Book Lists 2023 • Page 5

Nice I'll have to check it out. I'm always willing to give Spider-Man a try, even if he's not my favorite (though I do love the movies). I'd read through Bendis' entire Ultimate Spider-Man run and had a really good time with that, so that's by far the most time I've spend with Spider-Man. I'm also a Bendis fan so that helped.

I was thinking I'd read some of Slott's work but I'm realizing I was confusing him with Dan Abnett. I think I only read his Fantastic Four run.

 

My 2023 goal is 20 books. I normally have so much going on in my life that I take time to get through more than like 10-15 a year. I got laid off in February though so I've had plenty of time to read. Here is my Goodreads account in case anyone wants to friend me.

My 2023 list:

The Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
Hide by Kiersten White
Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette
Make Something Wonderful by Steve Jobs
The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower #2) by Stephen King
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
The Waste Lands (Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King
Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
The Mist by Stephen King
The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter
Tender is the Flesh by Augustine Bazterrica
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

 

Don't Fear the Reaper was fucking great. I love Stephen Graham Jones, one of the stranger minds to have ever written horror fiction, and that's saying a lot. So glad this is a trilogy because I think it's his best work. With the Fall of Kings i say goodbye to David Gemmell forever. It was a fucking wild ride, and every single one of his books are worth reading. The Paulbearer's Club was alright, I do wonder if maybe Tremblay is finally starting to bug me with his ambiguous story telling. Thus far I've fucking loved it, and he's done it great, but I am admittedly someone who likes a solid answer or two, so I've been surprised how much he's pulled it off to my satisfaction thus far. Still a good book. Mr Gaunt was amazing, I believe I have now caught up on all of Langan's published material so that's good. Not usually the biggest fan of short stories but he always delivers. Loved Tress to death.

American Vampire was great, came to a satisfying conclusion. If they return it will be immediately placed on my pull list. I'd read Ellis' acclaimed Authority awhile ago and adored it but never continued with the series. Millars was okay, always better when Quietly was there, obviously. Past that I haven't much enjoyed the next writers so I didn't even include them, though I am reading Grant Morrison's stuff now which is good.

A God Somewhere was a total surprise, for some reason I found it on a website detailing the chronology of the Wildstorm universe...I have no idea why that is. It's well trod territory, "Superman" gone bad, but goddamn was it good. Something I added to my shelf mainly filled with Alan Moore, so you know, that style.

 

I once heard someone say that no one hates Spider-Man comics more than Spider-Man fans, and after spending some time on the Spider-Man subreddit, I agree.

I’m a sucker for Spider-Man, so I’ve enjoyed most everything I’ve read (including the Abrams miniseries). I agree that the Spencer run fizzled out towards the end, but I thought it was good for the most part. Wells is growing on me, and I’m excited to see what happens as the run progresses.

I would highly recommend Tom Taylor’s brief run on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Chip Zdarsky’s Spider-Man: Life Story and Spider’s Shadow!

 

Seconding those recommendations. And yeah, Spider-Man fans in particular tend to be pretty terrible at appreciating Spider-Man, haha.

Not current, but what I've read from Wells has been good in the past. Hard to compete with Bendis and Slott for me, but there are so many interesting ways to take Spidey that I've really enjoyed how they branch out over the years—the Symbiote stuff lately was cool.

 

Lol, that tracks. I'm generally afraid to say anything about Spider-Man, but feel safer in here with ya'll. And I agree that Wells is growing on me, as we near the "event's" reveal I'm digging it, especially the villain, who is new to me, I don't know if they're an established spidey villain though.

I do absolutely love Tom and Chip, so those are some good recs.

 

Don't think I'll read any more in April, maybe another manga, but it's been a pretty good month. Berserk picked up a bit but i'm still waiting for that wow moment. I read The Book that Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence and The Shadow Gate by LL Macrae. Both books surprised me with how well they were written and just how interesting the story was. TBTWB took a turn I did not expect. I finished LOTR on audiobook. Andy Serkis done an amazing job at keeping me interested. I think i'll listen to the Hobbit next.

Favourite read is We are the Dead by Mike Shackle which is a grimdark fantasy that was just so so good. I'm really excited to read the rest of the series.

I picked up Infinity Gate by MR Carey, looking to read a lot more science fiction stories, and managed to get Wool by Hugh Howey for £5 in Waterstones!

 

Read my first book in 5 years with My Heart is a Chainsaw and I think it may be the first book I finished that I outright loathe.

The 3093rd Slasher reference was the straw that broke the camel's back, never seen such a dully rendered protagonist before.

 

April update:

Pale Fire might be among the best books I've ever read. Nabokov is an undeniable master of language (I'm sure I said the same thing about Lolita as well), and it's cool to see how this was an obvious influence on House of Leaves.

Thinner was probably my least favorite of King's Richard Bachman experiment, but I still found it a little better than its reputation. It's no surprise at all that this is the one that led to the pseudonym being revealed — it's so obviously his voice and his favorite settings and character types.

The Boatman's Daughter was a recommendation from my brother-in-law, who's very into horror. I liked the horror elements of it (the gore, which Davidson writes particularly well, and the twisted folklore), but I found the core story to be a little bit lacking.

 

Pale Fire is such an incredible novel. Easily in my top ten. Just an absolute masterpiece, I’m glad you got to read it!

 

I really need to read that one. I know I’ll love it.

