2023 Favorites: Books & Short Stories

The blogging year is coming to a close, and I thought it was time to go over some of my favorite things from 2023. This concerns media—books, short stories, music, movies, and TV shows—that I read, watched, or listened to this year. In this part, I’m focusing on books and short stories.

Books

I read a good number of books in 2023 and, overall—besides a few hiccups—I’m pretty happy looking back.

My favorite young adult books and manga were: A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, Holly Horror by Michelle Corpora Jabes, Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, and Clock Stricker vol. 1 by Issaka Galadima and Frederick L. Jones. For general fiction, my favorites were: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ninth House & Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, The Fatal Folio by Elizabeth Penney, The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland, The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett, and Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo. My three middle grade reads were excellent: Field of Screams by Wendy Parris, Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans by Isi Hendrix, and Totally Psychic by Brigid Martin. And last, but certainly not least, my favorite nonfiction books were: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, and The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan.

  Short Stories

My favorite short stories I wrote about toward the end of each month, for the blog’s Short Stories segment—with the exception of The Lover by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Review HERE). Plus I started reading an anthology this year called The Book of Witches. I'm no where near finished with it, but I still wanted to include stories from it. The ones I liked were: What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata by P. Djèlí Clark, Met Swallow by Cassandra Khaw, and The Nine Jars of Nukulu by Tobi Ogundiran. I read other short stories this year as well, and that includes those that can be found on online magazines like Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Apex, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. I'm linking back to them here, for ease of finding them. And those stories were:

• Your Wings a Bridge Across the Stars by Michelle Denham (Apex Magazine; April 6, 2023)
• Did You Hear About The Neighbors? By Seth Wade (Strange Horizons; Issue: 24 April 2023)
• Yingying—Shadow by Ai Jiang (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-One)
• The Gratitude of Mice by Yume Kitasei (Strange Horizons; Issue: 6 March 2023)
• Our Exquisite Delights by Megan Chee (Lightspeed Magazine; Mar. 2023 (Issue 154))
• Silver Necklace, Golden Ring by Marie Brennan (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty)
• Guidelines for Using the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library by Marie Brennan (Lightspeed Magazine; Issue 153)
• The Magazine of Horror by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki [Apex Magazine; August 15, 2023]
• The Discarded Ones by Linda Niehoff (Apex Magazine; August 8, 2023)
• Four Steps To Hunt A God by Athar Fikry (Strange Horizons; Issue: 12 June 2023)
• Mirror View by Rajeev Prasad (Clarkesworld; Issue 201—June 2023)
• All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-Two)
• A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse by K.S. Walker (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Ffty-Two)
• The Locked Coffin: A Judge Dee Mystery by Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com; October 25, 2023)
• What You Are and the Wolf by Jae Steinbacher (Lightspeed Magazine; October 2023; Issue 161)
• Simmered in Their Wealth Like the Richest of Sauces by Jo Miles (Lightspeed Magazine; September 2023; Issue 160)
• The Tale of Clancy the Scrivener by Ramsey Shehadeh (Tor.com; September 20, 2023)

That’s it for today. Up next: Yearly Favorites Part 2. Until then, thanks for stopping by and happy reading!