My Favorite Books and Audiobooks of 2023

I read every single day, and I split my times in books between Kindle and Audible. Here are my favorite books and audiobooks of 2023.

Note: I can’t explain why previous compilations were only for audiobooks, but here they are for comparison: 2022, 2021, 2019 Part 1, 2019 Part 2, 2018 Part 1, 2018 Part 2, 2017, 2016, and 2015. I’ll continue listing books and audiobooks together going forward.

Non-fiction

The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating by Gary Taubes
Format: Kindle and Audiobook

If I had to pick my top title of 2023, it would be this one: I’ve read through The Case for Keto twice so far in written form and am now listening to the audiobook version between podcasts. (I just wish Gary Taubes had read the audiobook version). Why is that, you ask? Because Taubes was the original voice of facts and reason when it comes to weight loss and healthy eating, debunking widely-held but false beliefs about fat, cholesterol, carbs, sugar, and food in general, and because I discovered this title, his latest book, just after I started my healthy low-carb, high fat diet this past summer. I’ve gone on to lose at least 50 pounds so far, and have reversed my pre-diabetes and improved my other health markers. And I have Taubes to thank for that.

Fiction

Holly by Stephen King
Format: Kindle

Stephen King is probably my favorite writer of all time and this newest of his books is mostly excellent, despite its overly preachy COVID-era setting. There’s nothing supernatural going on here, just a straightforward crime novel starring Holly Gibney, a central character in some of my favorite King books—Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch, and The Outsider—and the novella If It Bleeds from the book of the same name. I own all of those books in both Kindle and Audible formats, and am going through Mr. Mercedes for probably the third time right now.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories by Stephen King Format: Kindle

I’ve had this collection of short stories in Audible format since it came out in 2015, but this past year I bought the Kindle version so I could read it more traditionally. King’s short story collections are usually excellent, this one included, though I guess his earliest ones are still my favorites overall. One of the stories in this collection, Ur, had debuted years earlier as a Kindle exclusive, but it’s been updated a lot for this collection.

Biography

Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono
Format: Audiobook

This is an astonishingly entertaining and interesting book, and I especially recommend the audiobook version because it’s narrated by Bono, a born storyteller, and because each of the songs that he writes about is accompanied by a sample of the remade version he and U2 made for Songs of Surrender.

The White House Plumbers: The Seven Weeks That Led to Watergate and Doomed Nixon’s Presidency by Egil “Bud” Krogh and Matthew Krogh
Format: Audiobook

The Max series White House Plumbers was so good, and it upended my understanding of the history of the Watergate break-in that I bough the book on which it was based. It’s excellent, and it comes at the story from a different perspective than the series, which I also found interesting.

Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the ’80s Hard Rock Explosion by Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock
Format: Kindle

I’m a child of the 1980s and a music fan, and so I ate this one up quickly. It’s a fantastic story, told chronologically via interviews with virtually everyone who experienced the rise of hard rock in the 1980s and its subsequent decline in the early 1990s. But the most interesting thing about it is that it effectively debunks the theory that grunge, a much shorter-lived phenomenon, had anything at all to do with killing the popularity of hair bands in particular. It’s like a Gary Taubes book about music.

Tech nostalgia/history

I’ve been reading a lot of personal technology history books and biographies as background and research for my ongoing Tech Nostalgia series. Not everything I have read is terrific, but the following books are highly recommended, and some of them, like the Bagnall books about Commodore, are among those titles I’ve read repeatedly.

Doom Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero
Format: Kindle

As I noted in my review, this is the definitive insider history of Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, and Quake. (Yes, we all know about Masters of Doom, but Romero was actually there, and his near-perfect memory puts this one over the top.)

Creating Q*bert and Other Classic Video Arcade Games by Davis Warren
Format: Kindle

Written by the maker of Q*bert and many other popular video games of that era, this book provides an inside look at the early days of the video game industry and the people who worked behind the scenes, often at low pay, to make it what it became.

Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming by Jamie Lendino
Format: Kindle

This is a great little history of the Atari 2600, the console that kicked off the home video game boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Commodore: A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagnall
Format: Kindle

This second book in Bagnall’s Commodore history series covers Commodore at its peak as it moved into the computer market with the PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64.

Commodore: The Final Years by Brian Bagnall
Format: Kindle

This final book in Bagnall’s Commodore history series charts the rise and fall of the Amiga and the end of Commodore itself.

Once upon Atari: How I Made History by Killing an Industry by Howard Scott Warshaw
Format: Audiobook

Warshaw created Atari’s well-received Raiders of the Lost Ark title for the 2600 and so he was the natural choice to created its next movie-based title, for ET. Which of course went on, unfairly, to be judged the worst video game of all time. This books describes that history and Warshaw’s eventual and well-deserved redemption.

Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer’s Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s by Bil Herd with Margaret Morabito
Format: Kindle

If you’re a Commodore fan, you’ve heard of ex-Commodore engineer Bil Herd, the creator of the Commodore 128 and, less famously, the Plus/4 and Commodore 16. He’s a fixture at Commodore fan events and a character, and a great story-teller.

Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet by Richard Moss
Format: Kindle

This is an interesting collection of histories from mostly the pre-Internet era and an effective overview of how some innovative app and game makers and publishers got their wares into the hands of customers in ever more effective ways over time.