It’s here! The list of books I read in 2023, along with emoji-based ratings. They may make a bit more sense this time around…
Also I’ve noted which were for the book club I’m in.
And they’re in chronological order of when I read them.
And maybe I’ll but some very short notes in as I go who knows. It’s a quick tour, not a detailed review.
Key:
📖- Physical Book
🎧 – Audio Book
🚜 – Non-fiction (I’d planned to read more of this, but it seems I haven’t…)
🏎️ – Fiction
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥 omg I love it😍
💚💛🧡❤️🩷 yay do recommend😄
💚💛🧡❤️ no complaints 😊
💚💛🧡 I have no opinion🫥
💚💛 meh😬
💚 I don’t know how I made it to the end 😭
🏎️📖 Salman Rushdie – Shame (book club)
💚💛🧡
🏎️🎧 Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖Marc Hamer – A Life in Nature – or how to catch a mole.
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️🎧 Richelle Mead – Vampire Academy
💚💛🧡 (Can’t remember any strong feelings about this? probably enjoyed if its got 🧛♀️)
🏎️📖 Emergence Magazine – Short Stories of Apocalypse
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️🎧 Erin Morgenstern – The Night Circus
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖 Amanda Palmer – The Art of Asking
💚💛🧡
🚜🎧 Jenni Murray – A History of Britain in 21 Women
💚💛
🏎️📖 William Boyd – Any Human Heart (book club)
💚
🚜?🎧 Stephen Fry – Mythos
💚💛🧡❤️ (losing points because I find his narration over-dramatic)
🏎️📖 Robert Seethaler – A Whole Life
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️📖 Alan Garner – Treacle Walker
💚💛 (sorry I have no idea what just happened)
🏎️🎧 Kit De Waal – My name is Leon
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖 Kathleen Jamie – Surfacing
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖 Simon Lamb – A Passing on of Shells
💚💛🧡❤️🩷 (shoutout to Simon, long-standing Scout Camp pal! buy the poetry book here!)
🏎️📖 Richard Powers – Bewilderment
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 Grady Hendrix – The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires
💚💛
🏎️📖 Sayaka Murata – Convenience Store Woman
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 John Wyndham – The Day of the Triffids
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends
💚💛🧡❤️ (doesn’t beat beautiful world where are you for the correspondences)
🚜📖 Kae Tempest – On Connection
💚💛🧡 (I think I’m the problem here, not the book)
🏎️📖 Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️🎧 Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights
💚💛🧡❤️🩷 (they’re classics for a reason)
🏎️📖 Kikuko Tsumura – There’s no Such Thing as an Easy Job
💚💛🧡
🏎️🎧 Juno Dawson – Her Majesty’s Royal Coven
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖 Amy Liptrot – The Outrun
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥
🏎️🎧 Hanya Yanagihara – To Paradise
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥
🏎️📖 Richard Adams – Watership Down
💚💛🧡🐰🐰🐰
🏎️📖 Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo (book club)
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️📖 Ernest Cline – Ready Player One
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 Elif Shafak – The Island of Missing Trees
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜🎧 Isabella Tree – Wilding
💚💛🧡 (too smug)
🚜📖 Dara McAnulty – Diary of a Young Naturalist
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥
🚜🎧 Sara Gay Forden – House of Gucci
💚💛🧡
🏎️📖 Anthony Doerr – All the Light we Cannot See (less annoying than the TV series)
💚💛🧡❤️ (less annoying than the TV series)
🚜🎧 Mark Boyle – The Way Home – Tales from a life without technology
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🚜🎧 James Rebanks – The Shepherd’s Life
💚💛🧡❤️
🚜📖 Nan Shepherd – The Living Mountain (book club)
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥
🏎️📖 Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse 5
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 John Wyndham – The Midwich Cuckoos
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️📖 Shehan Karunatilaka – The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (book club)
💚💛🧡
🏎️🎧 Olivie Blake – Atlas Six
💚💛🧡 (watch me give this 💚💛🧡 then read the sequel anyway. too long!)
🏎️📖 Ursula K LeGuin – A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️🎧 Alexandra Blogier – The Last Girl on Earth
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️🎧 Garth Nix – Newt’s Emerald
💚💛🧡❤️ (I’d love to read Sabriel again one day but am scared it won’t be as good as I remember)
🚜📖 Alistair Moffat – The Secret History of Here – a year in the valley
💚💛🧡❤️ (would get more love but Borders Book Festival are still accepting from fossil fuel funders)
🚜🎧 Tom Cox – Ring the Hill
💚💛🧡❤️🩷 (funny in parts)
🏎️📖 Jasper Fforde – Shades of Grey
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥
🚜📖 Elizabeth Jane Burnett – The Grassling
💚💛🧡❤️
🏎️📖 Hiroko Oyamada – Weasels in the Attic
💚💛🧡
🏎️📖 Sarah Winman – Still Life (book club)
💚💛🧡❤️ (got better as it went on)
🏎️📖 Jack London – The Call of the Wild (book club)
💚💛🧡
🏎️🎧 Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan – Mad Honey
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️📖 Gabrielle Zevin – Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
💚💛🧡❤️🩷❤️🔥 🌊🍓
🏎️🎧 Toshikazu Kawaguchi – Before the Coffee Gets Cold
💚💛🧡
🏎️🎧 Julia Armfield – Our Wives Under the Sea
💚💛🧡❤️ (this was terrifying)
🏎️📖 Ferrett Steinmetz – The Uploaded
💚💛🧡 (would get more love if there was more on consciousness and concept) (also who calls themselves Ferret(t)?!?!)
🏎️🎧 Olivie Blake – The Atlas Paradox
💚💛🧡❤️ (again, tooo longgggggg but I wanna know what happens next so…)
🏎️🎧 Juno Dawson – The Shadow Cabinet
💚💛🧡❤️🩷 (am now invested in this witchy saga-series, love the characters and the clichés.)
🏎️🎧 P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast – Marked
💚💛🧡 (unconvinced by slut-shaming protagonist)
🏎️🎧 Elif Shafak – 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in this Strange World
💚💛🧡❤️🩷
🏎️🎧 Sam Thompson – Wolfstongue
💚💛🧡❤️
All the audiobooks I read last year were on the BorrowBox app, which is used by a lot of local libraries, and means you can listen to them for free! Check out your local library’s website to see what they offer (and tell them to offer more if they don’t). Even if you can afford to buy your books (physical or digital), please do support your libraries by using them! Every statistic helps in the fight against budget cuts. If we borrow enough, maybe they’ll even open Hawick library on a Saturday once again (a story that may have to have a 🏎️ next to it for now 😦 )
If you’d like to help me buy more books to read (and/or help fund a very slow renovation my Uninhabitable Flat), please to click on the links at the bottom (or in the menu!) to send me a tip on Ko-Fi or join my Patreon!
Jessie x
Jessie Growden 