2023 Book Retrospective: Time Well Spent with White Whales and the Devil in Moscow

22 min readJan 5, 2024

Covers in chronological order of the 60 books of 2023.

I remember great reading years the same way others remember great Oscar years (e.g 1940, 1975, 1995). There are particular 12-month stretches that just produce something memorable and magical. In 2003, I discovered my love of reading the classics when I tore through A Farewell to Arms, Crime and Punishment, Candide, Lord of the Flies, 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, The Awakening, As I Lay Dying, Death of a Salesman, and Things Fall Apart in the span of a few months. In 2019 I challenged myself to read a book per week, which opened my mind to new topics and genres. I enjoyed the experience so much that I’ve unofficially kept up the practice since.

This past year of 2023 was a “great Oscar year” for my reading adventures. Much like previous years, I followed curiosity more than a set agenda–but the enjoyment I gained from these 60 books was tremendous. Following my recent annual custom (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), I’m going to use this blog to break down my year in reading and see if I can get to the root of why. If I fail but still receive the same number of recommendations and conversations from people who read last year’s post, I’ll consider that a success too.

The Classics

They are called “classics” after all! 😁 I’ve found that whenever I’m ever not sure what to read, picking a book from the classics section is rarely a bad strategy. These books stand the test of time for a reason. They capture a story, character, theme, or insight into the human condition so perfectly that they transcend generations. Many of my happiest and most profound reading moments this year came from picking up one of these books — even the intimidating ones from the likes of Joyce, Melville, and Bulgakov that I’ve been putting off “until I was ready.”

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey: Winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this novel follows the actions of US Major Joppolo as he works to restore the pride of the town of Adano in Sicily at the end of World War II. A character study in what a good leader can do for people even in challenging circumstances (usually from his US military superiors), the story centers on his efforts to bring back the town’s bell which had previously been melted by the Fascist government for weapons.
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster: There’s an entire subgenre of English literature that goes (1) boy meets girl, (2) boy and girl like each other, but (3) fussy English manners and class hierarchies derail their love’s natural course with much commentary on society along the way. This is one of those stories. Set in Edwardian era England and Italy, this classic is the story of Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson awkwardly falling in love and learning a lot about the quirks of society.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: Wow, just wow. This book had been recommended to me multiple times over the years, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. This shouldn’t have been surprising considering I like Goethe’s Faust, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, and pretty much anything well-done where the devil makes an appearance alongside living mortals. But the hilarity and creativity that Bulgakov brings to the devil and his entourage’s visit to Moscow is absolutely worth the read.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: This science fiction classic was recommended by my friend Grant during his visit to San Francisco. Genly Ai is a representative of the Ekumen — a group of planets that have formed a co-operative alliance — who is sent to the planet of Gethen to persuade them to join their interstellar confederation. Gethens have no set sex, but rather can transition back and forth between male and female as needed for reproduction. It’s not only a great story exploring an alien culture, but also an adventure as Ai and his new Gethen friend fight for their lives across a politcally and environmentally dangerous planet.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce: I started this book when I was 18. I was so confused after the first few pages that I decided to put it down until “I was ready.” My wife and mother-in-law traveled to Ireland for the first time this year, so the moment finally felt right to pick it back up. And I’m so glad I did. Perhaps the greatest künstlerroman novel ever written (a künstlerroman is the story of how an artist becomes an artist and a subgenre to the “coming-of-age” bildungsroman genre), Joyce traces the spiritual birth of Stephen Dedalus in Dublin through his inimitable free indirect speech style. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: This winner of 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is a collection of stories about Indians and Indian Americans facing difficult situations. I generally enjoy a great short story collection, and this one didn’t disappoint. Lahiri says so much with such quiet assurance. I’ve been left thinking about many of these stories.
Dubliners by James Joyce: After A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I decided to tread deeper into the Stephen Dedalus Universe™ with another collection of short stories set in Joyce’s Dublin. Dubliners is an incredibly fine collection of short stories and character studies, infused with Joyce’s anger and sadness on Ireland’s inability to free itself from itself.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville: Of course I know the story of Moby Dick. Who doesn’t? But knowing the story of Ahab’s quest to kill the legendary white whale and reading the book are very different things. After years of prompting by my friend Mike, I finally took the time to read Moby Dick this year. I’ve never read anything quite like Melville’s masterpiece (including other Melville fiction). The digressions into the details of whaling might seem like awkward pacing, but they build up to one of the ultimate literary crescendos when the Pequod finally encounters the whale. Filled with a plethora of characters like Ishmael, Queequeg, and Starbuck, there is perhaps no greater literary character than the hellbent Captain Ahab. This book was so good that I immediately followed it up with Nathaniel Philbrick’s Why Read Moby-Dick? Is this the greatest novel ever? Well, it just might be. Thanks for the push, Mike.

