Book reviews 2023

Here we go again! My annual book review summary. What did 2023 hold?

(NERD ALERT, a fair bit of data analysis ahead! Feel free to skip to the highlights at the bottom.

Well, for a start, it held less books - only 56! This is a step down from the previous two years, and notably less than 2017-2020 when I was reading about 75 per year.

The question is - why? My theory is that I've been been reading more non-book material (i.e. online), listening to audio dramas, and to sleep stories as part of my afternoon nap routine. All of which chew into my reading capacity. Luckily for all of us, I track my daily activities for the purposes of managing my ME/CFS, so we can actually see what's going on!

Since 2020 my screen time has increased from 5.3 hours per day to 5.7 hours, roughly in line with the decrease in books. But what sort of screen time?

The amount of TV I've watched has increased substantially since 2017, from virtually nothing to nearly an hour a day (thanks CFS! Also Star Trek ...). This pre-dated the decline in book reading but probably explains part of it. 

 

The time I spend playing games on my phone has dropped in recent years, so that hasn't contributed. Nor has time on my computer changed.

 

My podcast listening time (not included in screen time) has increased from 0.7 hrs/day in 2021 to over 1.2 hrs/day in 2023 - there are those audio dramas and sleep stories! 

 

I don't have finer grained data on my screen time habits, but suspect I've been reading more news & articles. As of the new year I have gone cold turkey on the news, so perhaps that will turn things around for 2024 if I can keep it up.

 

Pursuing this further, I decided to see if any of my CFS symptoms were correlated with my book consumption. These are subjective numbers, and comparing them across long time periods is fraught, so take this with a grain of salt.

• The strongest correlation between CFS symptoms and number of books read is for my neck pain & associated tension headaches (r=-0.92). I'm not quite sure how this works, but it seems that reading books is a pain in the neck!
  

• The strongest correlation between activity level and books read is for napping (r=-0.8). The more naps, the less reading. I've made a concerted effort to nap more in recent years, which means more sleep stories and more of those sweet sweeet ZZZs. 

• This is closely followed by how physical I am (r=0.78): the more physical, the more books I read. This might just be a coincidence of long-term trends: the longer I am sick, the more careful I am about overdoing it.

• There were no good correlations between symptoms and star rating. But there was a weak one with the amount of gardening I did (r=-0.53)! Perhaps books pale in comparison to the joy I get from the garden :D.
  

I've started keeping tabs on some additional data: page length, reading rate and year published. I read 20,500 pages (56 pages/day) - note that I only read physical books, so these are paper pages, not ebook pages. There was no relationship between reading rate and star rating. There is possibly an increase in rating with more recently published books (0.1 stars/decade), but I need more data - the vast majority of books were post-2000.

 

My average rating has been consistent at 3.5 stars (which means "I liked it", or a Distinction grade):

 

The gender split was heavily female biased (60%!), which is a bit of a surprise because I hadn't been intentionally seeking out female authors. That may have been helped along by the four Louise Penny crime novels that I consumed as easy reads ...

Unfortunately I went backwards big time on my diversity reading, dropping down to 30% non-white authors. Took the eye off the ball on that one! (Louise Penny probably didn't help here ....)

I'm very gradually reading less non-fiction. In fact, two of the non-fiction books I read this year were very slow going which wouldn't have helped my overall total.

 Enough with the stats already, what about the books? Some quick high/low-lights:

• Most mind-blowing: An Immense World by Ed Yong (5 stars)
• Funniest and fastest: Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (4.5 stars), 193 pages/day
  
• Most eye-opening but also slowest: White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad (4.5 stars), 12 pages/day
  
• Surprisingly sleep-inducing: Cosmos by Carl Sagan (4 stars)
• Best cameo by Yours Truly: The Vanishing Glaciers of Patagonia by Martin Sessions (4 stars)
  
• Most misleading: The Poppy War by RF Kuang (3.5 stars)
• Oldest: Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol (3 stars), published 1872
• Wankiest: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard (2 stars)

And finally, the full list:

