2023 – A Year In Books

What I read in 2023, the list.

How to read this list:

*  = Recommend
** = Really recommend
NC = No comment (or, really, do not bother)
RR = Re-read
F = Fiction
NF = Non-fiction
P = Plays

Titles and micro-reviews of what I read over the last year. Not many great ones, but a few interesting gems amidst the mid for sure,

Previous lists can be found here and here and here and here.

  1. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger (F **)
  2. Consider the Lobster – David Foster Wallace (F**)
  3. Crossroad – Jonathan Franzen (F)
  4. It’s Mine – Steven Sidley (NF*)
  5. Essays – Emmerson (NF*)
  6. The Pale King – David Foster Wallace (F*)
  7. Why Visit America – Matthew Baker (F**)
  8. Piranesi – Susanna Clark (F)
  9. Black Hole – Charles Burns (F)
  10. The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles (F*)
  11. Shame – Salmon Rushdie (F)
  12. Under the Jaguar Sun – Italo Calvino (F)
  13. Inherent Vice – Thomas Pynchon (F)
  14. Pygmy – Chuck Palahniuk (F*)
  15. The Promise – Damon Galgut (F)
  16. Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart (F)
  17. Falling Man – Don Delillo (F*)
  18. Briar Rose – Jane Yolen (F)
  19. The Boy the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackery (F)
  20. Anil’s Ghost – Michael Ondaatjie (F)
  21. Debt, the 1st 5,000 years – David Greaber (NF**)
  22. Kariba – Daniel and James Clark (F)
  23. A Stroke of the Pen – Terry Pratchett (F*)
  24. Tree and Leaf – Tolkien (F*)
  25. H is for Hawk – Helen McDonald (F*)
  26. Wild – Cheryl Strayed (NF)
  27. Tank Girl – Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett (F)
  28. Love – Tony Morrison (F**)
  29. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway (F*)
  30. Jung’s Circle of Women – Maggy Anthony (NF)
  31. Where Did You Go, Bernadette? – Maria Semple (F*)
  32. African Salad – Stan Engelbrecht and Tamsen de Beer
  33. Blindness – José Saramago (F)
  34. Bad Behaviour – Mary Gatskill (F*)
  35. The Time Regulation Institute – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (F)
  36. Genius – Bruce Whitfield (NF)
  37. The Managerial Revolution – James Burnham (NF)
  38. The Good the Bad and the Ugly Scenarios – Ray Hartley & Greg Mills (NF)
  39. What’s Our Problem? – Tim Urban (NF)
  40. Superabundance – Marian Tupy and Gale Pooly (NF)
  41. Future Cultures – Scott Smith and Susan Coxx Smith (NF)
  42. The Palliative Society – Byung-Chul (NF)
  43. Citizens – Ariane Conrad and Jon Alexander (NF)
  44. A Tale of Two Agricultures – Wandile Sihlobo (NF)
  45. The Confidence Map – Peter Atwater (NF)
  46. This Changes Everything – Naomi Klein (NC -NF)
  47. Tom Woolf – From Bauhaus to Our House (NF**)
  48. Man and Technics – Oswald Spengler (NF)
  49. Small Business, Big Plans – Catherine Black and Belinda Mountain (NF)
  50. Profiler Diaries – Gerard Labaschange (NF)
  51. Clare – Christopher Clarke (NF)
  52. Samurai Sword Murder – Nicole Engenbracht (NF)
  53. Daisy De Melker – Ted Botha (NF*)
  54. The Plot to Save South Africa – Justice Malala (NF*)
  55. Manifesto – Songezo Zibi
  56. Rescuing Our Republic – Bronwyn Williams and Ludwig Raal (NF** 😉

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