Books I've Read in 2023, So Far

Me: Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve been busy reading.

The void: Reading what?

Me: Well, I’m glad you asked! Here’s every book I’ve read so far in 2023 (ordered by when I finished them)

What I’ve Read So Far In 2023

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

I finished 2022 with Severance, also by Ling Ma, and I really enjoyed it. So when I saw Bliss Montage at the book store I was very excited to try it out. The cover being a bunch of oranges was also a big plus. But to be honest, I didn’t like this book very much. I read all of the stories in this in order, and by the end, they all started to blend together. The main character feels like the same person in all of the stories, and there are a lot of common elements that are shared.

An Atlas of Extinct Counties by Gideon Defoe

Pretty cool book, I finished it in a day. I really liked getting to read about tiny bits of history here or there, ranging from wacky to serious.

I will say that this book had way too much whitespace in it. There were an astonishing number of blank and half-blank pages. And there were, quite regularly, half-blank pages followed by full pages, where the text on the half-blank page naturally flows on to the next page. It was just a really weird layout, and I would have much preferred if the book was thinner (I love thin books).

My favorite country from this book was the Republic of Sonora. The basic story is:

American guy: Hey mexico, let me rule some of your land for you?

Mexico: no

American: Imma do it anyway

American: raises money and a small army, conquers a city in Mexico

Mexico: defeats him, sends American back to America

American guy: goes on trial

American jury: Eh, he seems ok, let’s acquit him

American guy: does it again, but in Nicaragua, gets capture and sent back to America for another trial

American jury: Eh, he seems ok, let’s acquit him

American guy: does it again, but in Honduras, causes a massive cholera outbreak, gets shot

Seven Games by Oliver Roeder

This was a really cool book! It covers seven games: Checkers, Chess, Go, Backgammon, Poker, Scrabble and Bridge. For each game, it first goes over the origin and history of the game before moving on to cover the modern day competitive scene, as well as how well computers are performing at this game. The book is ordered so that each game adds an extra layer of complexity in terms of strategy. Since I played bridge in college, I was excited to learn that bridge is the only game in this book that computers cannot beat humans at.

I read this book very quickly, and if the topic interests you, I highly recommend it.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso

This was a fairly short book, and overall it was pretty cool. I definitely finished this book seriously considering the possibility that plants can see. Some plants that were pretty nifty:

Acacia trees. Apparently, some acacia trees secrete nectar from their trunks and branches. This puzzled scientists for a while, because it just didn’t make sense. Normally, nectar is secreted in flowers, to attract animals to help pollinate the flower. So why, then, were these acacia trees using so much nutrition to produce nectar that wouldn’t help with pollination? The answer is ants. The trees were feeding ants this nectar, and in exchange, the ants would protect the tree from pests and competing plants. This sounded like a cool symbiotic relationship until we learned that the nectar is laced with a variety of compounds that the tree is using to drug the ants, essentially enslaving them. That’s just not what I expected a tree would do. It’s not very tree-like

Boquila Trifoliolata. This is a vine that shapes its leaves to match those of the plant it is climbing on. When a vine grows across multiple plants, it can produce different leaf shapes on different parts of itself based on which host plant is closest. To me, this plant seems like a pretty good argument that plants “can see” to a certain extent. But, the research on this vine is pretty minimal, and I also have not come across a convincing picture of its amazing capabilities.

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

This is the book that made me laugh the most this year, and also made me say “holy fuck” the most, probably ever. It switches from absolutely hilarious to incredibly sad, and back again, in the blink of an eye.

I highly recommend it. I won’t say more, because I don’t want to spoil any of it.

Cultish by Amanda Montell

This is a very cool book, and I think it is very relevant to life today. Cultish covers the various techniques that cults and cult-like groups use to convert, condition and coerce their followers. It goes through multiple groups, starting with very serious well-known cults such as Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, and working its way down to Crossfit, make-up brands, and social media.

I learned a lot of new concepts from this book, so much so that this is the only book I’ve read so far this year that I wanted to take notes on. One concept I learned that I think is particularly relevant is “thought-terminating cliches.” These are phrases that are (a) generic and (b) encourage you to stop thinking about something. Some thought-terminating cliches include:

Thought-terminating cliches are a super powerful technique, and they are everywhere! Just learning a name for this technique has helped me to identify when someone uses one, and take time to consider why they’re using it.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

My brother strongly recommended this book to me, and after I finished it, I was very confused as to why. The main character is indifferent to his own life to a staggering degree. I was very unsettled by this book. That said, I found the writing very enjoyable, and finished The Stranger fairly quickly. It also gets a bonus point from me because it is a physically thin book, which I just love.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I really liked this book, and I also did not “get” this book. If you are unfamiliar, Cloud Atlas is essentially six stories, and they are very loosely related. Each story has its own themes and characters (with a tiny bit of overlap), and they are connected through an underlying theme of reincarnation. At least, I think? To be honest, I did not understand the reincarnation part. As I approached the end of Cloud Atlas, I thought I would understand everything, and it would all click into place, but I finished the book deeply unsatisfied. I felt like I had read 6 unrelated stories in a really weird order.

