has a wide array of collaborators and has helped new talents shine whilst continuing to explore all kinds of supernatural in the Hellboyverse), they were my constant, what I wanted to read every day, every month.
Catherin Pioli, before her sad demise, made another important graphic novel, and even though it talks about a deadly disease, she managed to do so with grace and class, all the way through: Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story was a sad, beautiful read.
Finally, two books that are not from the year stood out for me. I’m always on the lookout for Newberry and Caldecott award winners, they tend to leave me with a great aftertaste for life and different experiences.
The Wednesday Wars was the second book I read from Gary D. Schmidt, the author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (very good too). Written in 2007, it follows a kid who has to be alone every Wednesday with his teacher in the classroom. A quiet kid, Holling Hoodhood is by no means interested in Shakespeare, but his teacher, Mrs. Baker, begs to differ. Soon they start finding use for Shakespeare in everyday life events, and end up naming the terrifying pet rats as two play characters: Sycorax and Caliban, and, let me tell you, those rats are legendary.
As for The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, I read it despite the cover (which I did not like). It is a book that first appeared in 1960, based on the real story of a Nicoleño Native American left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island during the 19th century. If you want to know what it was like to be a female Robinson Crusoe for so many years, her thoughts and feelings, how she solves problems, how she makes a friend, and how the animals become her sole company, this book is for you.
A riveting read, written in the first person, it truly transports you to a timeless place, one that is always at the back of our minds: one of solitude and laboriousness, musing and sadness, of storing food and working hard every day against natural elements. You root for Karana from day one and want her to survive, and then marvel at her strength and resilience, at her capacity for love, even though she spends so many years of her life devoid of human company. This book reminded me why I decided to become a children’s author: because a book like that is not expected, it doesn’t have a formula to follow, and can take a kid by surprise and make him/her/they be transported, as good stories should always do, leaving you forever changed after reading it. That’s the power of a good story.
Here’s to another year of good books!
