The OffBeat #42: My 17 Favorite Books of 2023 — and an announcement!
The second annual OffBeat Book Roundup
Before the books, an announcement. Today marks the launch of paid OffBeat subscriptions. For $5 a month, or $50 a year, paid subscribers will get access to a monthly Whole Note (expanded Half Note), monthly job listings from OffBeat-approved companies, and quarterly editable doc/spreadsheet/deck templates.
A quick FAQ:
Is anything changing for free subscribers? Nope.
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Onto the books.
I live for a book roundup. The annual GoodReads Choice Awards are my secondary Super Bowl (can’t disrespect my Philly Eagles), I started a #bookrecs Slack channel at work that is a weekly source of personal joy, and whenever a trusted source (Real Simple magazine, my friend
, , friends and colleagues I follow on GoodReads) shares their recent literary selections it’s like a little burst of confetti in my day.Unsurprisingly, I appreciate off-the-beaten-path recommendations in addition to genuine endorsements of those everyone’s-talking-about-them books, across a wide variety of genres. I take my books like I take my music: eclectic, well-written, quotable.
Below, the second annual OffBeat Book Roundup: my 17 favorite books of 2023 and their offbeat takeaways.
FICTION
The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan: Mothers are like sharks—always moving, learning, seeking. This is a perfect, propulsive encapsulation of the impossibility of being a perfect parent.
The Midnight Library, Matt Haig: It’s not the lives we regret not living that are the problem; it’s the regret itself.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna: Unconventional families are the best families. “It’s not always enough to go looking for the place we belong. Sometimes we need to make that place.”
Mercy Street, Jennifer Haigh: “In any industry Claudia could think of, this failure rate would be unacceptable. If breasts were a consumer product, the manufacturer would be forced to issue a recall.”
Hidden Pictures, Jason Rekulak: Listen to five-year-olds, even if it seems like they’re fantasizing.
True Biz, Sara Novic: “Imagine telling someone that learning French would ruin their kid’s English, hurt their brain…. And yet, though fear of bilingualism in two spoken languages had been dismissed as xenophobic nonsense, though it was now desirable for hearing children to speak two languages, medicine held fast to its condemnation of ASL.”
The Measure, Nikki Erlick: Deep self-reflection question: what would you do with the knowledge of how long you’ll live?
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus: “‘Sometimes I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn't make it past noon.’”
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin: “‘What is a game?’ Marx said. ‘It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.’”
Once There Were Wolves, Charlotte McConaghy: Violence is a language without words.
The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz: Who owns ideas?
BUSINESS
This Is Not a T-Shirt: A Brand, a Culture, a Community—a Life in Streetwear, Bobby Hundreds: There are a million solutions to every business problem. (Read my full Book Report on this book over on The Creative Factor.)
Positive Intelligence, Shirzad Chamine: The most impactful leadership development book I’ve read, probably ever. PQ (Positive Intelligence) measures the percentage of time your mind is serving you vs. sabotaging you. While your IQ and EQ contribute to your maximum potential, your PQ determines how much of that potential you actually achieve.
Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs, Jamie Fiore Higgins: An alarm-clanging account of the toxic culture of corporate finance. The way we work is broken, across all industries; this is the entire premise of The OffBeat.
POETRY
Indigo, Ellen Bass: There’s beauty in everything, even the tragic.
Bread and Circus, Airea D. Matthews: Philadelphia's Poet Laureate examines class inequality.
And Yet, Kate Baer: “It's just another day in the good-bad, bad-good earth machine.”
Happy holidays! Have a great week,
Allison
P.S. My all-time favorite unexpected business-related reads, and favorite music-themed reads.
P.P.S. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, or are just over Christmas music, check out this lovely Wintry Mix playlist from
. Happy holidays to all!