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vincaminor42 · 10 months ago

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2023 Reading List

A silly thing I've been doing the last few years is making a long list of my reading over the course of the year, month by month. It started as a way to keep track of what I'd read and try to remember it all at the end of the year, but has become a bit of a fun way to look back on my year and what I was into or focusing on over the course of it.

I used to post the results to facebook (which ended for obvious reason), then did a synopsis on twitter for a couple years (which also ended for obvious reasons); plus there's something about putting the whole list up, rather than just a summary, which is very satisfying.

Included on the list are professionally published short stories, novellas, novelettes, novels, graphic novel issues & collections. Not included are fanfic; short fiction posted untitled online; tumblr, twitter & other social media original fiction; non-fiction essays/articles; poetry; webcomics; and podcasts (too many & too hard to keep track of).

During 2023 I read 199 individual works. These consisted of

34 longer pieces of prose (novels and novellas)

118 short prose (novelettes and short stories)

27 graphic novel collections and long form comics

17 short comics and comic issues, and

3 kids books (a slightly nebulous category mostly middle grade and younger, though some middle grade might've been counted in a different category, cause I'm kinda wishywashy about these)

Most read authors for the year were

Terry Pratchett with 26 works (a book of his short stories did most of the heavy lifting there)

Seanan McGuire with 19 works, as she continues to be frighteningly prolific, with 3 active series, several other books a year, and at least one short story a month on Patreon

Kore Yamazaki with 14 works, as I made my way through most of The Ancient Magus Bride manga

Martha Wells with 10 works, mostly Murderbot rereads but also her new fantasy novel and some short stories

and my always favourite author Ursula Vernon (aka T Kingfisher) with 8 works; 2024 might be due for another Great Ursula Reread (last done in 2020, probably been long enough)

Only 28 things were rereads this year, which is a bit low for me (I'm a big believer in comfort rereading).

Actual list of works read under the cut, if anyone's masochistic enough to want to actually read them all, lol

I include anything I read during the month in its list, but if I didn't finish it that month it gets marked as "in progress" (and later "finished" the month it is, natch). Comics are marked with © to help keep track of them (short story comic anthologies make keeping comics vs prose tricky otherwise), and has nothing to do with copyright (though all of the comics read this year are still under copyright).

January - 24 works finished

Rincemangle, The Gnome of Even Moor – Terry Pratchett

If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You – John Chu

How Much Harm – Seanan McGuire

Kindly Breath In Short, Thick Pants – Terry Pratchett

Cold Relations – Mary Robinette Kowal

There's No Fool Like an Old Fool Found in an English Queue – Terry Pratchett

Station Eternity – Mur Laferty (in progress)

Symbiosis – D A Xiaolin Spires

Lost in the Moment and Found – Seanan McGuire

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers (reread)

AirBody – Sameem Siddiqui

The Eight-Thousanders – Jason Sanford

Leiningen Versus the Ants – Carl Stephenson

Coo, They've Given Me the Bird – Terry Pratchett

Open House On Haunted Hill – John Wiswell (reread)

This Is New Gehesran Calling – Rebecca Frainow

And Mind the Monoliths – Terry Pratchett

The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign – Cora Buhlert

The High Meggas – Terry Pratchett

A Being Together Amongst Strangers – Arkady Martine (reread)

Sinew and Steel and What They Told – Carrie Vaughn

Justice Calling – Annie Bellet

Twenty Pence, with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting – Terry Pratchett

Incubust – Terry Pratchett

Final Reward – Terry Pratchett

February - 38 works finished

Station Eternity – Mur Laferty (finished)

My Country Is a Ghost – Eugenia Triantafyllou

In This, At Least, We Are Alike – Caitlin Starling

Whalefall – Seanan McGuire

Turntables of the Night – Terry Pratchett

#ifdefDEBUG + `world/enough' + `time' – Terry Pratchett

The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly – Alix E Harrow

Sunrise, Sunrise, Sunrise – Martha Wells

Hollywood Chickens – Terry Pratchett

The Salt Witch – Martha Wells (reread)

Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City – Arula Ratnaker

Once and Future – Terry Pratchett

Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo – Catherynne M Valente

FTB – Terry Pratchett

Sir Joshua Easement: A Biographical Note – Terry Pratchett

DIY – John Wiswell

Yellow and the Perception of Reality – Maureen McHugh

Troll Bridge – Terry Pratchett (reread)

Theatre of Cruelty – Terry Pratchett (reread)

The Eternal Cocktail Party – Fonda Lee

The Sea and the Little Fishes – Terry Pratchett (reread)

Towered – Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem – Terry Pratchett (reread)

Medical Notes – Terry Pratchett

A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers (reread)

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat – Usman T Malik

Thud: A Historical Perspective – Terry Pratchett

Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum – Alasdair Beckett-King

A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari – Terry Pratchett

Death and What Comes Next – Terry Pratchett (reread)

