2023 Annual Book List: just the prologue and titles by category

          

2023 Book List by title and category

                                                                                    

(ed. notes: This section is included in all three 2023 Book List posts.  Feel free to skip ahead if you've looked at one of the other posts)

Note: Kindle version unless otherwise noted (Kindle stopped being an option for THB mid-year and is no longer used). Non-fiction unless (novel) is appended.

Department of Supply: THB found two viable options for ordering audio books (there are others, THB just doesn’t have experience with them)

1.    libro.fm Purchase books and download them to your listening device (THB uses his smart phone + Bluetooth hearing aids). You can designate a bookstore (East Bay Books for THB) to get some remuneration passed back to the book store by libro.com. (THB used to download from audible.com, then it was bought by Amazon, which THB prefers to avoid - not easy to do!)

2.    libby.com Download books for free! You access the public library’s audio/print catalogs by getting a library card and entering it on the libby.com site (THB uses both the Berkeley and Oakland libraries). Once you get used to this site, you can place a book on hold if there is a backlog of readers waiting to download a copy, then download when notified of availability. This works well when you have a series of books on hold for different lengths of time – the site keeps you informed when approximately the book will be available to you.

3.   Other choices: Let THB know of other places that you like to use for downloads. Also let THB know of audiobooks you particularly enjoyed – current or golden oldies!

 

Department of Analysis:  

·   What’s the difference between sitting in a chair and reading a book versus sitting in a chair and listening to an audio book? Reading: your eyes get tired and you stop. Listening: you close your eyes and fall asleep. Fortunately, audiobooks come with a couple of nice features: you can bookmark often and/or you can set a timer to turn off the audiobook (THB uses this feature with the timer usually set to 10 or 15 minutes).

·      What’s the difference in listening and reading? There are some obvious ones: the author’s voice is pre-eminent in reading and the narrator’s voice is when listening (a number of authors narrate their own books, which THB thinks is often a mistake); it is a lot easier to go backwards or skip ahead when you are reading; you can listen more than you can read (like when dog walking); you can speed up the narration (THB always goes very fast when listening to magazine articles and more so with non-fiction than novels); not all books are available in audio, especially older books or translated books.

·      THB doesn’t have a choice: reading a book or magazine or newspaper or a menu is now a thing of the past for THB. We are blessed to live in an era of technology where there are now lots of options.

·      Bluetooth is terrific. Only downside is that DB used to be able to tell if THB was reading (kindle or mag or newspaper appeared to be held up in front of his face) or sleeping. With Bluetooth she can’t tell if he is sleeping or listening.

·      THB was so thrilled to find out he could play the audio at different speeds (always faster than normal) that he included the speed in his reviews. After a while it became redundant…just assume that THB was going most of the time at 1.2x or greater unless otherwise noted.

·      Prices are higher for audio books than e-books. Had back books are about the same price as audio books, paperback are about the same as e-books. Audio books from public libraries are free. THB bought e-books for a long time (especially good for travelers and/or living in two locations). This year the vast majority of audio books were purchased and for the foreseeable future will be main source of THB’s book consumption.

·      By the numbers: 138 books, 82 non-fiction, 56 novels, 74 audiobooks. THB ran out of novels this year, picked up after NYT released its top books of the year. Audiobooks are the new trend, THB not doing much “reading” anymore. Who knows, by the time the end of 2024 comes around THB will be dictating his book list.

 

Highly Recommended: Top Picks (32) in order of highest reco to lowest (and still ahead of all the rest) 21 non-fiction, 11 novels, 21 audio

The Country Of The Blind, a Memoir at the End of Sight, Andrew Leland 

Independent People, Halldor Laxness (novel, audio)

Notes On A Silencing, A Memoir, Lacy Crawford (audio)

Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh (novel, audio)

The Hours Michael Cunningham (novel audio)

Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig (novel, audio, 4^th time for THB)

Sea People, The Puzzle of Polynesia, Christina Thompson 

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, Jonathan Rosen (audio) 

The Center Cannot Hold, My Journey Through Madness, Elyn Saks (audio)

Deluge, Stephen Markley (novel, audio)

Songs Of Achilles, Madeline Miller (novel, audio)

Free, A Child and a Country at the End of History, Lea Ypi

We Don’t Know Ourselves, A Personal History of Modern Ireland, Fintan O’Toole

Stay True, a Memoir, Hua Hsu (audio)

The Covenant Of Water, Abraham Verghese (novel, audio)

The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard (novel, audio)

When The Heavens Went On Sale, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach, Ashlee Vance (audio)

A Fortune-Teller Told Me:  Earthbound Travels in the Far East, Tiziano Terzani

Strangers To Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us, Rachel Aviv (audio)

Raven Smith’s Men, Raven Smith (audio)

