2023 Book Review

This is my fourth book review.

Listening to books is something I am still really enjoying and really wish I had started doing sooner. I am still not a reader as I fall asleep when sat down and doing something relaxing like reading. But I listen when I am doing other tasks so I can still fit in quite a bit of reading.

This year I have read 39 books (1 was paper, not audio). It hasn't been a vintage year and up until December none really stood out. However, I read some great books in December, so my top 3 are:

Follow The Money - Paul Johnson

This is an Uprising

Bullshit Jobs - David Graeber

The full list...

Bullshit Jobs could easily have been replaced by the other Graeber book, the Dawn of Everything.

Both the Carlo Ravelli books could be in the Top 3 if they weren't so mind blowing. I will read more of his in 2024 despite the limitations of my brain.

The Lost Rainforests of Britain was great but I compared it to Guy Shrubsoles other book Who Owns England and not much can beat that for me. Your Mind on Plants was fascinating and Finding the Mother Tree was an incredible story of someone we should hold up as an idol in society, Professor Suzanne Simmard, but instead we pick consumer pimps like the Kardashians.

Doppelgänger wasn't on a par with other Klein books. If felt like lockdown had made her a tad self indulgent and whilst the book title was a literary device for her usual issues, it just felt a bit like nothing new from her which was a shame because she's still one of the best environmental and political writers of our time. Hearing a left wing Jewish persons view on Israel was interesting. The rest is really similar to other books of hers.

My daughter suggested I read Men Who Hate Women and it was far better than I was expecting. Much more of an eye opener than I thought it might have been. Sometimes feminist books can have elements that irritate, especially when read by the author as well, and this one covered it's subject so gruesomely well that I was just left shocked and in agreement.

And obviously the Alan Partridge releases this year were superb. Petty, small minded and vindictive. Everything they should be.