A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices – Terry Pratchett

Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts – Terry Pratchett

The Ankh-Morpork Football Association Hall of Fame Playing Cards – Terry Pratchett

The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour – Clint, Griffin, Justin, & Travis McElroy, & Carey Pietsch ©

Our Love Against Us – Davaun Sanders

How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub – P Djeli Clark

If You Take My Meaning – Charlie Jane Anders

The Coward Who Stole God’s Name – John Wiswell

March - 13 works finished

On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa With Gun and Camera – Elizabeth Bear

Content/Consent – Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky – Seanan McGuire (reread)

A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential – Neon Yang

Into the Windwracked Wilds – Seanan McGuire (as A Deborah Baker)

On the Hill, the Knitters – Steve Toase

What Moves the Dead – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)(reread)

The Bahrain Underground Bazaar – Nadia Afifi

The Bone Orchard – Sara A Mueller

To Sail the Black – A C Wise

The Goldfish Man – Maureen McHugh

A House with Good Bones – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

Exile's End – Carolyn Ives Gilman

April - 12 works finished

Backpacking Through Bedlam – Seanan McGuire

Unknown Number – Blue Neustifter (as Azure) (reread)

The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went – Seanan McGuire

Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) – Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, & Albert Monteys ©

Uhura's Song – Janet Kagen

Salt Water – Eugenia Triantafyllou

The Counterworld – James Bradley

Even If Such Ways Are Bad – Rich Larson

Magical Girl Burnout Bingo – Lauren Ring

Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu – Grace Chan

Georgie in the Sun – Natalia Theodoridou

Your Slaughterhouse, Your Killing Floor – Sunny Moraine

May - 7 works finished

Slipping – Seanan McGuire

Carmilla: The First Vampire – Amy Chu & Soo Lee ©

Unbreakable – Seanan McGuire (as Mira Grant)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (in progress)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (in progress)

The Honey Month – Amal El-Mohtar

Elegant and Fine – Ursula Vernon (reread)

All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win – Lindsey Godfrey Eccles

A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse – K S Walker

June - 11 works finished

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (in progress)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (in progress)

Cursed Cocktails – S L Rowland

A Soul in the World – Charlie Jane Anders

Toad Words – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher) (reread)

Beginnings – Kristina Ten

Dick Pig – Ian Muneshwar

Perhaps in Understanding – Anamaria Curtis

Yinying – Shadow – Ai Jiang

In Time, a Weed May Break Stone – Valerie Valdes

Blank Space – Delilah S Dawson

Bigger Fish – Sarah Pinkser

Space Treads – Parlei Riviere

July - 11 works finished

The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (finished)

The Shadow of the Gods – John Gwynne (finished)

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (in progress)

Theses on the Scientific Management of Goetic Labour – Vajra Chandrasekera

To Put Your Heart Into a White Deer – Kristiana Willsey

The Big Heavy – Steph Kwiatkowski

The Mausoleum’s Children – Aliette de Bodard

The Infinite Endings of Elsie Chen – Kylie Lee Baker

The Rain Remembers What the Sky Forgets – Fran Wilde

Submissive – Stjepan Sejic ©

Désolé – Ewan Ma

In the Shadow of Spindrift House – Seanan McGuire (as Mira Grant)

August - 12 works finished

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (in progress)

The Mighty Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: Alien Nation – Margaret Stohl & Ramon Rosanas ©

Hot New Toy – Seanan McGuire

Camp Damascus – Chuck Tingle

We Built This City – Marie Vibbert

Agent of Chaos – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

Murder By Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Age – S L Huang

Erstwhile Vol 1: From the Tales of the Brothers Grimm – Gina Briggs, Louisa Roy, & Elle Skinner (reread) ©

Erstwhile Vol 2: Untold Tales from the Brothers Grimm – Gina Briggs, Louisa Roy, & Elle Skinner (reread) ©

Thornhedge – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

Erstwhile Vol 3: A Grimm's Fairy Tale Collection – Gina Briggs, Louisa Roy, & Elle Skinner (reread) ©

A Dream of Electric Mothers – Wole Talabi

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (in progress)

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (in progress)

The Difference Between Love and Time – Catherynne M Valente

September - 12 works finished

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (finished)

The Bookshop and the Barbarian – Morgan Stang (finished)

Drown the Lamenting – Seanan McGuire

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (in progress)

Sleep No More – Seanan McGuire

Candles and Starlight – Seanan McGuire

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Coronation, Vol. 1 – Simon Spurrier & Daniel Bayliss ©

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Coronation, Vol. 2 – Simon Spurrier, Ryan Ferrier, & Daniel Bayliss ©

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Coronation, Vol. 3 – Simon Spurrier, Ryan Ferrier, Daniel Bayliss, & Irene Flores ©

The Tea Dragon Society – Kay O'Neill (reread) ©

The Tea Dragon Festival – Kay O'Neill ©

Kaiju Preservation Society – John Scalzi

Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown & Clement Hurd (reread)

