Sobriety has brought many gifts into my life, including a return to my long lost love of reading.
It’s not that I ever lost that love; rather, I just treated it poorly. It’s an old tale; my mind drifted, and I fell asleep on it.
In my teenage years and into my mid-20s, it wasn’t like that. I was a voracious, focused reader. In college, I even accidentally earned an English Lit major, just because I read so much.
But over the last couple decades, I doubt there was a single year when I read more books than I could count on one hand.
I pardoned myself from drinking in November of 2022.
And in 2023, I read 40 books—in this order:
Sweetness—The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, Jeff Pearlman
Whirly Gig: Inside Bob Dylan’s ‘Time Out of Mind’ Sessions, John Lewis
Beautiful World, Where Are You?, Sally Rooney
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park
Open, Andre Agassi
There There, Tommy Orange
Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña, David Hadju
Big Swiss, Jen Beagin
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
They Got Daddy–One Family’s Reckoning with Racism and Faith, Sharon Tubbs
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail, Scott & Jenny Jurek
The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Lucinda Williams
You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith
The Dutch House, Ann Patchett (audio)
Stay True, Hua Hsu
Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’, Warren Zanes
Fifty in Reverse, Bill Flanagan
Dark Matter, Blake Crouch (audio)
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, Mitch Albom
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
The Mythmakers, Keziah Weir
Letters to a Young Poet, Raina Marie Rilke
How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back, Jeff Tweedy (audio)
Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng (audio)
The Last Americans, Brandon Taylor
The Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver
Diary of a Young Naturalist, Dara McAnulty
Financial Management of a Marketing Firm, David C. Baker
What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World, Sara Hendren
Monica, Daniel Clowes
The Breakaway, Jennifer Weiner
The Tenth of December, George Saunders
World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music, Jeff Tweedy
Man in Black, Johnny Cash
Let Me Be Frank with You, Richard Ford
Be Mine, Richard Ford
Many of these books came to me as strong, personal recommendations, and I’m very grateful for that. I’ve always thought the gift of a book was pretty much the most “serious” gift you can give; you’re literally asking someone for dozens of hours of reading time, plus, hopefully, a few more hours of rich and robust conversation.
Thank you, friends, for enriching my life with your selections.
All in all, I think this was my favorite year of reading in at least three decades, and maybe ever. I loved almost all of the books on that list of 40. (And had just two DNF’s that I gave up on…for now.)
Below, please find five highlights.
(If you want, you can click through to read synopses and support independent bookstores at Bookshop.org. Or please, buy local!)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
“I can’t wait to get back to it; I never want the story to end.”
Isn’t that the best—a book so gripping, storytelling so rich? For me, only once or twice has that feeling ever been more true than it was with this novel.
On a lot of days and for a lot of reasons in 2023, I just couldn’t wait to get home, light the incense, turn on an ambient playlist, and lose myself in a book.
And then do the same thing early the next morning.
Especially when it came to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Stay True, Hua Hsu
I read a few brilliant memoirs this year (both Crying in H Mart and Open were stunningly good), but I’ll single out Stay True for its vivid and enduring portrait of friendship, and loss, and music, and the life-changing power of each.
A rollicking, sad, hilarious and tragic read.
Big Swiss, Jen Beagin
This funny, frisky novel was such a surprising, sanguine and even rueful read; my copy is marked by my popcorn-stained fingerprints. I simply could not put the book down, and finished it in just a couple days.
(It was little surprise when I saw that HBO won a bidding war for producer Adam McKay’s forthcoming adaptation of the book.)
World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music, Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy’s third book is a contagiously joyous read; a love-letter to music—its mystery and its magic—in 50 song-based chapters and a dozen or so reflective interludes.
I bought the book as both a printed hard-copy and an audiobook, read by the author. It’s my recommendation you enjoy World Within a Song in the latter format, as the Wilco frontman’s humor, sensitivity and gratitude come through with such endearing clarity and kindness. It’s like he’s telling these stories just to you, and asking for your own songs and stories after each of his.
Be Mine, Richard Ford
The return of Frank Bascombe.
Post-college, the closest I could come to hanging out in an English Lit class was to kick around Borders Books & Music; somehow and for some reason, I picked out The Sportswriter by Richard Ford, which introduced the character Frank Bascombe—a man imperfect, in a country the same. It became my new favorite “contemporary American novel”—introspective, funny, sharp, magnetic.
I immediately read its even-better Pulitzer-winning follow-up, Independence Day.
And then I fell away from literature for pleasure.
Earlier this year—some 25 years after we read Independence Day together—my friend Jason Roemer gifted me Ford’s just-released fifth and final Bascombe novel, Be Mine. (A signed copy no less!) I read its predecessor and then Be Mine, back to back, wrapping myself in Bascombe’s inimitable voice and Ford’s inimitable prose.
I’ve already picked up a 1,300-page anthology of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and Lay of the Land—the latter being the one Bascombe novel I’ve not read—to start my 2024 reading list with. I figure I’ll tackle all three. (It’s been 27 years since I read the first two, after all.)
When it comes down to it, Ford’s writing is why I love reading.
The books are so gripping, the storytelling so rich.
Anyway, you know how it goes.
I already can’t wait to get back to it. And I never want the story to end.
Music
13 favorite concerts of the year, chronologically:
Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, Fillmore, Detroit, solo
Trainhoppers + Rosalind & The Way – A Quiet Night In, The B-Side, Fort Wayne
Destroyer, Hi-Fi, Indy, with Jason and Robyn
Joe Henry, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, with Sam
Boygenius, Clairo, Dijon and Bartees Strange, Re:SET, Columbus OH, with Henry
LCD Soundsystem, Jamie xx, IDLES and L’Rain, Re:SET, Columbus OH, with Henry
Dead & Company, Deer Creek, Indy, with my bandmates Casey, Chris, Dan and Phil
Neil Young, White River Amphitheatre, Seattle, with Henry
Hiss Golden Messenger – Mas Hiss, Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw, with Erica
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Clyde Theatre, Fort Wayne, with my mom(!) and uncle
Bob Dylan, Murat, Indy, with Rob
Joe Pernice, living room show, Cleveland, with Erica
Mike Adams at His Honest Weight, Waldron Arts, Bloomington, with Erica, Henry, Joe and Matt
—
In the streaming era, I find it too difficult to make a list of favorite records. But this playlist features a bunch of new songs I love:
Anyway: what about you—what were your favorites?
Tell us all about ’em in the comments. :-)
Excellent year, Matt. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. Always look forward to it.
Can’t wait
to read the TOOM book.
I couldn’t get the playlist to work fwiw ??
I am way behind on Wilco— I guess it takes a lifetime.
16 years alcohol free here - it works if you work it. Don’t miss ‘it’ one bit.
Keep on keeping on.
PS Check out Jacob’s Ladder when you get a chance. My son Jacob Ray Tillman’s 3rd collection of original - self produced songs.
BTW a good friend here just named his son Henry.
Fwiw. Don’t try No doze !
Also. Trust me. If you get a chance to see Phish- Much better than i ever expected and the songs — are really good. Plus like BD and GD they pull you in with covers that maybe you didn’t know—.
Were. you able to listen all the way thru to the Paul Simon album?