The Best Books I Read in 2023 . . . (and other treats)

My Favorite Books, Movies, Shows, and Albums of 2023

The Question of Comfort and Novelty

When was the last time you re-read a book or re-watched a show/movie? What was it? And what can you learn about yourself from that?

Have you ever considered why you love to re-listen to music, but do so with books, shows, movies, and podcasts far less often?

It all has to do with:

The full answer to the novelty vs. repeat questions above is too complex to answer in a blog, so all I can do is try to relate my own experiences.

Though I do have a theory¹ :

Pls excuse my ten-year-old-level illustrative skills 😅

I’ve opened with this tantalizing, stubborn, airtight jar of chunkily intellectual peanut butter because, in 2023, I thought a whole lot about my consumption habits.

I realize now that I’ve been drawn to new books for similar reasons to why I travel, seek out new people, and hunt interesting experiences.

Novelty.

And I re-read old books for the same reasons that I want to spend time with loved ones, and return to cherished places.

Comfort.

Why, when 2023 lobbed just about the biggest change² the human experience has to offer, did I re-read more books than previous years?

Because I didn’t need more novelty.

I needed comfort.

All the comfort re-reading made choosing favorites a challenge, but people have seemed to appreciate the 2021 list and 2022’s, and I enjoy the push to reflect on my year of consumption.

So, here we go 🛫

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Books 📚

(You can also view the full list here)

#1 🥇 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

MY FIRST TEN 👀 👀

Welcome to a paragraph that tries to summarize one of the best books ever written 🎯

For whatever reason, my public school and college college curriculums skirted around John Steinbeck, and I’m grateful he wasn’t wasted on that moody teenager. This novel is an astonishing, mesmerizing, heartrending window into a time that is at once completely singular as well as shockingly relevant to life a century later.

Published in 1939, the Grapes of Wrath follows one family's repeated collisions with the hard realities of life in America during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. What emerges is an intensely human yet majestically stirring view into those who find (or fail to find) dignity in hard times. A snapshot of the tension between high and low class America, of one man’s inspired responses to societal manipulation, and one woman’s unrelenting grit, the novel probes the very core of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic tale, road novel, social commentary, and philosophical discussion, Steinbeck’s magnum opus may be the most American book in the canon of North America's best literature. I can’t wait to read more of his work in the coming months.

If you want to learn more before diving in, we discussed Grapes of Wrath on Good Scribes Only 🫠

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#2 🥈 The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumatake Koga

I was recommended this book by my friend Zac and was, frankly, blown away.

Most of us know of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, but have you heard of their brilliant competitor, Alfred Adler? This book, written in the form of a Socratic dialogue, follows a fascinating conversation between a philosopher and a troubled young man on a quest of liberation. Over the course of five conversations, the ‘philosopher’ uses the wisdom of Adlerian psychology to help his student identify how all people are capable of determining the trajectory of their lives, regardless of the expectation and trauma they’ve suffered.

To me, The Courage to be Disliked embodies what philosophy is for²: it is a plainspoken and profoundly relatable work that moves one, without ever dipping into the well of self-helpy language, to question self-imposed limitations, develop the courage to change, and face in the direction of growth. This is a book that's changed the way I view many life situations and am already looking forward to rereading in a few years.

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#3 🥉 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

People throw the word genius around more than they should. Some may disagree, but I think there are a lot of parallels between Joyce and David Foster Wallace. It demeans people like JJ and DFW who were true genius, generational talents.

It’s hard to describe a novel like this. At times it’s a treatise on Christianity, in other moments a coming-of-age novel, and all throughout is staggeringly well written—borderline poetry. The short novel traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to the greek Daedalus. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe. The book morphs as you read it and, though not easy, is extremely gratifying for anyone up for the challenge. Still, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is far less challenging than his most famous novel, Ulysses, and could be a good place to start.