October - 16 works finished

The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean (finished)

The Tea Dragon Tapestry – Kay O'Neill ©

The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 1 – Kore Yamazaki (translated by Adrienne Beck) ©

The Witch King – Martha Wells

Under the Smokestrewn Sky – Seanan Mcguire (as A Deborah Baker) (in progess)

Four Words Written On My Skin – Jenn Reese

We Do Not Eat Much Fish – Grace P Fong

The Ghasts – Lavie Tidhar

The Curing – Kristina Ten

The Coffin Maker – AnaMaria Curtis

November - 24 works finished

The Innocent Sleep – Seanan McGuire

Under the Smokestrewn Sky – Seanan McGuire (as A Deborah Baker) (finished)

So You Want to Be a Wizard – Diane Duane

Doubtless and Secure – Seanan McGuire

Bookshops and Bonedust – Travis Baldree

Yara – Nique ©

The Voice in the Night – William Hope Hodgson (reread)

Toad Words – Ursula Vernon (reread)

Winnie-the-Pooh – A A Milne (in progress)

December - 17 works finished

Winnie-the-Pooh – A A Milne

Paladin's Faith – Ursula Vernon (as T Kingfisher)

All Systems Red – Martha Wells (reread)

Velveteen Presents the Princess vs. the Congressional Committee for Superhuman Oversight – Seanan McGuire

Compulsory – Martha Wells (reread)

Artificial Condition – Martha Wells (reread)

Rogue Protocol – Martha Wells (reread)

Obsolescence – Martha Wells

The Star – Arthur C Clarke

Viral Content – Madeline Ashby

Exit Strategy – Martha Wells (reread)

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory – Martha Wells (reread)

The Plague Doctors – Karen Lord

The Masculine and the Dead – Frank Bill

#2023 #year in review #reading list #terry pratchett #GNU Pterry #seanan mcguire #ursula vernon #t kingfisher #martha wells #ancient magus bride

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sophia-sol · 4 years ago

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Consolation Songs, edited by Iona Datt Sharma

A lovely collection of short stories being sold with all proceeds going to support UCLH Charity's COVID-19 appeal. A thoroughly enjoyable book, with an intention that the stories within are at least somewhat optimistic. Also they're all various flavours of sff. Also a high percentage of queerness. All of which is WHAT I WANT out of a story so YAY.

The stories I loved the most (I HAD FEELINGS) were, in order of appearance:

Storm Story by Llinos Cathryn Thomas, about people working together to survive on a generation ship crossing an endless ocean in search of land

Bethany, Bethany by Lizbeth Myles, about changelings and sisterhood

Seaview on Mars by Katie Rathfelder, about having survived the early hard years of a colony establishing itself on a new world, and how to live in it now that you're old and the colony's thriving

A Hundred and Seventy Storms by Aliette de Bodard, about a spaceship who's a person and her human cousin, doing their best to support each other in difficult circumstances

This is New Gehesran Calling by Rebecca Fraimow, about a diaspora being connected to their community and their identity in various ways via underground radio

My second-favourite stories (still all very good!) were:

Upside the Head by Marissa Lingen, about a concussion researcher with an experimental treatment to help people with post-concussion syndrome recover, and the hockey players who grow in new directions as a result. I felt invested in the concussion researcher and her work, but I felt a bit distant from the experimental subjects.

Four by Freya Marske, about seeing the good in the world and in other people and continuing on, even when there are still bad things that happen, and also about the four horsepeople of the apocalypse. I struggled with remembering names because three different significant characters had names with very similar vibes to me, so I kept getting Felicity and Patricia and Olivia mixed up with each other, which made it challenging to follow. And I was sad that uh Olivia's (I think??? it was Olivia?) story didn't have a happy resolution within the narrative, but the overall feel of the story was still really lovely and great.

St Anselm-by-the-Riverside by Iona Datt Sharma, about an alternate-universe Earth dealing with a Chilling instead of global warming, and a completely different pandemic. A little too close to home for me to be fully into it right now, and I had a brief moment near the beginning where I thought the fantasy plot stuff was going in a COMPLETELY different direction than it actually was and now I secretly want that story instead, but as a story it's still very good despite the things I was bringing to it.

I found The Girls Who Read Austen and Love, Your Flatmate to be just kind of boring to me, I didn't love the (unintentional?) thematic implications of Low Energy Economy that the abject suffering of workers under capitalism is worth it because the work they do allows other people to thrive, and I don't feel like I quite followed enough of the beginning of Of A Female Stranger for the payoff to be successful for me.

So yes, not every story worked for me, because that's just the nature of short story collections, but a very respectable percentage of them did! Sometimes I finish a collection having only felt strongly about a couple stories in it, but this one didn't have that problem. A good collection, very worth reading, and your money goes to a good cause!

#consolation songs #iona datt sharma #book thoughts

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