What Says Relaxation Like A Murder Mystery?

I didn’t consider myself a murder mystery aficionado until a few years ago when I found myself listing a number of “favorites” when recommending a mystery book to a friend. I’ve enjoyed a good murder mystery since my days visiting The Mysterious Bookshop while living in New York City, but I only noticed how often I read murder mysteries when I started doing this annual blog…. they sneak in all the time! Two years ago was a personal murder mystery banner year when I was included as the basis for the character Ry Farmington in Christine Knapp’s Murder at the Wedding novel. But, while I wasn’t in any books this year, I found myself absorbed in several.

Keigo Higashino’s The Kyoichiro Kaga Series: This year I went in search of a new mystery series. A number of blogs steered me towards a giant in the genre, the Japanese murder mystery legend Keigo Higashino. I decided to start with the Kyoichiro Kaga Series since A Death in Tokyo had recently been translated to English. Over the course of the series’ three English-translated novels (there’s nine in Japan) — Malice, Newcomer, and A Death in Tokyo — I got to know Higashino’s Detective Kaga along with his observational acumen and street smarts that make him a relentless clue-finding force on the streets of Tokyo. I enjoyed Malice the most despite there being some dated elements (you’ll know what I mean when you read it). But those don’t detract from the plot in the least.
Joël Dicker Mysteries: Dicker is Swiss mystery author who has quickly established a name for himself in the mystery space. I came across him while reading the review of a translation of his book The Enigma of Room 622. I gave the book a shot, and I was entranced by the twisting and turning plot of the novel. I enjoyed it enough to look into more Dicker works and discovered that he’d written an even more well-regarded book — The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. The Wikipedia entry for the book says the following: “Considered Switzerland’s answer to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and compared to the fiction of Nabokov and Roth as well as the television series Twin Peaks…” Well, I like all those things referenced and unsurprisingly loved the book. I’ve since recommended it to my wife and other members of the family who also really enjoyed it (with a few saying the Audible was particularly good).
The Marlow Murder Club Mysteries: My friend Uday is a fellow murder mystery fan and frequenter of The Mysterious Bookshop. I told him that my “cozy British mystery” fix was going unfilled since Charles Finch wasn’t publishing a new installment in his Charles Lenox Mysteries until 2025 (Finch was recommended by another friend who likes murder mysteries back in 2008). Uday recommended the equally cozy Marlow Murder Club Mysteries by Robert Thorogood. Set in the small town of Marlow in modern times rather than the Victorian parlors of London, this series follows the formation of a ragtag group of amateur detectives who each bring a unique skill to their motley murder solving crew.
Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway: Set in a future where humans can modify themselves into ageless and giant superhumans (called Titans), this science fiction noir follows a grizzled detective as he looks into the murder of a Titan. Everything is not quite what it seems (it is a noir after all!). This was a fun mystery mixed with the questions of class stratification and the morality of genetic enhancements. I’m not sure why I picked this up originally… maybe I was attracted to the hideous green-yellow cover?

Philosophy, Self-Improvement, and Life

In addition to reading for entertainment, reading is a meditative and introspective time for me. I’ve been gravitating more heavily to reading that answers the questions what does it mean to be a good person and what does it mean to live a fulfilling life? These are some of the big questions humans have grappled with over the ages, and there are fortunately all sorts of books in this vein. Every year provides an opportunity to (hopefully) get a little wiser. I read a strange mix of books in this area in 2023, with each title contributing to the conversation in its own way.