I’m Glad My Mom Died, Memoir, Jennette McCurdy

The Physician, Noah Gordon (novel)

 We Do What We Do In The Dark, Michelle Hart (novel)

True Biz, Sara Novic (novel)

Dead In The Water, A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy, Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel (audio)

The Nutmeg’s Curse, Parables For A Planet In Crises, Amitav Ghosh (audio)

Crying In H Mart, a Memoir, Michelle Zaumer (audio)

The Boys, Katie Hafner (novel) 

I Have Some Questions, Rebecca Makkai (novel)

The Forgotten Girls, a Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America, Monica Potts

Raising Them Right, the Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power, Kyle Spencer (audio)

Mr.B, George Balanchine's 20th Century, Jennifer Homans (audio)

                         

Recommended (42):  21 non-fiction, 21 novels, 31 audio

The Return Of Faraz Ali, Aamina Ahmad (novel) 

Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Aghanistan War, Svetlana Alexivich (audio, pub'd 1992, aka Boys in Zinc, i.e., coffins; audio)

The Tenth Island, Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores, Diana Marcum (inadvertently left off the 2022 Book List)

Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark (audio)

Bad City, Peril and Power in the City of Angels, Paul Pringle (audio)

Bitter Orange Tree, Jokha Alrarthi (novel, translated by Marilyn Booth)

Surrender, 40 Songs, 1 Story, Bono (audio)   

The Daughters Of Yalta, the Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War, Catherine Grace Katz (audio)

The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice, Benjamin Gilmer

Rough Draft, a Memoir, Katy Tur (audio)

The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid (novel)

Nightcrawling, Leila Motley (novel, audio)

The Instant, Amy Liptrot

The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz (novel)

The Ship Beneath The Ice, The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance, Mesnun Bound (audio )

The Whalebone Theatre, Joanna Quinn (novel)

Born A Crime, Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah

All The Beauty In The World, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley (audio)

Zero Fail, The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, Carol Leonid (audio)

The Last Resort, a Chronicle of Paradise, Profit and Peril at the Beach, Sarah Stodola:

We All Want Impossible Things, Catherine Newman (novel)

The Great Bridge, the Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, David McCullough (pub’d in 1972, audio)

The Bat, Jo Nesbo (novel, audio)

Cockroaches, Jo Nesbo (novel, audio)

The Chestnut Man, Soren Sveistrup (translated by Catherine Waight, audio, pub’d 2019):

Roll Red Roll: Rape, Power, and Football in the American Heartland, Nancy Schwartzman and Nora Zelevansky (audio)

Flood Of Fire, Amitav Ghosh (novel, audio)

Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano (novel)

Trespasses, Louise Kennedy (novel, audio)

Early Decision, Based on a True Frenzy, Lacy Crawford (novel, pub’d in 2013, audio)

Doppelganger, a Trip into the Mirrored World, Naomi Klein (audio)

Tom Lake, Ann Patchett (novel, auio)

A Thread Of Violence, a Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder, Mark O’Connell (audio)

The Spectator Bird, Wallace Stegner (novel, pub’d 1976, audio)

Emergency, a Pastoral Novel, Daisy Hilyard (novel, audio)

Flash Boys, a Wall Street Revolt, Michael Lewis (pub'd 2014, audio)

The Lion House, the Coming of a King, Christopher de Bellaigue (historical novel, audio)

Fever In The Heartland, The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, Timothy Egan (audio)

The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff (novel, audio)

Poverty, By America, Matthew Desmond (audi)

All The Sinners Bleed, S.A. Cosby (novel, audio)

Monsters, A Fan’s Dilemma, Claire Dederer (audio)

The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell (novel, audio)

                                    

Neutral (42) Something of value, not enough to actively encourage reading or listening  27 non-fiction, 15 novels, 10 audio

                                         

Indigenous Continent, the Epic Contest for America, Pekka Hämäläinen (audio) 

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An American History of the American West, Dee Brown and Hampton Sides (pub'd 2012, audio)

The Lioness, Chris Bohjalian (novel)

Tyranny of Merit, Can We Find the Common Good, Michael Sandel (audio)

The Beauty Of Dusk, On Vision Lost and Found, Frank Bruni (audio)

The Swedish Art Of Aging Exuberantly, Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You, Margareta Magnusson 

Trailed, One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders, Kathryn Miles       

An Island, Karen Jennings (novel)

On Java Road, Lawrence Osborne (novel)

Of Boys And Men, Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It, Richard Reeves (audio)

Son Of Elsewhere, a Memoir of Pieces, Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Dying Of Whiteness, How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland, Jonathan Wetzl (audio)

Ejaculate Responsibly, a Whole New Way to Think About Abortion, Gabrieelle Blair (audio)

Scandinavian Noir, In Pursuit of a Mystery, Wendy Lesser

Checkout 19, Claire-louoise Bennett (novel)

