My reading year 2023

I spent the last week of 2023 on vacation and didn’t have time to publish a summary post of my reading year, so here it is now. I had a mixed year, reading-wise. On one hand, I made a personal record of titles read in a year, 230 by official Goodreads count, 52 of which I reviewed on this blog. On the other, I struggled to pick up and finish books.

Part of the problem is my shortening attention span. Even the most engaging books can lose my attention in the middle of a scene, and less-engaging books take eons to finish—if I finish them. Especially the review copies I received from NetGalley and Edelweiss suffered for this, leading to a back-log of books I haven’t even started. But partly it’s because I’ve grown bored with the same books I’ve read for years.

What saved my reading year were new genres for me, like Chinese xianxia boylove novels, Japanese light novels, and online manga and manhwa. The first xianxia I picked up randomly at a local bookstore the year before based on the cover. It turned out to be Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, and like millions of westerns in the past few years, I was swept away by it and the TV adaptation too.

I read 27 xianxias or Chinese boylove novels last year. There aren’t all that many of them officially translated and available commercially, so it didn’t take long to catch up. Next year will be slower in those, as I have to wait for them to be translated.

My favourites were Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou, of which four volumes have been translated; Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi (currently reading volume 3), Golden Terrace by Cang Wu Bin Bai, of which I’ve read the first volume so far, and a modern romance The Missing Piece by Kun Yi Wei Lou. On top of the m/m romances, they’re wonderful insights into (fantasy) Chinese past, and cultures that are refreshingly different from the western ones that I usually read. However, curiously enough, similar books by westernised Asian authors failed to engage me completely.

 

Japanese manga and Korean manhwa were an accidental addition to my reading. I requested review copies at random, realised they’re more fun to read from a tablet than in print (not that my eyesight is that poor, but still), and went a bit overboard with them. In total, I read 145 comic volumes that I added to my Goodreads count, but there were many more that I didn’t, several ongoing webtoons included.

 

Most of the review copies that I received were such that I only read the first volume and didn’t continue with the series. But there were interesting and fun pieces among them too, like The Restorer's Home by Kim Sang-yeop, a mix of modern and historical Korean culture, and What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? by MyeongMi Kim and GyeongYun Jeong, which I had to start reading online as translations weren’t published fast enough. Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo is also one of my new favourites, with ten volumes translated and published so far.

Japanese light novels were a mixed bunch. Some were rather bad books with lousy translations, but there was a gem among them that I continued with after receiving a review copy of the first volume from Edelweiss. Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki's Conjecture by Mikage Sawamura is a fun series of paranormal mysteries set in modern Japan, with two volumes and one manga volume translated so far.

Outside Asian light literature, I read my usual fares. Favourites included Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, which managed to be a fresh take of the dark academy genre; System Collapse by Martha Wells (Murderbot never fails me), and Foxglove King by Hannah F. Whitten, a more traditional romantic fantasy. Dead Country by Max Gladstone started a new series set in his Craft Sequence world, and Translation State by Ann Leckie returned to her Imperial Radch world.

All in all, a good reading year, if a very different from previous years. I’ll continue with my Asian streak this year too, with xianxias, light novels and mangas, but there are new books coming from my favourite authors too. I’ve pledged to read 150 books this year in Goodreads reading challenge. I’ll review as many of them here as I have time, so keep an eye on this space. The rest I’ll review on Goodreads.