5 stars (2 books, 4%)
Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver	A harrowing journey through foster care and the opiate crisis. So good it hurt to read. Raw deal after raw deal left my heart aching, but enough clear-sighted humanity to stave off despair.
An Immense World	Ed Yong	Every page a mind-blowing revelation of the many incredible, and unimaginable, ways animals sense the world. Filled with awe, delight & respect for the natural world.
4.5 stars (6 books, 11%)
Goodnight Mister Tom	Michelle Magorian	Blimey, what a heart walloper! Abused boy finds family & comes to life when billeted out during WW2. Pulls no punches but so much love & support. Goes through hell; ridiculously resilient.
Braiding Sweetgrass	Robin Wall Kimmerer	Celebrates the sacredness of country by bringing together the deep spirituality of indigenous wisdom & the glorious nerdiness of ecological science. Poignant & bittersweet.
American Dirt	Jeanine Cummins	On the run from narcos, mother & son join the desperate stream of humanity heading for the US. Terrifying, exhausting & exhilarating, with the unrelenting momentum of a freight train. Trails off towards end.
White Tears, Brown Scars	Ruby Hamad	Argues forcefully & convincingly that white womanhood has been (and still is) instrumental in upholding #WhiteSupremacy. I will never see the #intersection of #race & #gender so naively again. A must read for all - for solidarity & reflection.
Lessons In Chemistry	Bonnie Garmus	A neurodiverse female scientist skewers the unprepared patriachy of the 1950s with her forthright progressive values. Hilarious, infuriating and deeply serious.
Children of Time	Adrian Tchaikovsky	Spiders undergo enhanced evolution, building an extraordinary new civilisation. Meanwhile the last of humanity searches for a new home, bringing its destructive tendencies with it. Impressive & audacious vision, but lacks engaging characters.
4 stars (12 books, 21%)
The Girl In The Tower	Katherine Arden	Witch girl seeks freedom from mediaeval Rus strictures, but her naivety & heedlessness prove her undoing. Still, she saves the day! Less fairytale, more political than prequel. Still excellent.
Auē	Becky Manawatu	The traumatised underclass of NZ, desperately trying to escape the relentless undertow of drugs, crime & abuse. Intense & despairing, but with a spark of hope.
A Little Hatred	Joe Abercrombie	The industrial revolution arrives, and it's ugly. Brutally cynical & vicious, yet somehow lighthearted.
The Vanishing Glaciers of Patagonia	Martin Sessions	Journals from an early expedition to Chile's sea-level glaciers. Lyrically evocative of the area's harsh beauty, relentless weather & incomparable remoteness. Hard to keep track of terrain without Google Earth to hand. Of niche interest to Patagonian tragics!
The Song of Achilles	Madeline Miller	A tragedy of narcissistic proportions. Nicely written & well paced. Feels real without losing its mythic aura.
Cosmos	Carl Sagan	A journey through the universe, science & their development, brimming with passion & wonder. 50 years old but feels timeless, except nuclear angst has been replaced by climate angst. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp6dwtXsi8PsAwzmhJNj4khhr9-i5oAMj
The Seed Keepers	Diane Wilson	A Dakhota woman connects with her heritage and finds belonging & purpose in the seeds she inherits from her female ancestors. Gentle despite colonial trauma.
Network Effect	Martha Wells	She's perfected the MurderBot recipe: awkward AI-AI relationship, friendly humans, emotional discomfort, clever conflict.
Eat My Shadow	Linda Cockburn	Post-climate apocalypse in #HuonValley & #Hobart. Mostly believable (ex-PM was a caricature, and questionable lack of planning for expedition) with survivors being both humane & loving, but also merciless when called for. Unnerving to see local area in this light.
Africa Is Not A Country	Dipo Faloyin	Dismantles the many myths & prejudices outsiders hold about monolithic "Africa", along with a startling reminder of its colonial history and an overview of its many forms of dictatorship. Lively, enlightening & optimistic without being overly simplistic.