PS: Colin Farrell narrates the audiobook

If you want to learn more before diving in, subscribe to the Good Scribes Only pod 🥲

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#4 🎖️ The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

If we were to erect a Mount Rushmore of 21st century novelists, there’s no escaping Jonathan Franzen’s long, spectacled, stoically circumspect, half-smiling gaze. Lauded as our era’s “genius realist,” Franzen is one of the best in show, and Corrections is widely considered his greatest novel. Contrasting the book below, this novel has nothing fantastical to it, nothing sexy, no flashy slug line to lure you in. This lack of pomp is, in fact, a deliberate feature, not a bug. Franzen’s ability to enthrall, amuse, and engage without moving far afield from what some would call mundane is a testament to his brilliance as a storyteller and social commentator. The characters are full, round, and entrancing, and proof that stories really are 85% about the people within them.

“Absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you're seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this."

TLDR: Not for everyone, but if you like long, absurd, hilarious, staggering, novels that jaunt into the absurdities of the human experience, that anatomically and surgically, sketch family dysfunction, while maintaining a hilarious air of black comedy, then this collision between the old-fashioned world of civic virtue and new world of technology, parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care, and globalized greed, hits so close to home it may as well be a flaming bag of sh*t on your neighbor’s doorstep.³

It’s 576 pages, so I definitely recommend checking out Our episode on Good Scribes Only first

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#5 🏅 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

What people mean when they say “the great American novel” I’m not sure, but I’m damn certain this book is on the ballot. Known for his lively writing, nostalgia of ‘the retro’, and deep empathy for the human experience, Michael Chabon has become one of 21st century America’s most respected voices. He’s been called “a magical prose stylist” and it shows in this sprawling, idiosyncratic, and inventive book about two Jewish boy genius New Yorkers who dream up superheroes during World War II’s Golden Age of comics. It’s a a page-turner in the ripping-plot-that-pushes-readers-forward sense, yet also contains sentences so delightful and pretty you’ll want to buy him a nice bagel with lox. Or at least a coffee. ☕️ 🥯

“All his self-denial, his Escapist purity of intentions, were forgotten in the flush of triumph and a sense of calm very like that which pervaded him after he had taken a beating. It seemed to him that his fortunes, his life, the entire apparatus of his sense of self were concentrated only on the question of what Rosa Saks would think of him now.”

-Michael Chabon, Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

To summarize: Joe Kavalier, a young Czech artist⁴ smuggles himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague to NYC. In Brooklyn, he finds his cousin, Sammy Clay, looking for a partner to join him in America’s newest hype cycle - the comic book. Together they get rich⁵ creating comics, stories, radio shows, movies, and art that draws from their own fantasies and fears. But the windfall doesn’t last.

Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a towering, unforgettable story of romance, repression, regret and the forever-confounding American Dream. Read it. Read it. Read it.

Or subscribe to catch the episode when it drops on Good Scribes Only …

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Honorable Mentions:

6. Lighter by Yung Pueblo

7. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

8. Breath by James Nestor

9. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

10. How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil

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Movies | Series | Docs

1. Oppenheimer - film by Christopher Nolan

2. The Bear - comedy/drama series

3. Chimp Empire - doc by James Reed

4. Shrinking - comedy/drama series

5. Dave - comedy series

6. Princess Mononoke - film by Hayao Miyazaki

7. Banshees of Inisherin - film by Martin McDonagh

8. Air - film by Ben Affleck

9. All Quiet on the Western Front - film by Edward Berger

10. Winning Time - comedy drama series

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Music

Four years ago I set a goal to listen to +365 full albums per year.³

I’ve found listening to an album front to back has changed the way I find, engage with, and appreciate music. It also means deeper cuts within genres I love, and exposure to ones that mightn’t be in my Spotify otherwise. And because of this practice, each album has taken a sort of experiential signature. For many of these albums, I remember where I was and what I was feeling when I listened for the first time.

