2023 was my best year reading to date.

It was the first year I started reading books by Neil Gaiman, seven books, five Do Books, and three by Colson Whitehead, making them the top two authors and group of books.

My Yearly Plan

Each year, the plan is to read a book a week, and this year will be the closest I get to that goal. This year, I’m close to finishing reading a book every eight or nine days on average, even though because I read a few at a time, I finish them a day or so apart.

Typically, from mid-November/Thanksgiving until the end of the year, I attempt to finish up many books I still need to finish, along with some of the shorter/more straightforward/easier-to-read books.

NOTE – I typically read a handful of books at once.

Reading more than a book at a time allows me to switch around depending on my mood. If I need some light reading or have time to read through something a bit denser that needs more attention, I can.

My List of Books for 2023

I broke my list of books into categories in the order I read them.

• I try. I Fail. I learn. – Hiut Denim (Do Lectures)
• Delicious Beans from Rancho Gordo – Every Pot a Victory – A Guide to Happy Beans Every Day – Rancho Gordo
• Arbitrary Stupid Goal – Tamara Shopsin
• Cooked – A Natural History of Transformation – Michell Pollan
• Shop Class as SoulCraft – Matthew B. Crawford
• Lark Ascending – A Novel – Silas House
• Dave Grohl – The Storyteller – Taste of Life and Music – Dave Grohl
  
• Four Thousand Weeks – Time Management for Mortals – Oliver Burkman
• The War of Art – Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles – Steven Pressfield
• Rebel without a Crew – Or How a 23-year-old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player – Robert Rodriguez
• No. 4 – On the Writing Process – John McPhee
• I Will Teach You to Be Rich – No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works (2nd Edition) – Ramit Sethi
• Salt Fat Acid Heat – Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking – Samin Nosrat and Art by Wendy MacNaughton
• Eat That Frog! – Get More of the Important Things Done Today – Brain Tracy
• Scrap Steading – Prosperous Homesteading on Any Budget – Billy Bond and Matt Hundley
• The One Thing – The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
• Toby Dog of Gold Shaw Farm – Morgan Gold
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – A Year of Food Life – Barabra Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
• In the Blink of an Eye – A Perspective on Film Editing – 2nd Edition – Walter Murch
• The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees – The Ash in Human culture and History – Robert Penn
• Man’s Search for Meaning – Revised and Updated – Viktor E. Frankl (Reread)

Books by Neil Gaiman

• Coraline
• Good Omens – The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. Witch – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  
• The Graveyard Book
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane
• American Gods – A Novel
• Neverwhere – A Novel
• Stardust – A Novel

Do Books

• Do Earth – Healing Strategies for Humankind – Tamsin Omond
• Do Make – The Power of You Own Two Hands. – James Otter (Re-read)
• The Book of Do – A manual for living
• Do Interesting – Notice. Collect. Share. – Russell Davies
• Do Sourdough – Slow bread for busy lives. – Andrew Whitley

Books by Colson Whitehead

• The Nickel Boys – A Novel
• Harlem Shuffle
• Crook Manifesto – A Novel

Homesteading/Farming Book Club

• The Living Soil Handbook – The No Till Grower’s Guide to Ecological Market Gardening – Jesse Frost
• The Art of Fermentation – An In-depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World – Sandor Ellix Katz

Apartment Building Book Club

• The Maid – A Novel – Nita Prose
• Perfume – The Story of a Murder – Patrick Suskind

Remote JavaScript Book Club

• Cracking the Coding Interview – 189 Programming Questions and Solutions – Gayle Laakmann McDowell (The group did not finish it.)
  

Total Books Read

I finished the year strong and managed to read 41 books.

I’m Learning More Through YouTube

I continued watching more YouTube to learn about cooking, shooting videos, storytelling, starting a YouTube channel, starting a small farm, etc., and taking a few courses I purchased about editing with DaVinci Resolve.

Less Reading in 2024

Here’s to less reading in 2024 than in 2023.

In 2024, I plan to spend more time learning how to shoot, edit, and add special effects/graphics to videos to start my YouTube channel.

Please comment if you have read any of these books, what you thought of them, and if you have any suggestions.