- TJ Klune - The Damning Stone (Verania 5)
- Markus Almond - These Are The Days
- Thomas Brezina - Sisis Ball der Mörder
- J.R.R. Tolkien - The Children of Hurin
- TJ Klune - Ravensong
- David R. Slayton - White Trash Warlock
- David R. Slayton - Trailer Park Trickster
- J.R.R. Tolkien - The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
- David R. Slayton - Deadbeat Druid
- TJ Klune - Heartsong
- Nancy Sherman - Stoische Weisheit. Alte Lektionen für moderne Resilienz (Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience)
- James Baldwin - Giovanni‘s Room
- TJ Klune - Murmuration
- Gudjón Ragnar Jónasson - Little Gay Reykjavík. Queer History and Anecdotes
- Adam Silvera - The First to Die at the End
- Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Tales From the Cafe: Before the Coffee gets Cold
- TJ Klune - Brothersong
- Timothy Hickson - On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume I
- Rainbow Rowell - Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow
- Rick Rubin - The Creative Act
- Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- E. Lockhart - We Were Liars
- TJ Klune - In the Lives of Puppets
- Hannah Kaner - Godkiller
- TJ Klune - Into This River I Drown
- Timothy Hickson - On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume II
- Travis Baldree - Legends & Lattes
- Steven Pressfield - The War of Art
- Diana Wynne Jones - Howl‘s Moving Castle
- Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life
- Alix E. Harrow - -The Six Deaths of the Saint_
- Diana Wynne Jones - Castle in the Air
- Diana Wynne Jones - House of many Ways
- Freya Marske - A Marvellous Light (Last Binding 1)
- TJ Klune - Bear, Otter and the Kid
- Patrick Rothfuss - The Narrow Road between Desires
- A.P. Beswick - A Forest of Vanity and Valour (The Levanthria Series 1)
- Travis Baldree - Bookshops & Bonedust
- Veronica G. Henry - The Candles are Burning
- Tiago Forte - The PARA Method
- Nghi Vo - What the Dead Know
- Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising
- Agatha Christie - Hallowe‘en Party
- Lev Grossman - Persephone
- Jack London - The Call of the Wild
- Austin Kleon - Steal like an Artist: 10 Things nobody told you about being creative
- Austin Kleon - Show Your Work
- Dan Tricarico - The Zen Teacher: Creating Focus, Simplicity, and Tranquility in the Classroom
- Austin Kleon - Keep Going: 10 Ways to stay creative in good times and bad
- Albert Camus - The Stranger
Again, I strived for reading 52 books in 2023. Looking at the list above, I obviously did not achieve this goal (with fifty books being pretty close, though), but honestly - who cares? I could make up a bunch of excuses for being two books short: Moving to a new flat cut my daily commute by about 40 minutes (which I usually spent reading), advanced education in teaching Digital Literacy regularly burns up a lot of time in order to write essays, learning patterns, and additional lesson plans, or life in general.
I have to admit, I TRIED reaching my goal and I COULD have managed to read two more books, but rushing through about ten of them in the last week of 2023 took the fun out of reading. Dan Tricarico’s Zen Teacher helped me understand this even further and made me halt in my pursuit of literary bragging rights (which does not mean that I won’t try again in 2024).
But let’s move on from me NOT explaining why I didn’t reach my reading goal for 2023 and briefly talk about readings that stuck with me. This year I continued binging TJ Klune’s work (my favourite being Murmuration as it made me cry several times) with still a lot to go this year. Austin Kleon’s writing on creativity stood out for me as well and I’m looking forward to further books. One novel that broke me and regularly forced me to put it down and take a breather was Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. I can’t say that I’ve read anything in a long time that messed me up like this beautifully written piece of literature.
All in all, I still perceived 2023 as a successful reading year with the majority of the books being great and fantastic reads. Let’s see what 2024 is going to provide in a literary sense - my to read list is already waiting to be tackled.
