November 2023 Reading Recap
A month in which mysteries re-enter the building!
I don’t know about you, but this stretch of late November/early December is one of the hardest times of the year for me. Here in Minnesota it gets dark so early, I feel ready to crawl into bed at around 6:30 p.m. After reading Wintering by Katherine May a couple years ago, I’ve tried to embrace this season more — lighting fake candles, pulling out fuzzy blankets, drinking hot beverages — but it’s just not really when I’m at my personal best.
As the days got darker and colder, I also felt my reading mellow out. November was almost my slowest month of the year, until an unexpected road trip where I cruised through two great mysteries on audiobook — surprise! Anyway, enough preamble, here’s what I read in November:
Nonfiction
📘 Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet by Taylor Lorenz
Extremely Online is a high-level look at the evolution of creators and influencers on the Internet. I loved the way Taylor Lorenz documented the consistent patterns of social media — a platform launches, individuals creatively build community, brands try to find ways to make money, then managers and other professionals swoop in to help individuals “monetize their brand” on a particular platform. Platforms either support creators or they don’t, rinse and repeat over and over again. As someone who was a very small part of this evolution through my old book blog, it was really fun to track my own experience and remember the bits and pieces of memes and online trends Lorenz revisits. I liked this one a lot!
Read This If: You feel any nostalgia for the “old Internet” and want to feel old remembering all the trends that have come and gone and come around again.
📘 This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan
I’ve been noodling a lot this year about where my newfound (re-found?) love for fantasy romance came from. A friend recommended this book, which is kind of about Benedict Cumberbatch, but mostly about what it is like to fall in love with something in the ways we’re not supposed to love things — fully, obsessively, unquestioningly — as responsible adults. It was conversational, meandering, funny, smart, and full of good questions, and again reminded me of themes from Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen.
Read This If: If this Susan Orlean quote resonates with you, “I suppose I do have one embarrassing passion — I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.”
Fantasy
📘 + 🎧 Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
I am still obsessed with this series from Rebecca Yarros, and loved this second book nearly as much as the first, Fourth Wing, in both print and on audio. It’s been a while since a series captured my imagination as much as this one has, and has made me want to do reread upon reread digging for clues and putting puzzles together. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with a dragon-themed murder board ahead of the next book in the series.
Read This If: You used to love Anne McCaffrey, currently love spicy romances, or want to love the current big think on BookTok (I assume, as I am too much of an old to be there).
📘 Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo is one of my favorite writers, and I think I liked this book better on a reread than I did when I originally finished it a couple years ago. Alex Stern is an unlikely college freshman, recruited to help monitor the occult activities of Yale’s secret societies because of her unusual ability to see ghosts. I loved the tricky timeline of this book, the way Bardugo interrogates power and influence, and the extensive and detailed rules and structure built around magic in the real world. It’s dark and twisty, but really good.
Read This If: You like secret societies, mediocre white dudes getting what they deserve, and unusual, mysterious timelines.
📘 The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
Lucy Hart’s biggest dream is to adopt one of the young students at her school, a bookish orphan, but without money and stability this dream seems out of reach. But then Lucy is invited to a contest at Clock Island, home of Jack Masterson, a reclusive author of a well-loved series of children’s books that helped Lucy survive her lonely childhood. I enjoyed this book a lot, but didn’t realize how much it got me in the feels until I closed the last page. It’s very sweet, warm, and kind.
Read This If: You love books about books, found family stories, and gentle romances.
Mystery
🎧 The Thursday Murder Club and The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim are four unlikely friends who meet in their posh retirement home’s Jigsaw Room every Thursday to discuss unsolved crimes. In the first book of this series, they become drawn into solving a murder in their own backyard. In the second, a mysterious visitor from the past shows up with stolen diamonds and an outlandish story, pulling them into another caper. I thought both of these audiobooks were an absolutely delight! They are warm, funny, and smart mysteries that kept me guessing until the last page.
Read This If: You like unusual detectives, small town humor and capers, and found family showing up for one another.
🎧 The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
This is a new book in the world of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ Inheritance Games series. It focuses on two Hawthorne brothers, Grayson and Jameson, as they’re pulled into separate adventures. I thought this one was ok — I missed the four Hawthorne brothers being together, and thought the puzzles/games they were pulled into weren’t quite as engaging as the original trilogy. But I have high hopes for the next book, which I believe is out sometime in 2024.
Read This If: You liked the rest of the Inheritance Games books!
Final Thoughts
We’re coming down the home stretch! I have no reading expectations or plans for December, but am excited to dig into this year’s reading stats in a few weeks.
I’ve been tracking all of my reading this year on The Storygraph, because Goodreads is annoying and I love all the pretty charts.
This is my favorite graph of 2023, but there are a ton of other good ones looking at genres, pace, moods, and more. That’s something to look forward to soon!