In 2023, I read 162 books, watched 53 movies, and watched an additional 36 documentaries (so 89 films altogether). Here, I will reflect on this year’s patterns as well as share what I experience as “the best of the best” and “the worst of the worst” in each category.

Or, at least, that was my intention when I started writing this post back in December. Another annual round-up… just like other years. But this year I feel differently. I don’t know if it’s long-COVID impacting my mental capacities, or the fact that I’ve known almost 300 people who have died premature and preventable deaths in the war the rich are waging on the poor here as elsewhere in the world is giving my trauma brain, or the fact that we’re watching a genocide unfold on social media is also giving me trauma brain, or if I’m too overworked and underpaid to be able to think creatively, or if the labour it takes to eke out an existence for myself and my children under the austere gaze of neoliberal governance is crushing my soul, or if I’m suffering early onset Alzheimer’s, or what, but I just don’t have it in me to sit down and write the reviews I usually write. Thus, this post will be even more brief and unsatisfying than my usual reviews. The best of the best really are great. And the worst of the worst really were, for me, the worst. Be that as it may be, here’s the list.

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Briefly discussed in this post: 11 books (Mohawk Interruptus; Two Cheers for Anarchism; Life on the Edge; Hood Feminism; S.C.U.M. Manifesto; Motherhood; The Rabbit Hutch; Animalia; Frantumaglia; A Heart That Works; and One Hundred Poems from the Chinese); 5 movies (Anatomy of a Fall; Red Rocket; Killers of the Flower Moon; May December; and Costa Brava, Lebanon); and 2 documentaries (Mister Organ; and Hell Camp).

Stay tuned for my “Reviews in Review” where I share the best and worst of what I read and viewed in 2023!

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Briefly discussed in this post: 14 books (Here Lies Bitterness; The Intersections of Whiteness; Colonial Desire; Learning From the Germans; Drug War Capitalism; The Unwritten Book; Young Mungo; The Wallcreeper; The Haunting of Hajji Hotak; Poppies of Iraq; Aurora Borealice; The Vagabond Valise; Stones Beneath the Surface; and Original Love); 2 movies (Moon Garden; and The Worst Person in the World); and 2 documentaries (Silver Dollar Road; and Camorra).

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Cursorily discussed in this post: 12 books (Going Sane; Essays in Love; Hallucinations; The Accursed Share; The Golden Notebook; Atmospheric Disturbances; Trust; Everything is Waiting For You; Violet Bent Backwards Over Grass; The Junta of Happenstance; Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency; and Night Lunch); 1 movie (Pinocchio); and 1 documentary (Encounters).

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Very briefly and irresponsibly discussed in this post: 15 books (Theories of Ideology; Self Defense; The Soul at Work; When the Sun Bursts; Missing Out; Against Health; Fen, Bog & Swamp; Breasts; Circe; Dom Casmurro; Selected Poems; Customs; Hotel Oblivion; My Wicked Wicked Ways; and Mandela and the General); 3 movies (Barbie; The Last Voyage of the Demeter; and The Lost Daughter); and 3 documentaries (Golden Dawn Girls; Depp v. Heard; and For Sama).

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Briefly discussed in this post: 18 books (Object-Oriented Ontology; Winnicott; Children of the Self-Absorbed; A Minor Chorus; The Tangled Tree; World of Wonders; The Face of War; A Visit from the Goon Squad; Speedboat; Homesickness; Scarborough; I’m Glad My Mom Died; Ducks; Trickster Feminism; The Translator of Desire; Pomba Gira and the Quimbanda of Mbùmba Nzila; Queen of the Seven Crossroads; and Maria de Padilla); 7 movies (White Noise; The Nanny; The Wrath of Becky; Sorry We Missed You; The House; Medusa; and Sobibor); and 2 documentaries (Bama Rush; and Running with Speed).

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Briefly discussed in this post: 19 books (The Last Man Takes LSD; Deconstructing Postmodern Nietzscheanism; The Emancipated Spectator; The Agony of Eros; Matter and Memory; Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy; Sounds Wild and Broken; Mistaken Identity; Free to Obey; Liberalism; The Analytic Encounter; Playing and Reality; Spadework for a Palace; How is a Person to Be?; Pure Colour; Second Place; Aftermath; Afterparties; and The Original Face); 5 movies (Asteroid City; The Blackening; Alone at Night; Belladonna of Sadness; and The Kindergarten Teacher); and 2 documentaries (Unknown; and Curse of the Chippendales).

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Briefly discussed in this post: 8 books (Catch Them Before They Fall; Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3; We Are Electric; Methodology of the Oppressed; Indigenous Men and Masculinities; Old Growth; Sludge Utopia; and Things My Son Needs to Know About the World); 3 movies (Renfield; Beau is Afraid; and Donbass); and 5 documentaries (Sunless Shadows; Owned; Anna Nicole Smith; Money Machine; and Shiny Happy People).

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Briefly discussed in this post: 14 books (Legacy; Planta Sapiens; The Language of Landscape; Rain; Disgust; On Kindness; The Shadow of the Object; Capitalism and Freedom; The Road to Serfdom; Offshore; You Are Your Best Thing; London Ontario’s Unrepentant Confederates; The Marquise of O—; and Hell-Bent); 5 movies (The Tale of King Crab; Bardo; Gwledd/The Feast; The Pope’s Exorcist and Blue Valentine); and 2 documentaries (Fighting Indians!; and I Will Be Murdered).

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