Once again, we went to a place that looks like this, and for some reason we came back.

This year we took a shorter trip, but spent more time on the beach reading. I read 8 books, plus about a quarter of one that I decided not to finish.

The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler: This ratio of plot to monologues about concept being explored in the story was off for me, but this was still enjoyable.

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms, Charlie N. Holmberg: An absolutely delightful read involving a haunted house and a housekeeper who can deal with such things.

Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal: What if one of the womanly arts that women learned in the Regency period was how to use magic to make their house look nicer?

A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas: I’ve seen a lot of buzz about this author lately, which got me curious. When a friend said it would be a great beach read I decided to give it a try. For me it didn’t live up to the hype.

Come Closer, Sara Gran: A wonderfully dark novella.

Smoke, Dan Vyleta: There is a great story in this novel, but it’s drowning in all the ruminating and philosophizing.

A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons, Kate Khavari: A plucky botanist in the ’20s decides to investigate a poisoning in the botany department because the cops have pinned it on her mentor, who’s basically been the only person to actually support her studies.

Your Driver Is Waiting, Priya Guns: Or, “unhinged rideshare” as we’re calling this in bookclub. This was very fun and kind of wild. The ending let me down but don’t let that dissuade you.

Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (unfinished): One too many conversations that were just a lot of exposition about stuff that may or may not have been related to whatever was trying to happen in the plot.

This year I read 120 books, which is an all-time high. I didn’t realize I was on track to do that until a couple of weeks ago, at which point I was close enough that I knew I’d make it. So that was kind of fun to see! I wanted to share a few of my favorites (OK, maybe more than a few). I hope you find a couple of things to add to your TBR list.

Best Book Club Book
Land of Milk and Honey, by C. Pam Zhang

On the surface this seems like it’s probably climate fiction, and it is. But the focus is on just a couple of characters, and there are a lot of themes (grief, isolation, loneliness) interwoven that elevate it into something else. You may have seen or heard a lot about this book this fall, and it’s definitely worth the read. Don’t let the hype scare you off.

Best Audacious Book Club Book
Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Roxane Gay runs The Audacious Book Club. Each month, paid subscribers can access asynchronous chats about the book, and can watch an interview she conducts with the author. This introduced me to several great books I didn’t hear about otherwise. Chain-Gang All-Stars has a lot of characters to keep track of, and the perspective shifts between them, but for the most part those shifts serve the story well. While this was a little hard to read at times, it was also completely gripping and had a lot of heart.

Best Recommendation from TBR
Symphony of Secrets, by Brendan Slocumb

TBR is a paid service from Book Riot, where you get three book recommendations each quarter. I’ve been a subscriber since 2018. One thing I really like about it is that I tend to get recommendations for books I haven’t heard about otherwise, which I really appreciate. I don’t always read all three recommendations right away, but I keep track of which books come to me through TBR. Symphony of Secrets was a recommendation from this year and was just a delight to read. There are two stories running in parallel, and the themes that connect them worked really well. I’m not musial, so I was a little concerned that I might miss out on important aspects of the story. But I did not at all. I suspect that if you do an additional layer will be unlocked, though.

Best Book in a Series I’m Already Reading
Grave Importance, by Vivian Shaw

This is #3 in the Dr. Greta Helsing series. This book was so chaotic but in the best possible way. Also, a decent portion of this installment is spent in the back offices of Hell, and I just find that kind of thing so delightful. Bureaucracy! In Hell! (Yes, this is one of the things I like about Good Omens as well.)

Best Book in a New Series
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty

This is the first book in a new series about a retired female pirate who is blackmailed into coming out of retirement for a job. I loved Amina, the protagonist, for how pragmatic she was. And it was really fun to see a creaky old band of pirates reassembling themselves and getting back into the groove of things.

Best Entry in the Austen Extended Universe
The Heiress, by Molly Greeley

There are so many books out there inspired by Jane Austen’s writings, but I particularly enjoy those that are set amongst her locations and characters. The best is still The Other Bennet Sister, but of those I read this year The Heiress was my favorite. This novel answers the question “Why is Anne de Bourgh so sickly?” in a very intriguing way.

Best Book I Bought
Starling House, Alix E. Harrow

This did not unseat The Once and Future Witches as my favorite by this author, but that’s a tall order. This was fast-paced and had a really interesting concept involving a sentient house and “a lonely pining man with tattoos and a sword.” (Yes, please.) The main character makes a mix of good and bad choices, but they all add up to a very believable and well-developed protagonist.

Best Book I Read in Print
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

The vast majority of my reading is ebooks borrowed from DCPL, but I read 11 print books this year, including a re-read of Matrix for book club. For reasons I can’t articulate, I was sort of avoiding reading Demon Copperhead. But this spring it won the Pulitzer, and then the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and I finally put it on hold. Naturally the hold list was enormous so I ended up buying the hardcover, and I’m so glad I did. This is a book that rewards the time you spend sinking into the language, and demands your attention as you’re reading. It’s heartbreaking and full of difficult moments, but it was wonderful. And don’t worry if you don’t remember David Copperfield, you won’t miss anything.