Account Rendered	Melita Maschmann	Autobiography of a woman who was a committed & diligent National Socialist (#Nazi), of her experience in youth work & propaganda, and her journey coming to terms with the truth of what she participated in. Description of the clinical dispossession of the Poles is disturbing (and new to me), as is the readiness with which everyday mediocre people were led into misguided beliefs, alternative facts & constrained thinking, to do prosaic work with horrifyingly evil outcomes.
Runt	Craig Silvey	Fun, silly & heart-warming. The (very pleasingly named) villains get their come-uppances, and everyone else lives happily ever after, having been thoroughly good people in the process.
3.5 stars (16 books, 29%)
Sand Talk	Tyson Yunkaporta	Yarning about the ways of Indigenous knowledge. Insightful, sometimes impenetrable, with a bit of bullshit. The barest exposure, but what next? How to incorporate this into our worldview?
The Other Wind	Ursula Le Guin	When men have the wisdom to let go of striving for supremacy, and return to the earth.
Izzy	Moira McAlister	Follows the extraordinary life of an early Australian colonist who was present for some momentous historic events & more than the usual share of drama. All the more amazing for being based on real people. Pedestrian prose with awkward dialogue, but captivating.
Mythos	Stephen Fry	A spritely & amusing contemporary retelling of the Greek myths. Starts cohesively but unravels into disjointed repetition. The gods were the best & worst of humanity - especially in lust & spite!
Permanent Record	Edward Snowden	I also grew up in a government town in the early days of home computers & the internet. Perhaps if I had stumbled across hacking I'd have ended up in a similar role to him, though I doubt I'd have his gumption to expose the gross overreach of the security services. Their capability was (and remains) alarming.
Still Life	Louise Penny	A murder mystery with effortless characterisation and lots of pastries. Awkward autism portrayal?
The Poppy War	RF Kuang	A reimagining of China & Japan, with shamans & gods for interest, and war crimes & genocide for a horrifying reality check. Misleadingly begins with standard 'orphan goes to hero school' trope, but turns disturbingly dark without warning.
The Lost Metal	Brandon Sanderson	More high-octane fantasy from the Mistborn world, with some key reveals. Some very pleasing support characters.
Parable of the Sower	Octavia Butler	Adapting & building community during social collapse. Prophetic for its time, remains unsettling. God as Change could be a genuinely useful belief system. Only half a book, with ending sudden & too convenient (there is a sequel).
The Cruellest Month	Louise Penny
Cloud Cuckoo Land	Anthony Doerr	Three time periods are braided together by an ancient Greek tale: 15th century Constantinople, the modern day, and a space-faring future. Elaborate but tenuous. On their own each story has potential, but together they don't quite make a whole. Like Cloud Atlas but less enthralling.
Nevermoor	Jessica Townsend	Yet another kid-goes-to-magic-school book, but with enough creativity, humour & flair to compensate.
The Invention Of Wings	Sue Monk Kidd	A girl in the early 19th century American South gradually breaks away from the strictures of gender & society to become a pioneering abolitionist & feminist. Based in truth! Doesn't manage to capture the strength or source of her motivations.
Project Hail Mary	Andy Weir	A series of (Earth-saving) problem-solutions starring an irksome overenthusiastic science teacher/xenobiologist. Some cool ideas but one-dimensional and the narrative style can be grating.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky	Being an awkward teenager in the era of grunge and mix-tapes, when homosexuality & neurodiversity were still Untouchable.
A Day Of Fallen Night	Samantha Shannon	A decent escapist holiday read, otherwise overly long. Well done gender reversals and critique of monarchy as a womb trap. Characters never quite gripped me, and climax is a bit of a deus ex machina let down.
3 stars (15 books, 27%)
The First Four Years	Laura Ingalls Wilder	Early marriage and a steep learning curve on stubborn husbands, capricious weather & farming as a price-taker. Much less idyllic than the prior books.