The Podium | All 371 albums | The ratings

1. Hozier - Unreal Unearth (Aug 20 )

2. Noah Kahan - Stick Season (Jun 16)

3. Fred again.. actual life 3 (Jan 19)

4. Sam Cook - Sam Cooke at the Copacabana (April 16)

5. Zach Bryan - Zach Bryan (Sept 24)

6. Hermanos Gutierrez - el Bueno y el Malo (Jan 1)

7. Tom Misch - Geography (Jul 13)

8. Sampha - Lahai (Nov 30)

9. Drake - For All The Dogs (Oct 12)

10. Samia - Honey (Feb 19)

11. Morgan Wallen - One Thing At a Time (Jun 19)

12. Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS (Sep 8)

13. Travis Scott - UTOPIA (Aug 15)

14. Sam Smith - Gloria (Jan 27)

15. Arlo Parks - My Soft Machine (May 27)

16. The Kid Laroi- THE FIRST TIME (Nov 12)

17. Lizzy McAlpine - When the World Stopped Moving (Mar 14)

18. Steve Lacy - Gemini Rights (Apr 11)

19. Maluma - Don Juan (Nov 9)

20. Emmet Fenn - Last dance pt 2 (Sep 21)

21. Olivia Dean - Messy (Nov 11)

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So, Comfort or Novelty?

None of this answers any of the questions posed at the beginning of this post. If anything, it shows how much of a shameless, grandstanding, fiendish gusher of novelty I am. (For a theory on the music question, tap this footnote)⁴

The truth is that we live in an age that is

• confusing / polarized / chaotic

• richly connected / plentiful

• abundant with novelty

In recent years, I’ve noticed novelty-seeking come under fire. That’s because the streaming platforms are literally geared up to feed the novelty thirst⁵. I’ve learned that novelty and dopamine have a long, long neurological correspondence. According to recent brain imaging studies, the human love of novelty has been preserved over time because it helped us learn, solve problems, and survive. When exposed to novel stimuli, research shows that the substantia nigra/ventral segmental area (SN/VTA) heats up and a person experiences:

• Enhanced mood

• Positive outlook

• Increased motivation

• Increased creativity

• Lower stress, anxiety, and depression

There’s no problem with novelty but, in a world where cycles of consumerism rules the day (think about the way Netflix and Spotify pine for you to watch new stuff), we need to be mindful about how much new content we consume.

There’s space for both comfort and novelty. And they’re probably about equal.

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And Now the Books of 2024 begin…

Books help me learn and explore perspectives that I otherwise would not see or understand. They help me see worlds outside my own and, in my early twenties I committed to a life full of ‘em. That choice led me to view reading as a privilege and a practice. It occurred to me that no matter how much time we dedicate to reading, we won’t come close to reading all the great writing out there, and because of that I jump around to books of all kinds. I read whatever sounds compelling, and write whenever I can free up a moment.

Thank you all again for reading and listening to the podcast, as well as all your support across the board. It really means a lot to know that I’m not on this journey alone. As always, reach out if there’s anything that I can be helpful with.⁶

Also: I’d love to hear your book, album, movie, show, podcast, youtube suggestions.

• What were your tops this year?

• What should I be reading, watching, listening to?

Take care and Happy New Year,

—Jeremy

1. Ha ha ha! Surprise, surprise

2. There’s an essay explaining this in the works 🫡

3. I seem to have caught a horrifically malignant case of the musical-novelty thirst

4. "Listening to a song repeatedly without losing interest may be due to the repetitive and predictable nature of music. The brain enjoys predicting and recognizing patterns, which can be satisfying. Additionally, music often evokes emotional responses, and repeated exposure can reinforce these emotional connections. On the other hand, TV episodes and movies rely more on plot and narrative development, and once the viewer knows the outcome, the element of surprise is diminished. Additionally, visual media may offer fewer opportunities for the brain to predict and recognize patterns, leading to decreased interest upon repeat viewings.”

5. “An actor who might typically make a million dollars upfront with a healthy back end if the film does well will instead get $3 million upfront and no back end participation.”

Upfront === less emphasis on royalties and more emphasis on new content

6. PSA: If any of these books caught your eye, please make the effort to support your local bookstore. I use Amazon as much as anyone, but there’s something special about going into a brick and mortar bookstore. We can’t afford to lose them. Still, my greatest hope is that you read, no matter where it comes from!