Unraveling, What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater, Peggy Orenstein (audio)

Getting Lost, Annie Ernaux (pub’d in 2002, translated 2022, audio)

River Of Smoke, Amitav Ghosh (novel, audio)

A Visible Man, a Memoir, Edward Enninful (audio)

Doing Justice, a Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, the Rule of Law, Preet Bhara (audio)

The Wager, a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann (audio)

The Unquiet Englishman, a Life of Graham Greene, Richard Greene (no relation, pub’d early 2021)

In The Mouth Of The Wolf, a Murder, a Cover-up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press, Katherine Corcoran

Finding Me, a Memoir , Viola Davis (audio)

Getting Stoned With Savages, a Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu, J. Maarten Troost (Pub’d 2006)

The Quiet Tenant, Clemence Michallon (novel, audio)

The Seven Moons Of Mali Almeida, Sheehan Karu Karunatilaka  (novel, audio)

Hatchet Man, How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor’s Code and Corrupted the Justice Department, Elie Honig (audio)

My Hijacking, a Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering, Martha Hodes (audio)

The Scatterlings, Resoketswe Martha Manenzhe (novel, audio)

Blood Sugar, Sascha Rothchild (novel, audio)

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (novel, audio)

Watch Us Dance, Leila Slimani (novel, translated by Sam Taylor, audio)    

Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng (novel, pub’d 2014, audio)

To Name The Bigger Lie, a Memoir Told in Two Stories, Sarah Viren (audio)

Predictably Irrational, the Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely (audio, pub’d 2008) 

Easy Money, Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, Ben Mckenzie (audio)

Killers Of The Flowers Moon, the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann (pub’d 2017, audio)

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (novel, audio)

Slow Horses, Mick Herron (spy novel, audio)

Shielded, How the Police Became Untouchable, Joanna Schwartz (audio)

A History Of Burning, Janika Oza (novel, audio)  

Built From The Fire, The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street, Viktor Luckerson (audio)

In The Something Else Category (9) 1 non-fiction, 1 audio

1000% Me, Growing Up Mixed - Streaming documentary where Kamau Bell (Berkeley native) interviews mostly kids about what it means to be bi-racial and/or products of mixed nationality biological parents.

We Need To Talk About Cosby -Streaming 4 part documentary where Kamau Bell interviews a diversity of people about the context of one of the most famous comedians and philanthropists of the TV era drugging and raping over 60 women without their consent.

The Fourth Estate – Streaming 4-part series from 2018, directed by Liz Garbus, following the NYT’s coverage of DJT’s first year and half.

She Said, bio-drama directed by Maria Schrader, tells the story of how two NYT reporters break the story of Harvey Weinstein and breathe major life into the #metoo movement.

Miracles And Wonder, Conversations With Paul Simon, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam (book, audio)

The Retrievals, 5 episodes presented by Serial, narrated, produced, etc., by Susan Burton: Women seeking IVF assistance at the Yale Clinic are suffering during egg retrievals because of excruciating pain.  

Stop Making Sense: re-released movie after 40 years; DB and THB saw the IMAX version. Pure art with a spectacular set of songs.

The World Before Your Feet (streaming on Kanopy): Released in 2018, the story of a guy walking every street (and more) in the 5 boroughs of NYC https://imjustwalkin.com/

The Waste Land, Poem, T S Eliot (pub'd 1922, audio, read by Troy Rattetema) A classic that THB hadn't read. Twenty seven minutes, a real treasure. 

Not Recommended - and highly likely not finished (20) 11 non-fiction, 9 novels, 9 audio

The Fell, Sarah Moss (novel)

Hurricane Season, Fernanda Meelchor (novel)

Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (pub'd 1985, novel, translated)

A Childhood, the Biography of a Place, Harry Crews (pub’d in 1978)

What’s So Funny? A Cartoonist’s Memoir, David Sipress

Time Shelter, Gergi Gospodinov (novel)

Spellbound By Marcel: Duchamp, Love and Art, Ruth Brandon

All The Lovers In The Night, Mieko Kawakami (novel, audio)

Left On Tenth, a Memoir, Delia Ephron (audio)

The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy (novel)

The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty (novel)

Diary Of A Misfit, a Memoir and a Mystery, Casey Parks 

The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, Joshua Cohen 

Shy, the Alarming Outspoken Memoir of Mary Rodgers, Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green (audio)

Faith, Hope, And Carnage, Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan (audio)

A Living Remedy, a Memoir, Nicole Chung (audio)

Nineteen Steps, Millie Bobby Brown (novel, audio)

The Method, How The Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Isaac Butler (audio)

Take What You Need, Idra Novey (novel, audio)

Some People Need Killing, a Memoir of Murder in My Country, Patricia Evagelista (audio)