This is it: my favorite reading year yet.
I discovered new favorite authors (Harrison Scott Key). I finally listened to my first audiobook (OK, my first five). And I plowed through a ton of pages (17 books’ worth).
Now, I want to share my favorites with you.
(Note: This is not a list of best books released in 2023. It’s a sampling of my personal favorite discoveries from the year — books I can’t stop thinking about. Release dates be damned!)
The Most Memorable (and Creatively Inspiring)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, by Bill Bryson
This humor memoir is an elegy for days gone by, where childhood stories — and all the yearning, fantasy and nostalgia that come with them — stand in as symbols for small town America, before franchise restaurants, multiplexes and shopping malls took the place of mom-and-pop shops and single-screen downtown movie palaces. Each chapter begins with a quote from a 1950s newspaper then weaves history from the time alongside personal stories of Bryson growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. That macro-meets-micro approach is great for scene-setting but, more, for illustrating cultural change. The blend paints progress in America as a thing defined by growth and wonder but, more ominously, by standardization. Technology booms, rockets launch, efficiency soars and, with it, so does consumerism.
Like Bryson, America itself comes of age in this story. It grows awkward in its teenage years then steps into its overly serious grownup phase, where it becomes so obsessed with the concept of Success that, in pursuit of more of it, it loses much of the character and novelty that made it special in the first place.
By the midpoint of this book, I was enthralled.
The Most LOLs
The World’s Largest Man: A Memoir, by Harrison Scott Key
Look Alive Out There: Essays, by Sloane Crosley
Calypso, by David Sedaris
If you’re looking for funny autobiographical essays, look no further. For my money, these three writers are the cream of the crop, mixing emotional weight with levity in a seamless and disarming way that always feels true to each of their voices and perspectives.
These books made me the happiest of anything I read this year.
The Most Beautifully Written
Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover
Images of the “Indian Princess” in the mountain on Buck’s Peak, the rural town where Westover grew up, are burned onto my brain, thanks to the author’s sparkling prose. There were moments during this audiobook where I’d press pause just to sit with the emotion of her words for a few seconds longer, savoring her descriptions. Pure magic.
The Most Energizing
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller
Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, by James Clear
The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin
Personal development books get me fired up. Each time I read one, the notes app on my phone gets crammed with quotes and reminders and to-do items. But no book inspired more obsessive rumination than THE ONE THING.
What is my One Thing? What’s yours? And what are we doing — right now — to pursue it?
I’m a big believer that the most impactful lessons from personal development books aren’t lessons at all — they’re reminders. And this book, like ATOMIC HABITS, is a big, fat, flashing reminder sign to fight complacency and be intentional with our time, goals and vision for the future. Rick Rubin’s book, on the other hand, is a call to be more present, which seems at odds with Clear and Keller’s respective messages, but I don’t see it that way. What Rubin really wants is for us to learn to listen to — and to trust — our instincts. Doing so reveals what we like and really want: our One Thing. Without that clarity, we end up chasing empty accomplishments, instead of choosing to live according to our values.
The sweet spot is always somewhere in the middle.
The Most Written by Me
The Humorist: Adventures in Adulting & Horror Movies, by Mike Cavaliere
What’s great about this book is, because it was written by me and focuses on my life and features my family and friends and memories, I could relate entirely to each and every feeling the author describes, almost as if I were in his head. Uncanny! The downside is, I could also predict every punchline and see each story arc’s ending coming from a mile away. Unoriginal!
10/10 for relatability.
0/10 for predictability.
Check it out for yourself on Amazon.
Other Notables
I’m Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, by Adam Grant
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, by Anthony Bourdain
Next on My List …
Snakes of St Augustine, by Ginger Pinholster
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, by Adam Grant
The Art of Memoir, by Mary Karr
Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever, by Matt Singer
Fear Not: A Christian Appreciation of Horror, by Josh Larsen
What did you read this year that you can’t stop thinking about?
Mike Cavaliere 