 

That's basically how I felt about it too. I read his most recent novel The Hollow Kind last year and felt like it found a much better balance between the two.

 

Looks like I’m reading Pale Fire next

 

I think you'll love it dude. I'm gonna advocate reading the footnotes as you go, but I know there are other ways to read the book that are enjoyable. Just don't be like the guy on Reddit who read the "novel" but didn't read the poem, which boggles the mind.

 

Good to know because I was going to get in on kindle but I don’t love the way they do footnotes so i’ll probably find a physical copy

 

April update. Kind of a slower month, but it was because I did more writing and exercise (and gaming, shh), so I'm happy.

Magical History of Britain was fascinating. It's been my Sunday read for many months now just because I was savoring each chapter. Lots to think about. It's a nonfiction overview of magical beliefs and rituals in Britain from prehistory to the modern era. Made me think about things differently and has helped me come up with some good ideas for writing. Frugal Wizard was a lot of fun and coincided nicely with my interests, haha. I appreciated the departure from some of Sanderson's other stuff. Montego was a great novella from McClellan's Glass Immortals series. I liked it just as much or more as the first book and I'm really itching for more stories in this universe. Spawn of the Winds was a really great self-contained adventure as a bit of tangent from the Titus Crow storyline. I loved the final battle in it. Excited to listen to more of this series. And Sandman continues to be a really engaging slow burn for me.

 

I guess it's not exactly footnotes per se—but it's a poem and then a lengthy commentary section referencing specific lines of the poem. In my copy, the poem is 70 pages and the commentary ends on page 300. So I guess what I should have said was to read the commentary and the poem simultaneously—like, start with the commentary, and it'll say "line 12: blah blah blah" so you go read lines 1–12 and then read the commentary section about it, and so on. You'll get it when you see the book, haha.

But yeah, either way, I wouldn't recommend a Kindle copy, just for the sheer amount of flipping back and forth. Two bookmarks would be a great investment.

 

word, I’ve looked around at the format of it a little more. That would definitely be the right way for me to read it since I have issues following poetry for a long period of time, it’s a fault

 

I think most poetry is best listened to haha. Like, I love Homer and Virgil and Beowulf and stuff, but good performances of them are so much more interesting than reading them.

But yeah you'll dig Pale Fire. It's both easy to read and very complex, and the humor and drama are really engaging.

 

Brotherhood of the Wolf was great. Just pure fantasy joy. To Hold Up the Sky proves to me that Cixin Liu is one of the best authors writing today. His flagship series is a masterpiece, I read a random novel of his and adored it (the eco-slasher Ball Lightning), and now I've read a short story collection and every story was astounding. Particularly the story titled The Village Teacher, which I urge everyone to read, especially if you are or know someone in the teaching field. It's truly the best story I've read on the subject of how much a good teacher can matter to someone, and the fear a teacher might have that they didn't do enough. A Day of Fallen Night was fucking spectacular. Shannon's world is pitch perfect and I really hope that there's more to come, but like Priory, there doesn't need to be...you always get a complete story with Shannon. Providence Rider was fun. It's been so damn long since I've read McCammon I forgot how goddamn good of a writer he is, even if the subject matter doesn't exactly excite me. Babylon's Ashes was awful. I hate this series. I keep trying, and every time I say I'm done with it. I don't know. There's nothing pulling me back so maybe I'll take the hint this time.

The Invisibles is off to a pretty solid start. Pretty classic Grant Morrison. I do worry that it might be a little too "90's" for my taste, but I find Grant Morrison's storytelling pays off in the long term, so I'm thinking it will be a good fit for me.

On another note, between every book I read I'm reading an HP Lovecraft story. I thought about documenting those here, but decided against it, since it's an awful lot of stories and I don't plan on separating any other author's short story work. I've read a good amount of the stories before, all the obvious ones, but I'm a much better reader now and instead of finding his prose challenging, I absolutely adore it. I have a collection on kindle that claims to have all his works, so I'm just working my way through that new and old. It's been a blast. That also makes up a bit for my lack of horror this year, since for years my strategy was read a horror book every other book.

 

Updated list:
January:
1. Stella Maris - Cormac McCarthy
2. The Light Pirate - Lily Brooks-Dalton
3. No One Left to Come Looking for You - Sam Lipsyte
4. The Deluge - Stephen Markley

February:
1. The Drop - Dennis Lehane
2. On the Road - Jack Kerouac (This has been on my shelf for forever but I've somehow never read it)
3. Monolithic Undertow - Harry Sword

March:
1. The Drifter - Nicholas Petrie
2. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver

April
1. Burning Bright - Nicholas Petrie

May
1. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
2. The Sellout - Paul Beatty
3. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (re-reading the series before The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)

 

Updated through the end of May (I know I'll finish 43 and 44 before June, but doubtful on anything else. These Malazan books are... hefty).

 

I haven't read at ALL this month due to ... life! Really wanting to get back in but summer always kills the reading vibe for me.

 

May update

Another slow reading month for me, but The Blind Assassin was so good. Probably my favorite Atwood that I've read so far. It's a beautiful exploration of age and regret and the changing of times in a small town, with a weird structural setup that reveals its purpose in a really satisfying way.

 

Only been reading in small 10-20 minute spurts before bed so I only just now finished Heat 2 which was... Fine? Great moments throughout but feels every bit like a screenplay turned novel (hopefully turned movie)

My Heart is a Chainsaw 2/10
Heat 2 6/10