The Books I Memorized in 2023
I read a Roger Maris’ worth of books in 2023. But early in the year I decided reading isn’t enough, so here is a snapshot from my photographic memory:
The Last Book I Memorized
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
The First Book I Memorized
We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWF History by Bill Hanstock (it was about wildlife)
The Longest Books I Memorized
Appleseed by Matt Bell (the Lord’s been good to me and I thank Matt Bell)
His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Salt: A World History
Memoirs I Memorized
An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn
The Shortest Book I Memorized
One of those plays by Sophocles, but I forget which one
The One about the Band
Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation by Steven Hyden
The Ones Out West
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner
Deadwood by Peter Dexter (different than the TV show by the way)
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (much longer than any of the parables)
Watershed by Percival Everett
All those books about Oz
The One with the Fox
Reynard the Fox or The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The One with the Sharks
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
The Ones with Mice
Maus I by Art Spiegelman
Maus II by Art Spiegelman
That Other One with Pictures
The Watchmen by Alan Moore
The Fine Dining Experience
Waffle House Vistas by Micah Cash
The Ones about Baseball
Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told through Baseball Cards by Josh Wilker
Aisle 228 by Sandra Marchetti
The One about Pastime
Sleep Donation by Karen Russell
The One about Bigfoot
Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
The One on the Internet
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
The One about Aaron Rodgers
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, the New York Jets, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
The One in the Hotel
Hotel Neversink by Adam O’Fallon Price
The One with the Orange Cover
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
The One Not by Sophocles
Prometheus Bound
Hey, have I read this one before?
The Hobbit by Tolkien, JR.
Those Narnia books
Catcher in the Rye
One More That was Short
Beast by Kingsnorth
The One where People Got Sick
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
The One about a House Attached to Another House
Duplex by Mike Nagel
Robots and Zombies
Wild Robot (a lot of times!)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Church and the Ones that were not Fine
Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine by Diane Williams
Pew by Catherine Lacey
Also, those books by James Baldwin
Oh! and the one about Waco by Jeff Guinn
Trees, Trees, Trees
The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth
Station Eleven
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Basketball
Blood in the Garden by C. Herring
The One about a Maze
Labyrinths by Borges (I am on a last name basis with him)
The One about Nothing
Dr. No by Percival Everett