Best 2023 Release
Prophet, by Sin Blache and Helen Macdonald

I read 46 books published in 2023, which was more than I would have guessed, and made it a little hard to pick. But I chose this one because it surprised me. The description focuses more on the plot and makes it sound like a rather sterile sci-fi story. But I thought about H is for Hawk and I figured there must be more to it. And there is. The premise is wild, the writing was gorgeous, and there’s scads of witty banter that made me laugh aloud more than once. However, there is not nearly enough worldbuilding, the wild premise is rickety, and the ending made no sense. But it was also satisfying? I don’t know. Read it or not.

Best Backlist Title (2021 or prior)
The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern

I absolutely loved this. It was so immersive, and had wonderful characters. The plot was perhaps a bit predictable at times, but I was so charmed I didn’t care. It’s a book about storytellers, and it was big and enveloping, as it should be.

Other Books I Want You to Know About

• Last to Leave the Room, Caitlin Starling
• Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See
• The Light Pirate, Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn
• The Bandit Queens, Parini Shroff
• Station Eternity, Mur Lafferty
• A Half-Built Garden, Ruthanna Emrys

Lately it seems like I’ve been abandoning books at a higher rate. It’s hard to tell exactly as marking a book “unfinished” on Goodreads clears out the date started, and I got out of the habit of resetting it. But it’s at least 5 since the beginning of the year, plus I have a 6th in a time out (and honestly, books rarely come out of time out).

Abandoning a book is a part of being a reader, whether you’re someone who reads a book or more a week, or someone who’s lucky to finish a couple in a year. Either way, your reading time is precious and you shouldn’t spend it on books you’re not into. I always think of the third law of library science, “Every book its reader.” Every book is for someone, but no book is for everyone. You’re bound to encounter books that aren’t for you. This can mean a lot of different things:

• Sometimes the story is too complex and you Cannot Even, no matter how much you want to: Nona the Ninth
• Other times you just bounce right off: Witches
• Maybe you’re sick, or it’s allergy season: The Employees
• Or some quirk of the writing jumps out at you, and maybe you just can’t unsee it: Point Roberts

There are also circumstantial reasons that you might not finish a book:

• The audiobook was longer than your road trip: The Last Human
• Your library ebook expired before you finished it: The Drunken Botanist

So why do we sometimes feel like we should finish a book we’re not enjoying?

• It won a prize, so it must be particularly good: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022 Booker Prize)
• Your book club is reading it: To Paradise
• A friend read it and loved it: The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book
• You’ve loved some of the author’s previous work: Dead Astronauts

There are also aspirational reads:

• Did you used to be someone who would have read it? Index, A History of the
• Do you want to be someone who has read it? The Secret Life of Pronouns

Just stop! Don’t get too wrapped up in reading at least a certain amount before abandoning something: Infinite Jest (20% of this one is itself a short novel! Spare yourself the attempt and read one of these instead.)

If you’re not ready to commit to abandoning it, put it in a time out. I’ve paused books I wasn’t enjoying to see what my book club thought, and then decided whether to finish based on the discussion. I’ve also paused books to see if I feel compelled to pick them back up after I read something else.

As you abandon and pause books, try to form a sense of why, as it’ll help you avoid books you’re unlikely to be into. It could be something stylistic, or it could be situational. Understanding that can also help you figure out if it’s something to come back to in the future.

You can of course decide to plow through anyway, skimming your way through the remainder. But before you do that with an ebook, check the page count first. It could be 800+ pages: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

I recently came back from a longish vacation to sunnier climes. Why we returned from here is unclear to me:

We spent a lot of time lounging by the beach or the pool, as you do when this is the view:

Anyway. I read three entire books, finished one, and started another. None of them would be categorized as a “beach read,” but in my opinion if you read something at the beach, it’s a beach read.

All the Murmuring Bones, A.G. Slatter: The mood and the world-building were great — there are some wonderful mythical creatures in this one. I did feel the ending was a little rushed, but it was also plausible.

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Eva Jurczyk: I didn’t like this as much as I’d hoped. There are a lot of academic politics and a protagonist who is sort of just letting herself be buffeted along for much of the story. She finally starts to get interesting at the end.

Bleeding Heart Yard, Elly Griffiths: I never really try to solve the mystery, but sometimes you start to develop a theory, and mine was completely wrong this time, in a good way. This is the third installment in the Harbinder Kaur series. You can certainly read this as a standalone, but you’ll get a little more out of it if you read the other two first.

The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern: Somehow this hadn’t been on my radar until recently, but it was such a lovely read. It was so immersive and I was sad to leave the story and the characters when I finished. I saw a few beats of the plot coming, but that didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment.

The Age of Vice, Deepti Kapoor: This is the first pick in Roxane Gay’s book club this year, and it was incredible. Very layered and I liked how you see some of the same events through different perspectives. This is set in Delhi and the city is very much a character as well.