2023 book year in review

I didn't meet my goal of getting back to 100 books a year, but I got closer than last year with 74! 

	Woman	Man	Trans Man	Nonbinary	Multiple authors	Grand Total
Asian, Asian American, and Asian British	9	9				18
Black	3	2				5
Latine	4			2		6
Middle Eastern	2					2
Multiracial	4					4
Native	3	1				4
White	23	9	1	1		34
Multiple authors					1	1
Grand Total	48	21	1	3	1	74

In terms of gender, I had my least-cis-male-authors year since 2019 (but somehow completely missed any trans women authors in the process, yikes).

Time period	Authors that aren’t cis males
Childhood	39%
High School	18%
College	56%
Post-College to 2016	41%
2016	69%
2017 and 2018	68%
2019	79%
2020	66%
2021	63%
2022	63%
2023	72%
Overall	60%

In terms of race I slipped a bit in some categories - especially given current events, I want to read more Middle Eastern / Arab authors in this upcoming year.

Time period	Asian & Asian- American	Black	Latinx	Middle Eastern	Native	Mult- racial	White
Childhood	0.6%	1.8%	0.6%	0%	0%	-	97%
High School	0%	3.7%	0%	1.2%	0%	-	95.1%
College	1.4%	2.9%	2.9%	11.4%	1.4%	-	80%
Post-College to 2016	2.1%	22.4%	2.8%	4.2%	0%	-	65%
2016	8.5%	22.3%	11.7%	11.7%	4.3%	-	33%
2017 and 2018	4.5%	36.4%	4.5%	3.0%	1.5%	6.1%	43.9%
2019	14.2%	24%	9.5%	9.5&	6.3%	-	34.9%
2020	8.6%	28.6%	7.1%	10%	2.9%	11.4%	31.4%
2021	18.9%	18.9%	9.0%	7.2%	5.4%	5.4%	32.4%
2022	25%	17.2%	3.1%	3.1%	1.6%	6.3%	42.2%
2023	24.3%	6.7%	8.1%	2.7%	5.4%	5.4%	46.0%
Overall	9.2%	13.0%	4.3%	2.0%	1.9%	2.9%	65.6%

I read lots of great sci-fi and fantasy this year, and my favorites were:

• To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. It sounds like your archetypical fantasy book - kids come of age, some get matched with a dragon and go to special dragon school, adventures ensue. But it's set in an alternate history version of 1800s New England where Nordic/German people were the primary colonizers so everything is a bit off in interesting ways, and the protagonist is a Native girl who discovers the first indiginous dragon egg in the region in living memory. The world is really well-constructed and interesting, and there are lots of nuanced explorations of (de)colonization. It's part one of a series and I keep checking to see when the next one will be out.
• Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. This one also starts out seeming like an overdone sci-fi archetype - Earth has been destroyed, and the protagonist is a teenage girl who has been raised since birth to fight the aliens who did it and is itching to prove her worth in battle. Then you slowly realize the rest of the universe is "normal" with humans and aliens fully integrated, and she's basically in a terrorist cult. She gradually steps out into the rest of the universe and starts unlearning the misogyny, xenophobia, and aggression that she's been brainwashed with, and learning to see other sentient beings as "people" like her. Really does a great job of interrogating and flipping a lot of sci-fi tropes.
• The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen. Historical fiction about a very small town in the 1850s in the far north of Sweden/Norway/Russia, and the slow-burning confrontation between the Swedish Christian settlers and the Sámi reindeer herders trying to preserve their way of life. Engrossing and atmospheric with all the descriptions of the snow, the reindeer, and the rhythms of everyday life. The tension slowly builds and it gets harder and harder to put down as it nears the end.

My favorite nonfiction books of the year were:

• How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America by Priya Fielding-Singh. This was a fascinating ethnography of families around the Bay Area and how they feed their kids. She starts with the assumption that low-income families don't eat "healthy" because they can't afford to and live in food deserts, then delves into all the complexities behind how families actually eat - e.g. poor parents have to say "no" to their kids all the time about things they can't afford, so being able to say "yes" to candy and treats is important to their self-conception as loving parents. She also looks at the ways that rich families eat and how they aren't always healthier (e.g. they eat Annie's Cheddar Bunnies instead of Goldfish, but they're basically the same thing). She also does a deep dive into the gendered societal expectations of moms feeding their kids, and how no matter what they do it isn't good enough. I strongly related to a lot of her observations and analyses.
• The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland. Memoir of a man gradually going blind over the course of his life, but also about the larger history and sociology of blindness. Really thoughtful and engaging, and includes lots of interesting topics like the history of writing/reading systems for blind people (sighted teachers wanted to use embossed letters so they could read it easier themselves, even though blind people preferred what eventually became Braille because it is easier to differentiate the letters by touch), and racism within the blind community (where people can claim with sincerity that they "don't see color" and therefore can't be racist). 

Here's to more great books in 2024!