![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Sinister-Revenge.jpg?resize=250%2C378&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI do so love a pretty book cover.<\/p>\n
As has happened every year since I started reading the series, the cover from the latest Veronica Speedwell book was a favorite (The first book in the series initially had a different style cover–the designs they’re using now started with the second book). This one, like the rest, are utterly gorgeous.<\/p>\n
A Sinister Revenge<\/em><\/a> (2023) Deanna Raybourn<\/a><\/p>\n Cover design & illustration by Leo Nickolls<\/a>. Published by Berkley<\/a> (Penguin)<\/p>\n Veronica Speedwell<\/strong>: A Curious Beginning<\/em><\/a> (2015), A Perilous Undertaking<\/em><\/a> (2017), A Treacherous Curse<\/em><\/a> (2018), A Dangerous Collaboration<\/em><\/a> (2019), A Murderous Relation<\/em><\/a> (2020), An Unexpected Peril<\/em><\/a> (2021), An Impossible Impostor<\/em><\/a> (2022)<\/p>\n Also making another appearance is Allie Therin<\/a>‘s Magic in Manhattan series.<\/p>\n I really deeply love the monochrome covers and the art deco elements. They are clean and eye catching, and I find them very pretty.<\/p>\n Once a Rogue<\/em><\/a> (2023) Allie Therin<\/a> Published by Carina Press. Unfortunately, Carina Press doesn’t credit their cover artists<\/a> which, as I have repeatedly noted, is a shame.<\/p>\n Magic in Manhattan<\/strong>: Spellbound<\/em><\/a> (2019), Starcrossed<\/em><\/a> (2020), Wonderstruck<\/em><\/a> (2021) To the best of my memory, this is the first year Berkley hasn’t had the highest number of great covers. But pretty sure that’s because I only read four books published by Berkley this year.<\/p>\n Publishers with multiple covers I loved:<\/p>\n We’ve come a long way in self-published covers; I adore that authors of self-published books are giving us so many gorgeous covers.<\/p>\n My favorite covers of 2023:<\/p>\n Fantasy<\/a> Mystery<\/a> Romance<\/a> Science Fiction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Aside from the audio book of Blitz<\/em><\/a> (I read Blitz<\/em><\/a> last December, so it didn’t seem quite fair to point it out as a ten for this year),\u00a0 I didn’t have any 9.5 or 10 reads that were new-to-me this year, but I did have several new (to me at least) books that had a 9\/10 rating.<\/p>\n However.<\/p>\n I’m pretty sure that upon a reread, there are multiple books that will get a higher rating. They just weren’t what I needed to help get out of my brain when I read them, or I didn’t have enough spare processing power to really get everything. So take that into consideration if you peruse my reviews.<\/p>\n Publishers with multiple books I loved.<\/p>\n Obviously not enough numbers to be more than anecdata, but here are the publishers whose books I read most frequently this year (the number of books by that publisher) and the average rating for that publisher..<\/p>\n My favorite books of 2023:<\/p>\n Fantasy<\/a> Mystery<\/a> Romance<\/a> Science Fiction<\/a> Audio Books<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I use two different tracking spreadsheets–one I created in 2003 and yearly spreadsheet from Book Riot<\/a>. The Book Riot tracker only allows a single genre for a book. Mine allows books to have multiple genres, which is a bit more accurate, especially for my reading preferences (I do love a supernatural detective).<\/p>\n In both logs, mysteries were the genre I read most this year, however, the second chart makes it clear that romance was my second most-read genre–because many of the fantasies and mysteries were also<\/em> romances, or had romance as a secondary element.<\/p>\n You can see how my reading mood shifts over time.<\/p>\n I don’t have fiction, or straight non-fiction on here, because I don’t read enough of either to do anything but make the chart even more confusing than it already is.<\/p>\n There should have been more comics on there, but I’ve been reading some web comics, and haven’t read the physical books I got myself. (I read Cursed Princess Club<\/a> and The Doctors are Out <\/a>weekly as they come out. Lore Olympus<\/a> is constant cliffhangers, so I’m waiting for it to finish. I also have a pile of graphic novels to read, and am hoping to get to them over the holiday break.)<\/p>\n Here are this years favorite books by genre:<\/p>\n Fantasy<\/a> Mystery<\/a> Romance<\/a> Science Fiction<\/a> Audio Books<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ages and ages ago (back when I was reading mostly fantasy and mystery) I started to make an effort to read more female authors. Back then, an author publishing under their initials and last name was usually a woman who wrote in a male dominated market (sword & sorcery or police procedurals FREX). There were a few men who wrote under initials because their market or segment of the market was female dominated, but mostly not in genres I read.<\/p>\n You can see that shift, as well as the bigger jump when I read more romance.<\/p>\n I’ve continued to try and broaden my reading, looking for POC and Queer characters. It is harder to categorize authors here, because until someone’s bio states they are queer (ie, ” the author and her wife”) it’s not up to me or anyone else to say if someone is queer or not. Nor do I want to judge if someone is a POC just from looking at their picture (see: Tobias Buckell<\/a>). So I mostly focus on the characters.<\/p>\n Secondary characters need to pass a version of the Bechdel Test<\/a> to qualify as such.<\/p>\n While on the subject, I’d like to highlight something I’ve started seeing more frequently and really love<\/em>.<\/p>\n a hefty-looking white woman with sharp blue eyes<\/p>\n He was a white man, looked to be in his fifties, with thinning brown hair cut short, regular features, pale gray eyes<\/p>\n Phillip was a young-looking forty-year-old white man with black hair and light brown eyes.<\/p>\n She was a tall, hippy white woman<\/p>\n It turned out to be a white woman in late middle age<\/p>\n typical London office jockeys, mostly white, mostly from affluent suburbs<\/p>\n The nervous young white man with floppy hair who served as receptionist<\/p>\n a small white woman in a gray zip-up hoody.<\/p>\n a teenaged white girl dressed incongruously in a blue knit twinset and pearls and a blond pageboy wig.<\/p>\n \u201cHallo, darling,\u201d said a white person with an androgynous face, blue-black hair, and a raven perched on their shoulder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Above are all descriptions from Ben Aarnonvitch<\/a>‘s Amongst Our Weapons<\/em><\/a>, but he does that throughout the Rivers of London series.<\/p>\n If a book is set in a metropolis or urban area–especially in the US or UK–white shouldn’t be the “default setting”. As I live in a rural, predominantly white, American state<\/a>, I love regular reminders that the rest of the world doesn’t look like where I live, and love reading about people whose life experiences are not my own.