That said, the writing was phenomenal, and while I didn’t “get” it, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim

This book took me the longest to finish (somewhere around 2 months), partly because I wasn’t that interested in it, and partly because I kept getting headaches whenever I tried to read (posture, probably). The Cabinet follows a research assistant who is trying to both study and support people who are, for lack of a better word, strange. These people, or symptomers, as they’re called in the book, range from a person with a doppelganger, to a person who drinks gasoline, to a person who has a gingko tree growing out of his fingernail, and so on. I really liked the start of this book, which was essentially a series of vignettes about the various symptomers. But I didn’t find the overall plot very gripping. Near the end it takes a turn into secret-agent thriller stuff, and I just wasn’t feeling it.

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith

This was really cool! Other Minds is all about cephalopod intelligence, and there’s a lot of interesting evolutionary history covered in this book as to why cephalopods are so intelligent. I really enjoyed reading this, and I learned so much about cephalopods and their various capabilities. It was also very cool that this book was written by a professor of philosophy, which I think resulted in some interesting discussion of subjective experience, consciousness, and sentience.

I recommend this book. If you only want to read one chapter, I recommend chapter 4: From White Noise to Consciousness. There’s also a whole chapter dedicated to how cuttlefish are able to change the color on their skin.

French Exit by Patrick DeWitt

I was pretty excited when I picked up this book. The back cover made it out to be about these two rich people, who are undeserving of their wealth and overall horrible people, and, well, they lose it all. It sounded funny and satisfying. But I feel like I didn’t get that at all. Yes, the rich people were undeserving of their wealth, but they weren’t that bad, and actually did quite a few things that made them seem good in my eyes. Also, this book took two turns near the end: (1) it got sad and (2) it became supernatural. Overall, not what I had expected.

The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag

I like to describe this book as “coffee table book” meets “graphic novel.” There is an overarching plot, but each page stands on its own with the beautiful artwork. The Electric State follows a person as they drive through a future California that has been ruined by drone warfare and VR addiction. The setting really lent itself to beautiful and unsettling artwork, and I think it is a joy to flip through.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

I had mixed feelings about this book. When I started it, I had two major complaints.

One, the author loves listing things. There were multiple times where examples were given, or a scene was described, and it was basically a list of sentences each describing something different. Normally, I’d be fine with this, but these lists had a tendency to drag on to the point where 8 sentences in a row of listing things was normal.

Two, part of the book is narrated by a fig tree. On its own, this sounds pretty cool, and this is part of what drove me to pick up this book in the first place. But boy does the fig tree have an attitude. I found the fig tree really full of itself. I think it makes sense for the character it is, but by the end it was starting to get annoying.

Overall, though, I did enjoy this book. Besides those two minor gripes, I found the story very exciting and well-told.

Takeaways

I’m trying to read more this year, and I think I’ve accomplished it. I’ve already read more books this year than I have last year, and I think I can easily reach 25 books by the end of the year (this is the conservative goal that I set for myself after finishing 10 books).

By looking back on everything I’ve read this year, I’ve started to notice a pretty clear pattern. I have way more complaints about fiction books than I do about non-fiction books. One contributing factor could be that I normally read Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but this year I’ve been trying to branch out, so maybe I’m learning what I don’t like.

Another explanation I’ve thought of is that non-fiction books tend to be very consistent in terms of both quality and content, so I can more accurately judge a book based on the short part I can read at the book store. Fiction, on the other hand, can vary wildly as the book goes on. Many of my complaints about the fictions I’ve read this year have to do with aspects that aren’t noticeable until you’re well into the book, such as plot twists or repetition. Non-fiction books, in contrast, don’t have plot twists, and while they have some level of repetition, I’m expecting it when I start the book. Another factor that contributes to this is that, at least in my view, many fiction authors tend to focus a lot of effort on the hook of the story, which is what I read in the book store. But when I get home, I start to get through the parts that were less thought out. I, however, have not written any books, so I’m not sure if this is actually the case.

What’s Next?

I’m really loving reading more! It feels good to sit down and focus on something. I have a bunch of books that I want to read during the second half of this year. Here’s a few that I’m particularly excited about:

A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard

I’ve been dreaming of a having a sheep farm and spinning my own yarn. I hope this book can help scratch that itch a bit.

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

I recently beat this game on my old GameBoy Advance SP

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

I just picked this book up, and it looks hilarious. I’m very excited to start it