Cavalcade of Awesome

Well, I was shocked in 2022 that I had read the most books I’d ever logged…EVER.  And then, in 2023, I managed to top that.  Which is crazy to me because in November and December I kind of stopped reading for a while due to work.  Let’s dig into one of my most weirdly productive years ever.

As always, you can find my reading log on Goodreads. My reading goal for 2023 was 200.  And according to Goodreads, I finished out the year with 275 books.  Again, I smashed all my previous reading totals. It’s even more remarkable to me because around November, I had a streak of books/comics that I didn’t like and it killed my momentum for a month.  So this total could have been higher.

Let’s take a look at some of the GoodReads stats for 2023.

I’m pretty happy with what I was able to read this year.  Looking at it, I think I’m comic book heavy in my overall totals.  Most of that was because, like I said, in Oct-Nov, I hit a snag where I just couldn’t read any books.  It just wasn’t happening.  That’s why I’m surprised I got as much read as I did.

Let’s look at the numbers of some of the things I read.

Going over my spreadsheet, it looks like I read roughly 64 novels.  The rest were comics issues and trade paperbacks.  In the image above you can see my shortest and longest book I read.  Over Halloween I read several Poe stories.  Cask was one of them.  I also read Murders in the Rue Morgue and Masque of the Red Death.  I enjoyed them.  Longest book I read is that Return of the Living Dead Complete History.  I love that movie.  And that book was excellent.  However, full disclosure, I wound up only reading the chapters for the first three movies.  I did not care about parts 4 and 5.  That came out to about 2/3 of the whole book, not the full 751 pgs.

Here are my “most popular” and “least popular” shelved books.  Most popular was The Song of Achilles, which is EXCELLENT, btw.  Wow over 3 million other people read that last year.  And exactly 0 people read Tim Holt Western Magazine #11.  That doesn’t surprise me, but if you were wondering why I read it, it’s because that is the first appearance of the original Ghost Rider, when he was a heroic but mysterious gunslinger.

Let’s move on with my recap of my favorite books I read this year.

Rules are the same as every year.  Only books/comics I read for the first time in 2023 are eligible for this list.  No re-reads, of which I typically had a few.  I don’t usually read brand new stuff the year it comes out, but it happens.

Here are the top 5 books I read last year in no particular order. Images and links are from GoodReads pages.

Books

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – This was recommended to me by a family member.  I’m a big fan of the Trojan War and the 2004 movie Troy, so I thought this might be an interesting read.  It is FANTASTIC.  It’s a retelling of The Iliad, but from the point of view of Achilles’ partner.  In the movie Troy, that character is his cousin, but in The Iliad and this book, he’s more of a companion and lover.  I loved this book.  It’s a fantastic retelling.  The characters are great.  I loved it.  So much so I also read Miller’s follow up, Circe.  That is a retelling of The Odyssey and also fantastic.  And then I read two of her short stories, Galatea, and Heracles’ Bow.  I’m anxiously awaiting her next book.

The Curse of Capistrano (aka The Mark of Zorro) by Johnston McCulley – I kind of got into a Zorro kick in 2023.  I’ve wanted to read the original Zorro story for many years, and in 2023 I finally did it.  And it is so much fun.  Lots of action.  Great characters.  Fun dialogue.  I was thrilled.  It’s everything I wanted a Zorro story to be.  So I read the next two McCulley Zorro stories as well; The Further Adventures of Zorro, and Zorro Rides Again.  I loved all of them.  They are really fun stories.  I hope to keep going through McCulley’s Zorro series, but I don’t know how many full stories are left.  I think a lot of them are short stories.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High – Cameron Crowe – I’m a huge fan of the 1982 movie.  Have been for years.  Finally was able to read a copy of the really hard to find book that was the basis for the movie.  And it didn’t disappoint.  The basic structure of the movie is there, but there’s a lot of extra content and even a few extra characters.  Cameron Crowe wrote a fun book and managed to capture what it was like to be a teen in high school in the late 70s-early 80s.

