Memorable/Influential Books 2022-23

Well, I had hoped my reading would have improved in volume by now, but I’m still crawling out of a hole in my ability to concentrate. Last year (2022) I did just barely manage to make 52 books, but this past year (2023) I didn’t – I could have if I had spent all my time reading in the last week of the year, which I did for a couple days, but alas, I just had other things I also needed to get done in my limited free time.

Last year I didn’t even make a post about my reading! I kept meaning to, but by the time it got to June I figured there was no point. So my “memorable books” post this year draws from two years of reading – 2022 and 2023 – which amounts to how much I was able to read in a single year pre-COVID.

So, here are my entirely subjective Karen’s most memorable (and/or influential) books of 2022-23, in no particular order. (Books I read in the last 2 years – they didn’t necessarily just come out then.)

Nonfiction

Rooms: Women, Writing, Woolf by Sina Queyras

I read this right after I read the Emma Healey memoir that came out the same year, and I was really struck by the contrast in terms of class, privilege, generation, and how a person becomes a writer.

Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses

I don’t teach fiction workshops exactly, but the book was still thought-provoking for any writing teacher--and with actionable recommendations. I wish for more such resources that refer to other genres.

Childhood, Youth, Dependency: The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

So raw and honest – about poverty, addiction, abortion, and so much more.

How We Read Now: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen, and Audio by Naomi S. Baron

Baron is a linguist who has been studying this stuff for decades. The book helped me ground my intuition about why the internet has made it so much harder for me to read. Also read her more recent book about AI and writing.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Everything you ever wanted to know about the I.R.A. but were afraid to ask. Holy crap.

Fiction

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

A world where people, things, and concepts are mysteriously disappeared out of existence -- and out of ever having had existed.

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22^nd Century by Olga Ravn

An artificial life novel. In space.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

No, I hadn’t read it before now. Loved the unhinged narrator. Disappointed by the ending, thought it would be weirder.

Poetry

The Absence of Zero by R. Kolewe.

For sure the most memorable book I read in the past two years. I keep coming back to it. Exactly my kind of poetry. The kind of book you can dip into at random any time, and I do.

Xanax Cowboy by Hannah Green

Loved this as soon as I read it, and so glad it was recognized with the GG. Really appreciated, among other things, the implicit critique of an entire generation (or more) of Canadian poets’ erstwhile obsession with The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (myself included).