New Year’s day sounds like a good time to make plans, and to update you all on my TBR for 2023.

Now, I’d be tempted to start listing all the books that had caught my interest and that I’d like to read sooner or later – but I know I’d end up with a nigh-infinite list, that I’d then feel compelled to complete, thus making my reading less enjoyable as a result.

What I am doing instead is just mentioning a much smaller list of titles that are either my immediate reading plans, or books I am especially interested in for some specific reason. I’m keeping the number way below my typical reading habits, so that I can keep up with at a leisured pace, while at the same time adding whatever catches my interest along the way (also, I am in a few online reading groups, so more suggestions are bound to come by).

So, let’s start with my first reads of the year:

• Unwieldy Creatures – by Addie Tsai: a queer, multiracial, modern retelling of Frankenstein, and the book I picked up this morning, right after drinking my first coffee of 2023
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate – by Becky Chambers: because sometimes I do need a fix of non-depressing sci-fi
• Luck In The Shadows – by Lynn Flewelling: suggested by a book club I should catch up with; it belongs to a longer series, so unless I am entirely turned off by the first book, odds are I’ll be reading the other novels as well.

Talking about series, I am also interested in:

• Terra Ignota – by Ada Palmer: ambitious philosophical sci-fi, flawed utopian scenario, discussion on gender, I guess there’s no way I could ignore it
• Xenogenesis – by Octavia Butler: the real question is why I have not read this already. Time to fix that!

As for series I’ve already started:

• Hell Bent – by Liegh Bardugo is about to be published. It’ll require a re-read of Ninth House and it’s not like I’m complaining
• Alecto The Ninth – by Tamsyn Muir should also come out later this year. Actually I still have to catch up with Nona The Ninth, so I’ll probably brush up the first two books and then read the others all in a row.

Some standalone title that especially piqued my curiosity:

• The Spear Cuts Through Water – by Simon Jimenez: I loved The Vanished Birds so now if Jimenez writes something I must read it
• Deep Wheel Orchadia – by Harry Josephine Giles: you got me at sci-fi and experimental writing
• The Lesson – by Cadwell Turnbull: it has aliens, and colonialism, and a few promising reviews
• The Fortunate Fall – by Raphael Carter: an older post-cyberpunk novel that deals with a few interesting themes; I got a second-hand copy shipped from overseas since it’s out of print, I hope it was worth it

Finally, I want to branch out a bit and read some more non-SFF books, not to lose touch with everything else that’s going on in the literary world. I am thinking of:

• The Overstory – by Richard Powers: it was highly recommended, and it has also been on my shelf for too long
• Normal People – by Sally Rooney: so that I know what everyone is talking about
• The Vanishing Half – by Brit Bennett: it deals about interesting topics and I heard great things about it
• Detransition, Baby – by Torrey Peters: same as above, also you might have noticed I have an entire category dedicated to LGBTQ+ books

Finally, a dare:

• Infinite Jest – by David Foster Wallace: I gave it a try once, and miserably recoiled. But I must face it once again, so that I’ll either understand its much praised ingenuity, or I’ll be able to elaborate with full knowledge what my issue with it actually is.

And of course, it ended up being longer that I had originally planned, but that’s the extend of my self-restraint. Follow me for updates!