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I wound up reading 180 books this year, so culling those down to even 46 was a bit of a challenge. I really do encourage you to check out them all, even the ones I rated as 1* are ones that you may enjoy, should you disagree with my thoughts on the books at hand.

With that noted, here are the 23 nonfiction books that stuck out the most to me this year. Listed in the order I read them in, which *mostly* means publication order, but not *completely* - indeed, at least one of the below isn't a 2023 release and wasn't an ARC! (SHOCK!!!)

Waco by Jeff Guinn From my review on BookHype.com:

And then we get a near second by second play by play of exactly what went down and when and by whom, told from both sides and clearly showing when the evidence seems to support one side or another and when each side differs in their views and exclusive claims. This is no celebration of the man who called himself "David Koresh", nor is it a celebration of the various police agencies and politicians and political appointees who executed the raid. Instead, it is a remarkably balanced look at just how these people came to be where they were and what happened when these two groups came to such explosive conflict. It is a remarkable look at how a clearly gifted orator could become so twisted in his own thinking - and use his gifts to twist the beliefs of so many, including some who continued in these beliefs long after the orator himself was dead. It is a remarkable look at the mistakes made by each side of the conflict and just how many points there were where history could have changed for a more peaceable outcome. It is truly a remarkable tale of the entire event seared into the American zeitgeist as simply "Waco".

Excluded by Rochard D. Kahlenberg From my review on BookHype.com:

this is one of the better documented texts I've read in quite some time, clocking in at about 37% documentation. And given its claims that some might find extraordinary - such as "In a 2014 analysis, one researcher found that the level of segregation between poor Black and affluent Black families was actu

I wound up reading 180 books this year, so culling those down to even 46 was a bit of a challenge. I really do encourage you to check out them all, even the ones I rated as 1* are ones that you may enjoy, should you disagree with my thoughts on the books at hand.

With that noted, here are the 23 fiction books that stuck out the most to me this year, limited to one per author in cases where a given author (Jeremy Robinson and Laura Drake in particular) had multiple releases this year that were truly phenomenal. Listed in the order I read them in, which *mostly* means publication order, but not *completely* - indeed, at least one of the below isn't a 2023 release and wasn't an ARC! (SHOCK!!!)

The Revenge List by Hannah Mary McKinnon From my review on BookHype.com:

If We Don't Get A Sequel, We Riot! Or we at least start jokingly pestering McKinnon until she finally caves and gives us the sequel this story demands. And I in particular have a history with more than one author of eventually getting my way in these matters - through nothing more than constant begging. :D Read this book, and join my campaign!

Paradise-1 by David Wellington From my review on BookHype.com:

LONG - And Still Only Tells One Part Of The Story. The biggest thing I was left with at the end of this book was whether I was satisfied with the tale here - and thus the book should get the full 5* rating- or whether I thought it was a cash-grab that only told one part of the story and demands money to get the rest of the story (which I've seen in other books and written about in other reviews, though I note here that neither of these refer to books from this author) and thus should get a star deduction. Obviously, I ultimately sided with it being

Well Documented History of DARE Marred By Undocumented Editorial Commentary. Coming in at over 30% documentation, this is one of the more well-documented books I've come across in my ARC reading over the years. However, the weakness here is that while Felker-Kantor cites nearly every word he says about the DARE program

Theory + Application And Hefty Respect For Those Who Came Before. One thing that sometimes gets lost in the world of computing - specifically among those of us who make a career specifically inside this field of software development - is an appreciation of the history of the field before us. As a stu

Silence Of The Lambs Homage With Twists. This is one of those books that I honestly never would have connected it with Silence Of The Lambs had oth

A Rare View Of The South As It Really Is. As a native Son of the South - and in particular of a region *so* steeped in most *all* of its history, fro

Intriguing Theory Scant On Application. This is one of those books you might read in a Computer Science degree program - probably more on the Mas

For this blog tour, we're looking at an intriguing tale with multiple (and rapidly switching) character POVs. For this blog tour, we're looking at The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski.

Here's what I had to say on the review sites (TheStoryGraph, BookHype, Goodreads):

Intriguing Tale With Multiple (And Rapidly Switching) Character POVs. This is one of those tales with a lot of moving parts and a lot of different character POVs that can throw some people off. So if that is you, know up front that this is the style Ms. Laskowski has chosen to tell this particular tale in. Specifically, we have three couples - each of the surviving children of a now deceased former matron of the family + their significant others, as well as a seventh person - an unannounced and unplanned guest. (The final central character is another, planned, guest.) The tale uses the perspectives of each of the three females + the unplanned guest as our narrative device, and ul

For this blog tour, we're looking at an interesting sequel that the author originally never intended to exist. For this blog tour, we're looking at Two Dead Wives by Adele Parks.

Here's what I had to say on the review sites (TheStoryGraph, BookHype, Goodreads):

WOMAN LAST SEEN Began My War On Books Featuring COVID. This Book Continues It. Having read literally 394 books between WOMAN LAST SEEN and this book, I did not *even* realize this book was a sequel to that one until the very end, when I read the Author's Note. Perils of reading so much? This isn't exactly the first time this has happened to me in my reading these last few years, though I think this is (so far) the most books between sequels. Long winded way of saying, if you read these books closer together than I did, or perhaps have better memory than I do, you'll likely pick up on the fact that this is a sequel within the first chapter or two, so despite me not finding out until the end... it isn't exactly a secret, either.

All of that noted, as with Woman Last Seen, here we get an excellent mystery/ thriller sequel, one that actually manages to work within the bounds given by the original book when a sequel was never actually intended - and thus showing just how strong of a storyteller Parks i

Solid Introduction Prequel - And Marketing. This is one of the shorter short stories out there at just 22 pages, but it does its job r