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once I got an eReader, paper books quickly became a thing of the past. Although I prefer paper for cookbooks and graphic novels, in almost every other category I prefer digital format.<\/p>\n And although I’ve listened to audio books since the late 1990s, having books on my phone instead of having to carry a walkman (cassette or CD type) makes audio books so much easier.<\/p>\n I’ll go back and forth between listening to podcasts and audio books, but it’s been audio books over podcasts for the past couple years.<\/p>\n Additionally, audio books and rereads are tied together, since I almost never listen to a fiction audio book I have not previously read.<\/p>\n You can also tell from a glance at that chart what years have been difficult, by the percent of rereads.<\/p>\n Why, yes, 2023 has<\/em> been a particularly horrible year, how’d you guess?<\/p>\n I’ve mentioned elsewhere that one of the reasons I only listen to audio books I’ve previously read is because I only allow myself to listen to audio books while I am on my feet; exercising, cleaning, cooking: I have to be moving around.<\/p>\n That huge spike in November is when I was going through the boxes we brought from my parent’s house. <\/p>\n It was a very large and very difficult task, and the audio books allowed me to get through it, since they distracted my brain from why<\/em> I was doing what I was doing so I could figure out what<\/em> to do with the stuff and clear out the stacks of boxes crowding my basement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I already noted, I did a lot of re-reading this year.<\/p>\n Most of my mental processing power went to dealing with my mother’s death, being her executor, and selling my parent’s house. There were a lot of books I considered but didn’t even try to read, regardless of how much I wanted to.<\/p>\n So I thought it would be interesting to look at what I’ve read the most.<\/p>\n Because of the way my book log is set up, I don’t have the titles of the books I read prior to 2020 in a spreadsheet. I can get the read times for an individual title easily, but there is no way to dump that information into a spreadsheet. But starting 2020 when I began using the Book Riot Reading Log, I do have that information, so I compiled it and pulled out the following information.<\/p>\n Most read authors, 2020-2023<\/p>\n Every author on that list has at least<\/em> one book I’ve re-read.<\/p>\n I also figured out the books I’ve re-read the most since 2020–the books I reached for when I couldn’t focus and was miserable & desperate for a distraction.<\/p>\n Romance, romance, romance, Murderbot.<\/p>\n I think that pretty much sums up my 2023 in reading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The 221 is the correct number; I believe the Goodreads total has at least one DNF. But my spreadsheets work out (there are two DNFs in the Book Riot Spreadsheet, that I don’t count in my other spreadsheet) so it’s all fine. <\/p>\n Midyear was the same as last year, but I had a LOT going on this summer and fall, so it’s hardly a surprise I read fewer books in the second half of 2023.<\/p>\n Type of book and rereads. I’ve mentioned before that I almost never listen to a fiction book I haven’t previous read, so you can see how when I listen to a lot of audio books I have more rereads.<\/p>\n And finally, the spaghetti chart.<\/p>\n If you’d like to browse previous yearly roundups, here is the full list.<\/p>\n Now for all the bits and pieces and data! 2023 Covers I do so love a pretty book cover. As has happened every year since I started reading the series, the cover from the latest Veronica Speedwell book was a favorite (The first book in the series initially had a different style cover–the designs they’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,1090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reading","category-years-favorites"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pefxA-4R3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18665"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18748,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665\/revisions\/18748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n![\"Once](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Once-a-Rogue.jpg?resize=250%2C393&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nRoaring Twenties Magic<\/strong>: Proper Scoundrels<\/em><\/a> (2021), Once a Rogue<\/em><\/a> (2023)<\/p>\n\n
2023 Books<\/h4>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/The-Bookshop-and-the-Barbarian.jpg?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"Silence](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Silence-in-the-Library.jpg?resize=200%2C303&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n
Genres<\/h4>\n
![\"Books](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/genre-chart-0-e1703858675306-800x495.png?resize=800%2C495&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Books](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/genre-chart-e1703858579592-800x478.png?resize=800%2C478&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"genre](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/genre-chart-over-time.png?resize=1024%2C666&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAuthors<\/h4>\n
![\"authors](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/authors-chart.png?resize=1024%2C666&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Character](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/poc-chart.png?resize=1024%2C653&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Character](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/queer-chart.png?resize=1024%2C647&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFormat<\/h4>\n
![\"book](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/book-type-and-reread.png?resize=1024%2C666&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Listening](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-listening-time-vs-pages-read.png?resize=800%2C581&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRe-Reads<\/h4>\n
![\"2023](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-rereads.png?resize=800%2C573&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n
Some Final Numbers<\/h4>\n
![\"2023](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-reading-challengr.png?resize=417%2C230&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"total](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/yearly-total.png?resize=800%2C478&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"2023](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-book-type-by-month.png?resize=800%2C443&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Spaghetti](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/spaghetti-chart.png?resize=800%2C512&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPrevious Roundups<\/h4>\n
\n