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Only read 9.
I genuinely cannot believe they have Fourth Wing on there.
It’s there because a young NPR staffer likes it, that’s the point of the list; it’s just want a random assortment of what staffers/contributors think.
It was an incredibly fucking popular book…?
I barely trust what the book industry has to tell me about what’s good these days
I wasn’t very impressed with the Stolen Coast. The plot felt very rushed while also leading absolutely nowhere. That, and the dad’s dialogue is extremely pretentious.
Second, I love Tom Hanks, he’s one of my favorite actors, and I loved Uncommon Type, but The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece wasn’t very good. The redeeming quality was a look into the ins and outs of how movies are made.
Idlewild is the name of a theme park in SW Pennsylvania, and it’s all I can think of anytime I see/hear the name. Seeing it as a book title caused my brain to… do something, and now I want to try the book, just because.
I gotta say, not a good year for cover art.
I haven’t read many 2023 novels. I’m about 2/3s into The Wager, which is eaxellent. Didn’t love Yellowface but it had its moments. The Gay Best Friend was a fluffy light romcom that had some runny moments but was too shallow on its subject matter. Almost everything I read this year is like 2010s-2022.
Our Hideous Progeny felt too long and perhaps I wasn’t the audience for it bc all I’ve seen is galloping praise from readers. I picked up Monstrilio but haven’t started yet.
My 2023 list includes Britney Spears, Lou Reed, and this one Pitchfork recommended called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s.
I like these lists for the obvious reasons, but the NPR list is always filled with books I wish I liked more than I did. There are some great stories in here, but some of them felt like homework and so I DNF them.
I feel like they’re a consistent source of like…two-to-four-star (out of five) books. Nothing that I truly hate but something is almost always missing and the only question is how much.
I’ve heard of five of these.
The Wager was really good. I also really liked Whalefall.
The other three I haven’t read, just heard of them.
But I’m guessing this is another Popular = Therefore we put it on these lists kind of list…
The God of Endings was fantastic! Just finished reading that one.
Is it just every book that was published this year? Jeez that’s a huge list.
Read three on this list.
The Great Displacement. It was okay. Poverty by America was decent. A Fever in the Heartland was a top 5 book for me this year. So good.