In The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, Charles Freeman argues for philosophical history and mankind’s cultural development to be reconsidered. He traces how Greek philosophy (particularly Aristotelian) and human intellectual development ceded ground to Christianity’s championing of Platonism and spiritual order in the 4th to 6th centuries. This led to a period of arrested growth in human achievement (“the closing of the Western mind”) that didn’t return for centuries. Not only was this a concise summary of Western thought, but also a different take on how that thought developed.

There were similar thoughts conveyed in Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1887 collection of essays On the Genealogy of Morals which expounds on the history and changing understanding of the terms good and evil. I was directed to this book after finishing the biography of Nietzsche entitled I Am Dynamite! by Sue Prideaux. It was (surprisingly) the only biography I read this year and helped me understand this thinker that I hadn’t spent much time with before. I rounded off my philosophy-specific readings with John Cottingham’s In Search of the Soul, which traces the different meanings of the idea of the “soul” across philosophers, and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations which promotes the freedom and goodness gained from stoicism.

The path to happiness was a dominant theme in the 2020 novel The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. This narrative exposed how the way one interprets and approaches life’s choices can set us on a stronger path to fulfillment. Lack of fulfillment was a theme in two other books: Christopher Ryan’s Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress and Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Ryan argues that humans were happier living in small groups in pre-civilization times than modernity’s cacophonous zoo, while Putnam highlights how civic society (and social connectedness) have been in a steady decline for decades.

My book club also read two books on leading a better life. Helen Russell’s The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country discusses differences in Danish culture that promote emotional well-being in its citizens. James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones looks at strategies to create beneficial changes in your daily life. All these books left me with the feeling that prioritizing relationships and investment in our well-being would be in all our interests.

Life is sometimes best understood when discussing death, which led me to three death-centric books (not being morbid, I promise!). In Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, the author works through her emotions following her husband’s death. The prose and introspective details are quite simply beautiful. Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart was a an excellent and moving exploration of the author’s loss of her mother. Finally Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story looked at what we might learn from the numerous (and often early) deaths of musicians.

Travel

With parenting on the horizon (well, now here!), 2023 was a last opportunity to get in some travel with my wife. As mentioned in previous years’ blogs, books are one of the ways I learn about different cultures and get excited for a trip. This past year, my wife and I traveled to Israel, England, France, Ireland, Northen Ireland, Japan, and South Korea. Books from these places naturally made their way to my reading list.

Ireland was represented by the two James Joyce novels noted earlier, along with Paul Muldoon’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner Moy Sand and Gravel (technically Northern Ireland). It’s hard to believe this small island produces such literary heavyweights! Nerd highlights from the visit were walking across Stephen’s Green which is mentioned regularly in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and drinking Guiness at James Joyce’s seat in his favorite bar.

Enjoying a Guiness by the hearth at Mulligan’s in Dublin. According to the friendly pub woner, this was James Joyce’s preferred seat.

Japan was the other country visited this year that was heavily represented in books. In addition to the three Keigo Higashino murder mysteries already mentioned, I read Fumio Sasaki’s Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism filled with practical advice on living a minimalist life and Yōko Ogawa’s The Memory Police. The latter originally was published in 1994, but only translated into English in 2019. It draws comparison to 1984, although in a much subtler style, and had been on my reading list for some time.

After reading several books on Israel last year, I matched my visit to the country and the West Bank in September with Reza Aslan’s No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. This book was written to help US audiences understand the history and nuances of the Muslim religion post-9/11. Unfortunately it also gave me more context prior to October 7th’s violence and aftermath. The United Kingdom earned a history — The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603–1689 — which was a not particularly enjoyable long read geared towards a hardcore UK history buff. For France, I read the short, funny, and memorable Molière play Tartuffe from 1664.

The United States

I don’t think my fascination with my home country will ever fade. Every year there are always books that help me get to know these United States better — and 2023 was no exception. In addition to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone on the US’s civic decline, I also read three books that gave unique insights into our country.

Brian McCullough’s How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone traced the early days of the internet. Since this is my generation’s history, it was fun to revisit and remember some of the biggest technological moments of my life. It didn’t feel like “history” at the time, but this book helped me see it in that context.

The non-fiction Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke looked at the way Americans approach pain and pleasure in their daily lives, told from stories in her practice as a pyschiatrist in the Bay Area of California. We tend to overdo the pleasure side and create unhealthy dopamine habits.