The Value Of Everything	Mariana Mazzucato	Argues that governments are co-creators of wealth and essential for a dynamic & innovative economy (duh? But neoliberals ...). Finance is a rent-seeking leech. Growth should be purposeful & hopeful! Full of sense but not engaging.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	CS Lewis	Cool premise (a worldrobe!), but everything resolves awfully suddenly. Not to mention the human-worship, and ... 'He's not the Messiah, he's a very scary lion!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvHbSd8TWHU
A Desolation Called Peace	Arkady Martine	Disappointing sequel despite potential. Some dubious premises (surely a galactic empire would have first contact specialists?). Unclear motivations & prose: I rarely understood why particular choices were being made. Also an annoying inconsistency: internally, characters were flailing haplessly, but in actuality they were exceedingly competent.
A Woman Of No Importance	Sonia Purnell	Biography of Virginia Hall, one of the most effective Allied agents who organised the French resistance during WW2. Lacks the narrative tension to do justice to this incredibly capable woman and the many intense trials she and her associates suffered through. Appalling misogynistic treatment by CIA during Cold War.
The Wind In The Willows	Kenneth Grahame	Oh, hapless, feckless Toad! A tale of cleaning up after a narcissistic friend. Only two minor female characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EaYurmUkc
No Enemies No Friends	Allan Behm	Good sense on foreign & defense policy. Most interesting on historical background of region. Clear on how things could be done better, but no theory of change as to how to bring that about.
After Story	Larissa Behrendt	Indigenous mother & daughter find healing & belonging on a literary tour through England. Dwells a lot on literary history which seems incidental to main story. Not a lot of plot progression or character development.
Through The Looking-Glass	Lewis Carrol	A sequence of random but colourful nonsense, for no discernible reason. Poor ending. Very effective at sending me off to sleep, though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRLLrlOpx9c
Wizard of the Crow	Ngūgū wa Thiong'o	A satire of African dictatorships and coups. Nearly everyone is stupid, superstitious or greedy. Lightly amusing & insightful but exceeedingly long.
Dead Cold	Louise Penny	A bit light on the mystery, and minimal movement in the meta-plot, but perfect relaxation escapism.
A Rule Against Murder	Louise Penny	Not quite believable family dynamic.
The Stranding	Kate Sawyer	Apocalyterature spliced into before/after, with the self found only once the old world has been stripped away. Decent enough but not sure of its point.
The Choke	Sofie Laguna	In rough-as-guts 1970s country Australia a girl suffers from abuse & neglect, her unrecognised dyslexia leaving her totally unequipped to understand what is being done to her. Casual victim blaming true to time but hard to swallow. One bright spot is her beautifully portrayed friendship with another outcast, a boy with cerebral palsy.
The Road To Unfreedom	Timothy Snyder	Russia has been exporting its 'politics of eternity' to replace the West's 'politics of inevitability' via Trump and far-right 'sado-populism'. Putin's philosophical roots are confounding & disturbing. Written before the 2022 escalation in the Ukraine war - we've awoken to this project, but can we sustain the fight and embed a 'politics of responsibility'? Slow going.
2.5 stars (3 books, 5%)
The Duke And I	Julia Quinn	Books are typically more complex & nuanced than their screen adaptations, but not this one! Lacks the tension, glamour & variety. Passable fluff.
Orphan Sisters	Lola Jaye	Black sisters grow up as orphans in England. Staid & unremarkable. Potentially traumatic, but pulls its punches.
Foundation's Edge	Isaac Asimov	Too much Plato-esque dialogue, as usual. Dubious plot reliance on 'the vibe'. Tiresome portrayals of women. Enjoyable inclusion of the Gaia concept.
2 stars (2 books, 4%)
Two Brothers	Ben Elton	Brothers in a Jewish family strive to protect their loved ones from the increasing horrors of Nazi Germany. Boringly one-dimensional portrayal of Nazis - they're evil brutes, I get it. Distinct lack of emotional connection considering intensity of subject matter. Flat as a brick wall.
The Transit Of Venus	Shirley Hazzard	A platform for describing love in its many forms, but neglects intimacy with the reader. Shows a remarkable ability to capture the ineffable aspects of an encounter, but too often gets lost in obtuseness.