This is going to be a short update. I had a good year for my copyediting work, but this meant that I was doing crazy amounts of reading for technical topics, and my mind was burnt out for most other reading. Instead, I let my mind rest and mostly read a lot of webcomics, fanfiction, and magazines. These are my comfort reads, but they’re not easily trackable. Here are the “proper” books I read this year, using a truncated version of the list of questions from 2020:
- How many books did you read this year?
3 books (sigh)
- Did you reread anything? What?
I re-read some fanfiction that I adore, probably for the fifth time. In fact, I adore this particular fanfiction series so much (all 100,000+ words of it), I compiled all the different parts into a LaTeX document and exported it into a PDF, just for fun.
- What were your top five books of the year?
Since I only read 3 books this year, I guess they were all in my top 5.
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler – Blew my mind. Octopuses, robotics, philosophy, linguistics, and ethics. Really well written. I recommended it to my husband (who is more of a non-fiction reader), and it blew his mind too.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – Necromancers in space. Enemies to epic lovers. Puzzles. Body horror. That’s really all that needs to be said about this book. I was very confused and unsure at the beginning but pushed forward, and it was fantastic by the end. Epic.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells – Loved the first book, and while this didn’t quite reach that level, I thought it was a hilarious. Two robots pretend to be human to do a job interview. I mean. Hilarious. Martha Wells can do no wrong.
I loved all these books, and I’m glad I took the time to read them.
- Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?
Both Ray Nayler and Tamsyn Muir were new to me, and I look forward to reading more of their books in the future.
- What genre did you read the most of?
I read all speculative fiction in 2023. It’s my favorite genre to both read and write in.
- Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?
So many. I’m in the middle of three different books at the moment, with at least 4 more that I’ve promised various people to read.
- What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?
My average rating for 2023 was 4.7 stars. I’m easy to please. I like most books that I read, and I tend to be choosy about which books I read considering my limited time. If I can finish a book, that book gets at least 3 stars.
- Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?
I aimed for 10 books in 2023. That did not happen.
- What reading goals do you have for next year?
Read more and actually finish some of my half-read books.