Finally, I listened to Peter Jennings & Todd Brewster’s In Search of America from 2002 which looks at numerous issues facing the country from both sides. Peter Jennings — always my favorite of the Big Three anchors and the one who helped me navigate 9/11 — narrates the Audible version and the sound of his voice brought back a wave of nostalgia as he discussed each topic in a style reminiscent of ABC’s World News Tonight.

One of the quotes he mentions in the book sums up my never-ending fascination with our country:

“To be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.” — Carl Friedrich

Work

One of the best parts of working in product development is the mandate to learn… pretty much anything! There are so many levels to the job stretching from understanding how users interact with technology to knowing how to create coordination amongst teams to solve problems. This means books in this area can come from a wide range of subjects spanning design, psychology, anthropology, marketing, etc. The focus of building a broad mental tool kit and looking for connections between disparate subjects was also the subject of David Epstein’s Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

On the coordination side, Priya Parker’s excellent The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters was recommended by a friend and has made me a more thoughtful planner of meetings, group activities, and special occasions. I also read The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization by Jon R. Katzenbach & Douglas K. Smith, which is a “classic” in the management field. I (personally) found it a bit dull and repetitive given its stature.

On the “thinking about people” side of things, I tried to better understand what makes people tick starting with Tess Wilkinson-Ryan’s Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order―and What We Can Do About It which dissects how our avoidance of “playing the fool’” motivates all sorts of behaviors. Derek Thompson’s Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction looks for strategies to make ideas stand out in a noisy world (it was just OK).

Finally, I read Bruno Munari’s 1969 book Design as Art, a classic in the design field. Filled with wit and humor, this made me want to create more beautiful things that people love starting with foundational design principles around utility and beauty. Much as great design is timeless, there are other things that persist too. The Collaborative Fund partner Morgan Housel explores some of these in Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes, a surprisingly fun and thoughtful book on the predictability of certain human behaviors.

Wildcards

Many books don’t fall into a retrospective category, but satisfied an itch at the time of reading. This non-category tends to be one of my favorites each year since what I learned or experienced was serendipitous or of a particular moment.

Fiction

Saga: Recommended by a coworker, I checked out this epic graphic novel described by one reviewer as “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones.” Spanning 54 comics, I bought the three Deluxe editions: Book One, Saga #1–18, Book Two, Saga #19–36, and Book Three, Saga #37–54. It’s a Romeo and Juliet space opera filled with all sorts of weird characters and scenes, but the stellar (no pun intended) story from Brian Vaughan and illustrations from Fiona Staples carry the day.
Aura: Bilingual Edition: Following up on last year’s challenge to read something in Spanish, I read this short horror novella from Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. The bilingual edition helped by enabling me to read the Spanish and then check the next page’s English translation. Even my mediocre Spanish skills picked up the creepiness of this story from the outset.
Tender Is the Flesh: It’s fair to say that I’ve never found it harder to read a book than this one from Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica. The author imagines a world where animal meat has disappeared and protein in our diets is replaced by human meat. The industrial machine that was previously tied to animal meat production takes such a nightmarish turn when applied to humans that it made me consider going vegetarian. The novel doesn’t aim for subtlety and each page feels like a punch to the gut.
The Last Yankee: I’ve enjoyed many Arthur Miller plays over the years, this wasn’t one of them.
Land of Milk and Honey: This near-term apocalyptic novel imagines a world where food — apart from a tasteless protein-rich substitute — has disappeared from earth due to a suffocating smog. Taking place in the kitchen of the global elites who still have access to the remaining real food supplies, this was a bit of a strange novel looking at themes of class structure, loneliness, and spiritual nourishment. The author also really likes describing food. Some reviewers called it lyrical, but it felt like the writing was overbaked at times (pun definitely intended).

