Often, I like to do a recap of what I’ve read and watched over the course of the year, or I try to pick some of my favorites. This year, I find myself more excited by what’s on the horizon, particularly in terms of books.
For one thing, I’ll have a book of my own coming out in the fall of 2023, about San Francisco’s cemeteries and just how many were left behind in the great relocation to Colma.
And for another, many of my friends and acquaintances have new books arriving in 2023. In the list below, several of the authors are people I have some connection with, and I’m excited and proud to see these books birthed into the world. It’s by no means a complete list, just some things I’ve been recommending a lot lately.
If you’d like, you can see:
What movies I watched in 2022 (the first row, plus the second row to “The Conjuring”)
(I watched a lot of TV in 2022, but my tracker doesn’t have a way to show you which programs they were! Still, you can check out my profile here.)
11 books I'm excited to read in 2023:
1. "Ashes and Stones" by Allyson Shaw: “‘Ashes and Stones’ is a moving and personal journey, along rugged coasts and through remote villages and modern cities, in search of the traces of those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland.” (January)
2. “‘You Just Need to Lose Weight' And 19 Other Myths About Fat People," Aubrey Gordon: “In ‘You Just Need to Lose Weight,’ Aubrey Gordon equips readers with the facts and figures to reframe myths about fatness in order to dismantle the anti-fat bias ingrained in how we think about and treat fat people.” (January)
3. "Hood Vacations," MJ Jones: “Michal “MJ” Jones’ debut ‘Hood Vacations’ is a rhythmic & quiet rumbling—an unflinching recollection of Blackness, queerness, gender, and violence through lenses of family lineage and confessional narrative.” (January)
4. "Don't Fear the Reaper," Stephen Graham Jones: “Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted serial killer Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.” (February)
5. "Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began" by Leah Hazard: “A groundbreaking, triumphant investigation of the uterus—from birth to death, in sickness and in health, throughout history and into our possible future—from midwife and acclaimed writer Leah Hazard.” (March)
6. “Enchantment,” Katherine May: “Craving a different path, May begins to explore the restorative properties of the natural world—from a pebble in the hand to the humbling effects of the sea, the pleasure of the ground beneath her bare feet to the magic of a moon shadow. Through deliberate attention and ritual, she finds nourishment and a more hopeful relationship to the world around her.” (March)
7. “Cacophony of Bone,” Kerri ni Dochartaigh: “Cacophony of Bone maps the circle of a year—a journey from one place to another, field notes of a life—from one winter, to the next. It is a telling of a changed life, in a changed world—and it is about all that does not change. All that which simply keeps on—living and breathing, nesting and dying—in spite of it all. When the pandemic came time seemed to shapeshift, so this is also a book about time. It is, too, a book about home, and what that can mean.” (April)
8. "Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea," Rita Chang-Eppig: “For readers of ‘Outlawed,’ ‘Piranesi,’ and ‘The Night Tiger,’ a riveting, roaring adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen, her fight to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power.” (June)
9. “All the Right Notes,” Dominic Lim: “Quito Cruz might be a genius piano player and composer in New York City now but it doesn’t mean that he’s any closer to his Broadway dream. Although Quito knows what the problem is. Or rather who. Because ever since that night in college—with pretty-boy jock Emmett Aoki—his inspiration has been completely MIA. Now Quito’s dad wants him to put on a charity performance in his hometown. And there’s one hella big string attached: convince Emmett—now one of Hollywood’s hottest celebrities—to perform.” (June)
10. “I Would Meet You Anywhere,” Susan Ito: A memoir, told through connected essays, about growing up as a biracial (Japanese and European) adoptee. (Fall)
11. “Right Hand,” Natalie Zina Walschots: The sequel to “Hench:” “A sharp, witty, modern debut, ‘Hench’ explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics.” (Fall)
And, if you’d like to see everything that’s currently on my “to-read” list, you can view that here.