My Favorite Reads of 2023

When 2023 began, I did not expect that two books I read would become two of my favorite books of all time. But that is exactly what happened. I also did not expect to read so many books, since my resolution last year was to slow down and savor books more deeply. But sixteen of the books I read were plays by Shakespeare as I began an attempt to read all of his plays in the order in which they were written. I was not as pleased as I had hoped with the George Eliot chapter-a-day read-along, but all in all, 2023 was a very good reading year.

Here are my favorite reads of 2023, counting down to my favorite read of the year:

1. Romola by George Eliot
2. Silas Marner by George Eliot
3. King Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare
4. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
5. These High, Green Hills by Jan Karon
6. Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer by Michael Casey
7. The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian, books 10-15: The Far Side of the World, The Reverse of the Medal, The Letter of Marque, The Thirteen-Gun Salute, The Nutmeg of Consolation, and The Truelove (or Clarissa Oakes)
8. A Spring Within Us by Richard Rohr
9. The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
10. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

One of my favorite reading experiences of 2023 was driving across the United States while my wife Brenda read The Universal Christ aloud to us. She would read a section at a time and we would have deep discussions about what author Richard Rohr was saying, and what we thought about it. We read the book through Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, as we took our youngest daughter to Creighton University for her first year of college. Reading the book together was a contemplative, deep experience that neither of us expected, but which both of us will treasure for the rest of our lives.

The other book that had a profound impact on me was Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. I took my time with this great American novel, reading it over an entire year, from May of 2022 to May of 2023. After spending so much time with it, I can say that it has taken its place among my top novels of all time, joining Don Quixote, Lord of the Rings, Les Misérables, The Three Musketeers, and The Aubrey/Maturin series. I even added it to the collage of book covers on the header of this blog. I look forward to reading Moby-Dick many more times in the coming years.

As I look toward 2024, I still hope to continue savoring my reading by slowing down and not focusing so much on how many books I read. I have a few reading goals for this year, including finishing the Shakespeare Project, hosting the Fantasy Classics Chapter-a-Day Read-along, and completing the fourth and final year of the Aubrey/Maturin Chapter-a-Week 4 Year Read-along Odyssey.

I also hope to read the following books along with Benjamin McEvoy’s Hardcore Literature Book Club:

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
• The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
• The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Inferno by Dante Alighieri
• Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

I hope 2023 was a good reading year for you and I wish you a Happy New Reading Year, along with many blessings to you and your family!