All the Books JW Read in 2023
In 2022, I compiled all the books I had logged on my goodreads account onto one page closer to, if not right at, the end of the year. That was a lot! Partly because of the sheer number of books I read; even though I don't think I'll read that many books this year due to grad school fast approaching, I'm gonna try keeping it relatively up to date with what I'm reading as I go. If I can manage all that—and if I can also code a text box that appears on mouseover properly, not the default OS one (done!!)—I might consider using it as an alternative to goodreads entirely. (not really since I have friends who actually use that platform's social features enough for me to constantly add to my tbr, but y'know)
Since a lot of my thoughts about books have moved even further beyond a binary this book is good/bad lately (and since I simply don't list books I don't like), I'm going to switch things up from last year and use a single banner color to mark any books I find notable enough to comment on. No promises that this means I'll get to every book this time, of course. (lol, lmao...)
Fiction
The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost #1) by C.L. Clark 
The Final Strife (Ending Fire Trilogy #1) by Saara El-Arifi 
Evie and the Pack-Horse Librarians by Laurel Beckley
Promise of Blood (Powder Mage #1) by Brian McClellan
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison 
Happy Endings by Thien-Kim Lam out of idle curiosity this Valentine’s Day, I ““celebrated”” by reading my first conventional contemporary heterosexual romance novel in years (or maybe my entire life)?? It was…fine? I dunno. It’s definitely outwardly unconventional given the pairing on the cover: a Black man trying to save a struggling family restaurant and a Vietnamese American woman who sells sex toys. The appearance is about the most idiosyncrasy you can expect. I found myself wondering about how much of each characters cultural specifics had to be watered down to meet your average conventional contemporary romance reader’s expectations, and how much better a book it could’ve been if it had the space to wiggle outside of its genre…but then it would lose even more of a conventional contemporary romance novel’s appeal. At least the sex scenes were nice, I guess?
How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia 
what is not yours is not yours by Helen Oyeyemi a reread out of genuine interest after being assigned this the first year in undergrad–made utterly mystified with how confoundingly compelling Oyeyemi’s narratives are...sometimes. There’s a page from Magus of the Library that is the literal embodiment of reading this book and presumably the author in general.
The Gunrunner and her Hound by Maria Ying
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee
That Distant Dream (The Satura Trilogy #1) by Laurel Beckley
That Slow Awakening (The Satura Trilogy #2) by Laurel Beckley
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 
The Faithless (Magic of the Lost #2) by C.L. Clark 
The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland 
Jade City (The Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee 
Mistborn (#1) by Brandon Sanderson 
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor 
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei 
The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings
Real Life by Brandon Taylor 
She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor #1) by Shelley Parker-Chan 
He Who Drowned the World (The Radiant Emperor #2) by Shelley Parker-Chan 
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 
Jade Shards by Fonda Lee 
Starling House Alix E. Harrow 
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor Comics
Wash Day Diaries written by Jamila Rowser and illustrated by Robyn Smith 
Witch Hat Atelier #1 by Kamome Shirahama
GLEEM by Freddy Carrasco 
7thGARDEN #1 by Mitsu Izumi 
Witch Hat Atelier #2 by Kamome Shirahama
7thGARDEN #2 by Mitsu Izumi
Magus of the Library #6 by Mitsu Izumi 
Witch Hat Atelier #3 by Kamome Shirahama
Witch Hat Atelier #4 by Kamome Shirahama
In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee “...everyone thinks that meeting people who look like you would mean instant kinship. It’s harder than that.”
7thGARDEN #3 by Mitsu Izumi
Chainsaw Man #1 by Tatsuki Fujimoto 
Clock Striker #1 illusrated by Issaka Galadima and written by Frederick L. Jones
Chainsaw Man #2 by Tatsuki Fujimoto 
Chainsaw Man #3 by Tatsuki Fujimoto 
Chainsaw Man #4 by Tatsuki Fujimoto 
Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti 
Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman 
BEASTARS #1 by Paru Itagaki Nonfiction
Appropriate: A Provocation by Paisley Rekdal 
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon by Mark McGurl 
African Europeans: An Untold History by Olivette Otélé
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks 
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks
Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell 
Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler 
Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential by Rina Bliss
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones 
The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages by Geraldine Heng
The Price of the Ticket by James Baldwin 
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond exactly what it says on the cover: a survey of how poverty has become a fixture of the American landscape and its socioeconomic effects on its populace, along with some arguments for prospective solutions. Not as sharp as it could have been in directly pointing out the culprits at the beginning—the intended audience of well-off (white) people with the free time to read this book probably serves as an inherent limiter (which itself is a little confounding, since while writing about capitalism for The 1619 Project, Desmond gets to say “if the system seems rigged that’s because it was designed that way,” but that’s just confirming something Black people have known literally forever)—but it does show its teeth the further you get into the book. It’s also pretty funny constantly reading stuff like “This is how we rely on poverty,” and reflexively thinking “Who the hell is we here? I live with my parents out of financial necessity? I don’t have huge savings or own luxury shit or even a house????” (my parents rented out our old house after they bought our current, much bigger home for a time though, and as Desmond argues, it is true that anyone living comfortably in our current conditions, myself included, benefits from the myriad exploitation of the poor in some way).
Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism by Kate Soper
Females by Andrea Long Chu
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobez DuMez
24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary
Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World by Jonathan Crary
No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating by Alicia Kennedy
You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All by Adrian Hon
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory edited by Sofia Y. Leung and Jorge R. López-McKnight
A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks
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