I read 26 books in 2023, but the one I read the most was my own book during the warpspeed editing process. My non-fiction tome on the subject of software resilience came out in Spring 2023 and the reader response fulfills my soul like little else.

After devouring so many resources for my own book, I admittedly grew a bit sick of reading1. I dabbled more in reading short fiction and poetry via literary journals in 2023; I’m still figuring out which ones most nurture my creative energy.

As always, I am not rating or recommending any specific works in the list below. With that said, I dedicate considerable effort to screening books beforehand since time is the most precious, fleeting resource we possess.

If you’re looking for more science fiction, speculative fiction, pretentious literary fiction, philosophical navel-gazing, or non-fiction recommendations, check out my reading lists from prior years:

Fiction

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Severance by Ling Ma

Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Speedboat by Renata Adler

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Non-fiction

Bad Gays by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney

Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls That Derail Us by Eugene Spafford, Leigh Metcalf, and Josiah Dykstra

The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer by Kathy Kleiman

The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us by Russ Roberts

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

  1. And writing, hence why this post on my 2023 reading list is coming out nearly 11 months into 2024… ↩︎