The TIME Magazine Must-Read Books 2023

everyday life 1 Minute

This list was published a couple of weeks ago (see here), and out of these one hundred books, I read only two and heard about four more, which sounds like a miserable outcome. I am not sure there are that many people who would be able to read a hundred books in a year, and they do not have to be from the must-read list, but still. I feel like in the previous years, more titles sounded familiar.

I would be curious to know how many books from this list other people read.

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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7 thoughts on “The TIME Magazine Must-Read Books 2023”

  1. I rarely feel that such “lists” may be useful guidance for me. I pick up a book because I encounter an interesting review about it or start to see its mentionings and discussions in relation to some topic I am interested in. That’s how I already know what the books “I Love Russia” by Elena Kostyuchenko and “Red Memory” by Tania Branigan are about and intend to read them in the nearest future (not because I see them in this list).

    I like when various media or bloggers provide not just “lists” but some general reviews of books they liked or recommend and explain why exactly for each of these books. I need to know what these books are about and how I personally might be interested in them. Otherwise, the naked listings have zero value to me (especially considering that so many well-respected media do this every year, and all these hundreds of titles just pile up mindlessly).

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    1. Absolutely, same with me – I pick books to read and listen to when I see recommendations from people or from Goodreads/Audible/Chicago Tribune. I was just surprised that I didn’t even hear about most of the books on the list. I might not be interested in reading, but most times, the titles are in the air.

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  2. Once upon a time, reading 100 books in a year would have been trivial for me; I was probably packing away three times that many. Over the past several years, my annual total probably has dropped to a few dozen, including a big proportion of books re-read from my own collection. At best, a list might alert me to a new work by a favoured author. Author interviews and reviews occasionally motivate me to read a book, provided I can get it through the Chicago Public Library.

    Though I have started downsizing my library again, mostly by trading for credit at Armadillo’s Pillow. They seem to be glad to see me; apparently second hand 20th Century / turn-of-the-century SF&F sells well enough. I rarely use all my credit, though, and a backlogs of books and credit have begun to accumulate.

    Ah, bookstores and libraries: how I loved them. I still do but they depress me: hundreds of titles piling up mindlessly, forever, reiteratively.

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    1. I am wondering whether my own reading habits will change when I retire and how they will change with time, in general. Last year, there was very little reading; this year, I finally figured out (again) how to incorporate more listening into my daily life, but I am not at a place where I can afford just sitting and reading (as I did when I was a teenager)

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