2023 was not the strongest years for me reading books, quantity-wise, but I still read several things that I really loved. It’s totally unfair to group non-fiction and fiction together but I’m still going to do it, anyway, because if I separated them it’d be hard to even get a top 5 non-fiction books for me this time around.
1. Our Appalachia edited by Laurel Shackelford and Bill Weinberg
This is in many ways the holy grail for me. A book that covers extensively several areas of special interest to me in Appalachian history and culture: the Primitive Baptists, ginseng digging, trapping, logging via floating logs down rivers, mountain politics, etc. A lot of the book is concerned with coal mining and labor history, as a book of this nature should be but it does not ignore non-coal Appalachia, either. Highly recommended.
2. Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi
Goodfellas is one of my favorite movies so I thought this book would be good but I couldn’t imagine it would be better. But I think it is.
3. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
My first McCarthy. I chose this because I loved the movie and figured it would be easier read than some of his other books. A beautifully written, dark-as-hell neo-western noir. There are things he does with the language in this that is jaw-dropping. Turns out, and I’d heard this beforehand, the film adaptation is one of the straightest adaptations ever made.
4. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
When I was twelve or thirteen, I read his son Jeff Shaara’s sequel The Last Full Measure. I remember loving it but not much about the book. I knew this would be good. It was fantastic. The chapter on Pickett’s Charge is a phenomenal piece of writing with a hell of a moving end. There are some flaws in my mind: Shaara takes a very romantic view of Robert E. Lee, in general doesn’t put enough attention on slavery, and was apparently based heavily on James Longstreet’s memoirs, which comes in across in how sympathetic and correct he seems in the book versus everyone else. But still worth it if you know anything about the Civil War yourself, if you don’t take it as the gospel truth.
5. Buried Child by Sam Shepard
Hey, I like to read plays. In fact, I much prefer reading them to watching them. Admittedly, I’ve never seen a good performance of a play. This is what you get for living in Kentucky for you entire life. Buried Child is an excellent half-absurdist black comedy family drama. At times sinister and moving.
6. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
A marvelous but messy epic crime novel with a remarkable style. The things he does with his rhythm, his character work, and his pace are intimidating, frankly. How the man can take such at-times reprehensible protagonists and make them sympathetic successfully is beyond me. Often deeply unpleasant. But rewarding.
7. Hill William by Scott McClanahan
Scott McCalanahan is probably my favorite contemporary author. This is one of the hardest, saddest, and most emotionally draining books I’ve ever read. It deals very deeply with child-on-child sexual abuse and its unflinching in its trauma. But told in that idiosyncratic McClanahan style.
8. Coogan’s Trade by George V. Higgins
Now we’re getting into the pulp, which is what I mostly read, anyway. This book was turned into the movie Killing Me Softly. It’s not as good as The Friends of Eddie Coyle but it’s still really good. Higgins could have basically cut all description and action lines and just tell a story in dialogue if he had wanted to. He comes close to that at times here.
9. The Pusher by Ed McBain
The third 87th Precinct book and my favorite so far. Just a banger of a police procedural. I don’t know how much of any influence these books were on Homicide: Life on the Street, if any, but it sures feels like it could have inspired that show.
10. The American Revolution edited by Hugh Rankin
A history book pieced together by first-hand accounts of the events in question. A kind of literary oral history. Very interesting, if less comprehensive than I may have wanted. But you can’t everything in one book, now can you?
By Lee Blevins 