Favorite books read in 2023

 My stats in 2023 were pretty great.  I set a new Goodreads record (which is probably also an all-time record, but I don't have stats prior to Goodreads) for number of books read, with 144 (breaking last year's of 138, which itself broke 2015's of 134), and number of pages read, with 36,513 (which again breaks last year's record of 34,809).  The only stat that continues to elude me is books read in a single month, which remains 21 in August 2013, although I tied last year's runner up from December with June's 19.  I rated a bunch of books the full five stars, but let's narrow it once again to a top ten:

1. Paradise Lost by John Milton, the biggest welcome surprise of the suite of classics I read during the year, a grand sweeping epic poem that doesn't just spotlight Lucifer's arc, as a college class once tried convincing me.
2. The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill, the first book in his history of WWII, explaining the many inexplicable ways WWII was allowed to happen in the first place and the even more ridiculous ways it was allowed to develop once begun.
3. The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, the latest J.K. Rowling mystery, seventh in the series.
4. Cosmic Detective by Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire & David Rubin, the best new graphic novel material I read this year, easily, worth anticipating the release date for much of the year.
5. Ravage & Son by Jerome Charyn, the closest he's come to uniting his literary and crime fictions.
6. Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway, an obscure but undeservedly so piece of his catalog, a literary version of a real safari he took, akin to Melville in achievement.
7. Cari Mora by Thomas Harris, proving he can achieve greatness without Hannibal Lecter.
8. All Systems Red by Martha Wells, which I finally read after hearing such good things about the Murderbot series, which at least with this first entry was absolutely accurate.
9. Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, the closest the printed word has yet gotten to his famous encyclopedic knowledge of film, covering his formative experiences watching the medium.
10. Berta Isla by Javier Marias, a kind of follow-up to his brilliant Your Face Tomorrow trilogy.

Lots of other interesting things read as well...!

Favorite books read in 2022

 Last year I finally beat several Goodreads records from 2015, although an earlier one from 2013 eluded me.  I read 138 (versus 134) books, with a total pagecount of 34,176 (versus 33,492).  I just missed, in December (I made a push in the final two weeks over the course of two long weekends), my August 2013 total of 21 books with 19.  I was knowingly chasing the first two (although I guess I was probably safer with the second one than I'd thought), and would've definitely pushed a little further had I known how close I was with the third!

Such are the achievements of a book nerd...

1. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which I passed up reading for years, figuring a popular book club bestseller couldn't really interest me, but I finally reconsidered on the basis of the film adaptation once again placing it on bookshelves.  I actually love the film better, but the book is basically the American version of the Millennium Trilogy's full arc for Lisbeth Salander, and that comes with considerable praise for me.  I figure it's as close to a true classic as has been published in the last decade.
2. The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith, the latest Strike/Ellacott mystery tackles social media poison from the same mind that has been cracking the modern psyche so brilliantly since it was done with wizards.  No further legitimate intellectual defense necessary.
3. The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, the latest (slim) volume from the writer who has very quickly become one of my favorites.  I read her collection Some Trick twice this year, as well as Lightning Rods for the first time, and of course this.  Her Last Samurai is another modern classic.
4. Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris, which is the last and probably clearest spotlight for the famous cannibal, which in later film appearances perhaps got lost in the infamy but I also explored this year in Hannibal, the sequel that cemented his later reputation, both in book and film.  
5. Metamorphica by Zachary Mason, a spiritual successor to his Lost Books of the Odyssey, both being miracles of modern interpretations for Greek myths.
6. The Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway, which is fairly self-explanatory.  I didn't start reading Hemingway until Woody Allen's brilliant Midnight in Paris, which led me to A Moveable Feast, which led to everything else I've read to date, which covers what I believe to be all of the major works at this point.
7. Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas by Robert Bolano, the latest posthumous collection from my favorite writer, well worth the wait and yet another easy suggestion for anyone who still has yet to experience him and wants something simple before tackling his masterpieces (2666, The Savage Detectives).
8. Big Red by Jerome Charyn, the latest from another favorite writer, this time honing in on yet another creative dynamo, Orson Welles, and Rita Hayworth.
9. Sugergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King & Bilquis Evely, my favorite of the many graphic novels I read in 2022, and my favorite of the several Tom King masterpieces among them (including Rorschach and Strange Adventures).  This one's one of his shortest works, but most inventive, harking back to his best work, Omega Men.
10. Gump & Co. by Winstom Groom, the best of the considerable backlog of books on my shelves, a sequel to the first book and not the movie adapted from it, although cleverly written with an eye to it, a true piece of classic Americana that's been all but lost in an era that has little use for such things as it cherry picks for whatever is most useful for current needs.