Non-Fiction

Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart & Rachel Abrams: I saw a review for this in the Wall Street Journal and decided to give it a read. I didn’t know much about the Redstone family or just how messed up things were behind the scenes at Paramount, but now I do. If anything, this was a great precursor to binge-watching HBO’s Max’s Succession with my wife later in the year.
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India: Did you know the death tolls caused by the British-induced famine in India were greater than those of Stalin’s or Mao’s failed collectivization efforts? I didn’t. Shashi Tharoor changed that with his deeply thoughtful look at the effects of Britain’s actions in the subcontinent. Needless to say, it’s eye-opening and sad.

https://x.com/nocontextbrits/status/1744095915055489405?s=46&t=mmrFNG43bMIDllooK3JvZA

https://x.com/nocontextbrits/status/1744095915055489405?s=46&t=mmrFNG43bMIDllooK3JvZA

In the Dream House: Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir explores her abusive relationship with a prior girlfriend. In addition to the prose, what was particularly striking about this novel was that it charted new territory by talking about domestic violence in same-sex relationships. This was a staff pick at the McNally Jackson in Rockefeller Center, and I’m glad I trusted their opinion to check it out.
Play It As It Lays: After reading The Year of Magical Thinking, I decided to read one of Joan Didion’s earlier novels. This book follows the downward spiral of a Hollywood actress in 1960s Los Angeles. Amidst the heavy dose of nihilism is a great time capsule of a bygone era of California. Pretty good.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb: My friend Patrick asked me to tackle this tome with him in preparation for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer film (the other book used for the film was American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer which I covered in my 2020 blog). It’s a thick book and I decided to listen to it on Audible during my half marathon training runs. I’m a bit of a physics nerd (well, everything nerd), but this was a spectacular read — one of the best non-fiction books ever. Richard Rhodes does an incredible job bringing the science and scientists behind the atomic project to life. While I really enjoyed the Oppenheimer movie, I liked this book even more.
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma: This book starts with a simple premise — is it OK to consume the music and art of artists like R. Kelly and Roman Polanski that we know have done terrible things? I discovered this book from a New York Times review and I’m glad I did. I don’t know of any other book that has tackled this topic — which is a conversational topic amongst friends — so directly. Claire Dederer first tackled this subject as a longform essay “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” in The Paris Review, which is worth checking out if you can’t read the book.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder: In case it wasn’t clear earlier, I loved Moby Dick. I checked out this survival adventure from David Grann for no other reason than to get back on the open seas and feel the saltwater on my face. The opening chapter sets a juicy stage that the rest of the book can’t quite live up to.