On Target (The Gray Man #2) – Mark Greaney –  I really enjoyed the first Gray Man novel (as well as the movie), so I thought I’d try the second book.  And it delivers.  Lots of action packed adventure.  Court finds himself as a double agent sent on a mission for a Russian gangster.  He’s supposed to assassinate an African dictator, but he works a deal with his old office, the CIA, to kidnap him instead and deliver him to them.  In return Court will get back in their good graces and can stop running from agents sent to kill him.  This was very twisty-turny.  I love Court as a character.  His mission goes sideways, of course.  Lots of fun.  Can’t wait to read more.  And hopefully they can pump out a few more Gray Man movies with Ryan Gosling.

Let’s switch over to comics! Here are the top 5 comics I read last year in no particular order.

Comics

I Hate Fairyland (2022) – I was a HUGE fan of the original run of this comic by Skottie Young.  And at the end of 2022 Young decided to return to this world.  Gert, the protagonist/antagonist from the previous run, returned to Earth, but realized that since she spent so long in Fairyland, she had no life skills.  So she has trouble keeping a job.  Then a tech guru wants Gert to go back to Fairyland to find his son who disappeared there.  I’ve read the 10 issues or so that they’ve released so far.  It’s really good, a lot of fun, and I love the art.  The first 5-6 issues felt like they were building up to something really big, and the last 4 issues felt like they were told to “wrap it up” by the publisher and it felt a bit rushed.  The story I mean.  There are a ton of action montages that briskly go over a lot of action.  That’s a small nitpick though because the issues in question are still really good.  And the art is always cartoonishly fantastic.

Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy –  I finally dug into the Murphyverse in 2023.  And I loved it.  I read all three White Knight series; White Knight, Curse of the White Knight, and Beyond the White Knight.  As well as all the mini-series in between.  Murphy has built up this excellent Batman universe with compelling iterations of your favorite characters.  Particularly Jack Napier/Joker.  I thought I was over any more Joker adaptations, but Murphy nailed his version.  It’s so good.  As is his Harley Quinn.  For the first two books, I almost didn’t really even like Batman, he’s kind of a jerk, but that’s part of what Murphy is trying to do.  And it worked for me.  This is a great series of stories.  I look forward to more.

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest by Mark Waid (writer) and Dan Mora (art) – I love Mark Waid as a writer.  His Kingdom Come is for me, pound for pound, the best look at mythology and super heroes bar none.  And yes, I’m including Watchmen and Dark Knight.  So it was such a fun surprise to see Waid take on this title and have so much fun with it.  He really plays around with the history of these characters and how their friendship works.  And he brings in the Bat family, the Supes family, and tons of other heroes.  This ongoing book is a joyful celebration of DC, its characters, and its history.  You won’t believe the places this title goes in later issues.  Oh, and Dan Mora’s art is THE BEST.  It’s so clean and iconic.  I really love it.

Superior Spider-man by Christos Gage –  Superior Spider-man has become one of my favorite characters.  Originally written by Dan Slott, Christos Gage takes over in this series.  I love the concept that, on his death bed, Otto Octavius switches minds and bodies with Peter Parker, leaving Parker to die in his place and him to take over being Spider-man.  And no one realizes it!  Otto continues to try to be a better Spider-man than Parker ever was, but he has trouble working with other people.  He certainly beefs up Peter’s operation and does seem to make it more efficient.  This is a really great series.  They are bringing Superior Spider-man back this year, and it’s written by Dan Slott, so count me excited!

Jughead by Chip Zdarsky –  I think I’ve mentioned I was a big fan of Mark Waid (again!) and Veronica Fish’s reinvention of Archie. This was a follow up series to that, written by the great Chip Zdarsky and Ryan North who took over in later issues.  I really loved their version of Jughead.  They also bring in Sabrina who I also love their version of her.

And there you go, some of my favorite things I read in 2023.  This was a kind of tough choice, I did have a few really good things that didn’t make the list.  I always threaten it, but maybe I’ll do an “honrable mention” article to talk about a few of the other books/comics that didn’t make the list.

Hope you enjoyed this article and found something new that you may eventually love.  Let me know if you do!

So that covers the year end articles for IRM, and now the things I’ve read.  Next up…MOVIES!!  This year, I’ve actually been taking my time with movies.  I’m rewatching several I felt needed rewatches and I’m even for the first time watching a few movies I missed in 2023 to see if they’d make it into my favs list.  Normally I don’t allow that.  Let’s see if it changes anything!