2023 Master List

Here we are again! Last year was an odd one for me, certainly for reasons beyond my reading list but it showed up there, too. I read 36 books in total, but 12 of those were in January and another 16 were in March-May, so for most of the year I read very little. A lot of the year my focus was on other kinds of media, or on writing, so looking back on my list wasn't particularly surprising, but it definitely clarified how I had approached different parts of my year, and what I spent my leisure time on. 

A couple of days ago I was talking with friends about annual reading goals, and the desire to actually read through our entire 'to be read' piles, and the fiction of how satisfying that would be. I said that sometimes I think I could actually do it, I could actually read the 2.5 books per week I would need to in order to make it through all of the books that are on the list below the count. But of course, in order to do that, I would also need to not add any additional books to my list in a year. Which inevitably means that even if I got to 'book zero' by the end of 2023, it would be a lie, because I know there are books coming out in 2023 that I will want to read! The list is always repropagating itself, because even if I somehow managed to read all of the books out of the millions and millions that have already been written (a task that I will obviously never complete), there are always new books to be added, and thank god for that.

However! I do still find value in both the overall attempt, fruitless though it always is, and also in the satisfaction I do genuinely derive when I finally cross off a book that's been on this list since I started this blog almost seven years ago, or when I end up adding five new books to this list because I read one book by an author and realize I want to read everything else they've written, too. And that, in the end, is the real reason I continue to keep this list and blog, because I love reading and I want to have a nice time reading things that are worth it to me to read. The first book I started reading this year already feels like a great one; here's hoping that continues through the year. Let's see where I land.

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
2. Hammers on Bone
3. The Black Tides of Heaven
4. Briarley
5. The Armored Saint
6. A College of Magics 
7. The Betrayals
8. The Thursday Murder Club
9. The Border Keeper
10. Funny You Should Ask
11. The Guest List
12. Sea of Tranquility
13. A Deadly Education
14. The Last Graduate
15. The Golden Enclaves
16. The Man Who Died Twice
17. Lavender House
18. Tommy Cabot Was Here
19. The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
20. The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes
21. Peter Cabot Gets Lost
22. Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots
23. The Christmas Leap
24. The Wrong Rake
25. Only One Bed
26. Christmas Wish List
27. Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night
28. Masters in This Hall
29. The World We Make
30. Tread of Angels
31. A Thief in the Night
32. Lone Women
33. The Woman in the Library
34. The Book Eaters
35. Once Upon a Christmas House
36. The Christmas Appeal
37. The Christmas Guest
38. The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen
39. A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel
40. An Heiress for Christmas
41. Murder on the Christmas Express