My Top 5 for 2024

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker

The 60 Books

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1944, Fiction, Novel, US 🇺🇸, 269 pages)
How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone by Brian McCullough (2018, Non-Fiction, Technology, US 🇺🇸, 384 pages)
Malice (The Kyoichiro Kaga Series, Book 1) by Keigo Higashino (1996, Fiction, Mystery, Japan 🇯🇵, 288 pages)
Newcomer (The Kyoichiro Kaga Series, Book 2) by Keigo Higashino (2009, Fiction, Mystery, Japan 🇯🇵, 352 pages)
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker (2018, Non-Fiction, Social Science, US 🇺🇸, 320 pages)
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005, Non-Fiction, Memoir, US 🇺🇸, 240 pages)
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (1908, Fiction, Novel, UK 🇬🇧, 321 pages)
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (translated by Gregory Hays) (180, Non-Fiction, Biography, Italy 🇮🇹, 256 pages)
Saga, Book One, Saga #1–18 by Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Fiona Staples (Illustrator) (2014, Fiction, Graphic Novel, US 🇺🇸-Canada 🇨🇦, 504 pages)
Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart & Rachel Abrams (2023, Non-Fiction, Business, US 🇺🇸, 416 pages)
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor (2016, Non-Fiction, History, India 🇮🇳, 336 pages)
Aura: Bilingual Edition by Carlos Fuentes (translated by Lysander Kemp) (1962, Fiction, Horror, Mexico 🇲🇽, 160 pages)
A Death in Tokyo (The Kyoichiro Kaga Series, 3) by Keigo Higashino (2022, Fiction, Mystery, Japan 🇯🇵, 368 pages)
Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order―and What We Can Do About It by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan (2023, Non-Fiction, Psychology, US 🇺🇸, 288 pages)
Saga, Book Two, Saga #19–36 by Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Fiona Staples (Illustrator) (2017, Fiction, Graphic Novel, US 🇺🇸-Canada 🇨🇦, 464 pages)
In Search of America by Peter Jennings & Todd Brewster (2002, Non-Fiction, History, US 🇺🇸-Canada 🇨🇦, 307 pages)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (2019, Non-Fiction, Memoir, US 🇺🇸, 272 pages)
The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization by Jon R. Katzenbach & Douglas K. Smith (2015, Non-Fiction, Business, US 🇺🇸, 304 pages)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967, Fiction, Novel, Russia 🇷🇺, 448 pages)
In Search of the Soul: A Philosophical Essay by John Cottingham (2022, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, UK 🇬🇧, 192 pages)
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion (1970, Fiction, Novel, US 🇺🇸, 240 pages)
Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress by Christopher Ryan (2020, Non-Fiction, Social Science, US 🇺🇸, 304 pages)
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (2018, Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, US 🇺🇸, 320 pages)
The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman (2003, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, UK 🇬🇧, 434 pages)
Saga, Book Three, Saga #37–54 by Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Fiona Staples (Illustrator) (2019, Fiction, Graphic Novel, US 🇺🇸-Canada 🇨🇦, 504 pages)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969, Fiction, Sci-Fi, US 🇺🇸, 286 pages)
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson (2017, Non-Fiction, Business, US 🇺🇸, 352 pages)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (1916, Fiction, Bildungsroman, Ireland 🇮🇪, 299 pages)
The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker (2020, Fiction, Mystery, Switzerland 🇨🇭, 592 pages)
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (2017, Fiction, Novel, Argentina 🇦🇷, 209 pages)
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker (2012, Fiction, Mystery, Switzerland 🇨🇭, 656 pages)
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa (1994, Fiction, Novel, Japan 🇯🇵, 288 pages)
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021, Non-Fiction, Memoir, US 🇺🇸, 256 pages)
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein (2019, Non-Fiction, Business, US 🇺🇸, 339 pages)
Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki (2017, Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Japan 🇯🇵, 272 pages)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999, Fiction, Short Stories, India 🇮🇳-US 🇺🇸, 198 pages)
The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell (2015, Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, UK 🇬🇧, 368 pages)
Dubliners by James Joyce (1914, Fiction, Short Stories, Ireland 🇮🇪, 336 pages)
Design as Art by Bruno Munari (1966, Non-Fiction, Design, Italy 🇮🇹, 224 pages)
Tartuffe by Molière (translated by Richard Wilbur) (1664, Fiction, Play, France 🇫🇷, 164 pages)
The Last Yankee by Arthur Miller (1993, Fiction, Play, US 🇺🇸, 99 pages)
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (1986, Non-Fiction, History, US 🇺🇸, 896 pages)
Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway (2023, Fiction, Mystery, UK 🇬🇧, 241 pages)
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023, Non-Fiction, Social Science, US 🇺🇸, 288 pages)
No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan (2005, Non-Fiction, History, Iran🇮🇷-US 🇺🇸, 310 pages)
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman (2005, Non-Fiction, Social Science, US 🇺🇸, 256 pages)
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville (1851, Fiction, Novel, US 🇺🇸, 672 pages)
Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick (2013, Non-Fiction, Writing, US 🇺🇸, 144 pages)
Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon (2002, Fiction, Poetry, UK 🇬🇧, 124 pages)
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann (2023, Non-Fiction, History, US 🇺🇸, 352 pages)
Bowling Alone (Revised and Updated): The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam (2000, Non-Fiction, Social Science, US 🇺🇸, 592 pages)
The Marlow Murder Club (The Marlow Murder Club Mysteries, Book 1) by Robert Thorogood (2021, Fiction, Mystery, UK 🇬🇧, 288 pages)
The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603–1689 by Jonathan Healey (2023, Non-Fiction, History, UK 🇬🇧, 512 pages)
Death Comes to Marlow (The Marlow Murder Club Mysteries, Book 2) by Robert Thorogood (2022, Fiction, Mystery, UK 🇬🇧, 366 pages)
Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel (2023, Non-Fiction, Economics, US 🇺🇸, 240 pages)
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (2023, Fiction, Novel, US 🇺🇸, 240 pages)
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux (2018, Non-Fiction, Biography, UK 🇬🇧-Norway 🇳🇴, 464 pages)
On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche (1887, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Germany 🇩🇪, 208 pages)
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020, Fiction, Novel, UK 🇬🇧, 299 pages)
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke (2021, Non-Fiction, Psychology, US 🇺🇸, 297 pages)