I Read 10 Books Per Month In 2023. This Is My Secret. (4th Annual “One-Book-Per-Week Challenge”)

I’ve always been an avid reader. In middle and high school, when I was navigating the transition to adulthood AND the culture shock of moving from Mexico to the United States, books were my sanctuary. I binged Young Adult series like Harry Potter and Carolyn Meyers’ “Young Royal” series with abandon. Stories offered an escape from my socially awkward reality and were a gateway to adventure, romance, history, and new learnings.

After high school, I didn’t stop reading, but finding time to read became less of a priority. I traded living primarily in my imagination for living primarily in “real life”—until four years ago, when the pandemic altered “real life.” Faced with infinite free time and a desperate need for escapism, I turned to books as my sanctuary once again.

In April 2020, I set a goal to read one book per week and finished 55 books. I have renewed my commitment to the “One-Book-Per-Week Challenge” every year since, with varying results. As life returned to normal in 2021, I only read 31 books. I found a better book-life balance in 2022, when I devoured 46 books. This year was my fourth year striving for my reading goal and it has been my most successful to date.

In 2023, I blew my previous records out of the water. I finished 121 books total, which is double my 2020 record and averages to 10 books per month or 2+ books per week! My secret was setting aside my prejudice that audiobooks don’t count as reading. I finished 49 more books this year because I capitalized on previously “idle” (commuting, cooking, cleaning, etc.) time reading “books on tape.” More importantly, listening to books allowed me to tackle classics that previously felt too dense or intimidating, including “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Anna Karenina,” “Wuthering Heights,” and “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

As with previous years, my reading roster spanned the gamut of genres, generations, and gravitas. I followed Jules Verne with a tome on Jungian psychology, followed with a spicy romance series. My most bizarre move this year was reading Ernest Hemingway in Spanish. Go figure.

Below I am providing the full list in order of completion for inspiration (and hopefully, to no judgement). I marked those that I adored and highly recommend in bold. The ones marked with an asterisk were the monthly selections for The Booze and Books Club and those with an (A) I listened to as audiobooks. Happy reading!

Every Book I Read in 2023

1. “Heartburn” by Nora Ephron
2. “Daisy Jones & The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. “Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories That Teach, Lead and Inspire” by Mark J. Carpenter & Darell D. Harmon
4. “NSFW” by Isabel Kaplan*
5. “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne (A)
6. “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr
7. “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne (A)
8. “Growing Yourself Up” by Dr. Jenny Brown
9. “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover
10. “Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin*
11. “It Starts With Us” by Colleen Hoover (A)
12. “Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin
13. “The Accidental Tourist” by Anne Tyler
14. “The Swamp” by Michael Grunwald (A)
15. “If I Survive You” by Jonathan Escoffery
16. “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris (A)
17. “Mad Honey” by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan*
18. “Pineapple Street” by Jenny Jackson*
19. “When You are Engulfed in Flames” by David Seders (A)
20. “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” by Rob Lowe (A)
21. “Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson
22. “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain (A)
23. “Crying In H Mart” by Michelle Zauner
24. “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano*
25. “Born A Crime” by Trevor Noah (A)
26. “The Perfect Marriage” by Jeneva Rose
27. “Tribes” by Seth Godin
28. “You Shouldn’t Have Come Here” by Jeneva Rose
29. “The Clasp” by Sloane Crosley
30. “The Cuban Heiress” by Chanel Cleeton*
31. “Everything I Know About Love” by Dolly Alderton
32. “Rules of Civility” by Amor Towles
33. “El Viejo y El Mar” by Ernest Hemingway
34. “Things We Never Got Over” by Lucy Score
35. “Things We Hide From The Light” by Lucy Score
36. “Reminders of Him” by Colleen Hoover
37. “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy (A)
38. “A Very Punchable Face” by Colin Jost (A)
39. “8 Rules of Love” by Jay Shetty
40. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen (A)
41. “H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald
42. “Tears of the Silenced” by Misty Griffin (A)
43. “La Maladie De La Mort” by Marguerite Duras
44. “The Fine Art of Small Talk” by Debra Fine (A)
45. “Getting Lost” by Annie Erneaux
46. “Hot Milk” by Deborah Levy
47. “Todas Esas Cosas Que Te Dire Mañana” by Elisabet Benavent
48. “The Five-Star Weekend” by Elin Hilderbrand*
49. “One True Loves” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
50. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt (A)
51. “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion (A)
52. “Nothing to See Here” by Kevin Wilson (A)
53. “Turtles All The Way Down” by John Greene
54. “The Quiet Tenant” by Clemence Michallon*
55. “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini (A)
56. “You Have Arrived At Your Destination” by Amor Towles (A)
57. “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (A)
58. “Here Lies” by Olivia Clare Friedman
59. “Mating In Captivity” by Esther Perel
60. “The House of Eve” by Sadeqa Johnson (A)
61. “Evidence of the Affair” by Taylor Jenkins Reid (A)
62. “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Gramus
63. “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu
64. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell (A)
65. “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton
66. “1984” by George Orwell (A)
67. “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrell Huff (A)
68. “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett (A)
69. “The Amityville Horro” by Jay Anson (A)
70. “Family Lore” by Elizabeth Acevedo*
71. “Tell Me Lies” by Carola Lovering (A)
72. “None Of This Is True” by Lisa Jewell
73. “The Shift” by Tinx
74. “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver (A)
75. “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas
76. “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas
77. “A Court of Wings and Ruin” by Sarah J. Maas
78. “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas (A)
79. “Island of the Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell
80. “A Court of Silver Flames” by Sarah J. Maas (A) 30
81. “Handle With Care” by Jodi Picoult
82. “Professional Idiot: A Memoir” by Steve-O
83. “Sex at Dawn” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha (A)
84. “It’s On Me” by Sarah Kuburic
85. “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece” by Tom Hanks (A)
86. “This Is Not Miami” by Fernanda Melchor
87. “Rationality” by Steven Pinker
88. “Study for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein
89. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han
90. “It’s Not Summer Without You” by Jenny Han
91. “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino
92. “The Woman in Me” by Britney Spears (A)*
93. “Not Forever But For Now” by Chuck Palahniuk*
94. “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas (A)
95. “Scammer” by Caroline Calloway
96. “Hidden Potential” by Adam Grant (A)
97. “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros
98. “Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory” by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
99. “Don’t Get Too Comfortable” by David Rakoff (A)
100. “We’ll Always Have Summer” by Jenny Han
101. “Iron Flame” by Rebecca Yarros
102. “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry
103. “The Duke and I” by Julia Quinn (A)
104. “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte (A)
105. “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova
106. “The Viscount Who Loved Me” by Julia Quinn (A)
107. “Thicker Than Water” by Kerry Washington (A)
108. “My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante
109. “So Many Steves” by Steve Martin and Adam Gopnik (A)
110. “Shopgirl” by Steve Martin
111. “My Own Magic” by Anna Kloots (A)
112. “Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin (A)
113. “An Offer from a Gentleman” by Julia Quinn (A)
114. “Day: A Novel” by Michael Cunningham*
115. “Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult” by Maria Bamford (A)
116. “Romancing Mister Bridgerton” by Julia Quinn (A)
117. “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang
118. “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy (A)
119. “Bright Young Women” by Jessica Knoll
120. “Fraud” by David Rakoff (A)
121. “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene (A)