TBR for 2023

For my Oriental fantasy reading this year, I’m reading book 1 of the Poppy War series which is available in audiobook format. 

On fantasy, I might read the Essex Serpent which I had put down as a historical fiction/fantasy. But other than that, I’m short on ideas. My library always gives me pages of stuff on YA fantasy and I’m not that hot on it. I’m timid to try Brandon Sandersen after Mistborn which I abandoned already during book 1 (although I’m wondering whether I should give Stormlight Archive a try as I heard it’s more traditional epic fantasy) and Robin Hobb’s Farseer world doesn’t really intrigue me much (I read the Livership Traders trilogy and it’s fresh but I’m not that motivated to take up the Rain Wilds Chronicles). And plus, I’m into reading electronic books nowadays and it’s just all become so much harder. Like last year when I looked up the Dresden Files book 1 it was not available and then I just forgot about the whole series although I took up book 1 at the end of last year. Guess I will just let the whims hit me. 

I had managed to prune some mystery series from a post about Sue Grafton (I knew she died before completing Z of her alphabet series which was a bit of a shame since I was waiting to read it since I had read every other alphabet book of hers, I was that fond of Kinsey. But I knew she was not a young author so…). They are basically the Rabbi Small series and John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. I actually read book 1 of the Rabbi Small series in December (my library had the whole series) and it was okay. I might pick up further books in the series or I might not. Not sure. On the other hand, my library only has 3 of the Travis McGee and I’m yet to try him so I will definitely do that this year. 

For craft and curiosity reads, I’m going to read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye to study the omniscient voice (an electronic copy of this has somehow surfaced at my local library again). I’m not sure what constitutes my curiosity read for this year yet. Guess I will prune my local library site and see what turns up from reading the blurb (I had cultivated a list but a lot of them are not available in ebook format or I realised they would end up being too literary fiction for my taste even if I was curious about certain elements). 

My Broadening Horizon reads this year will include The Leviathan wakes for science fiction and the Years of Rice and Salt for alternate history (I mostly read straight historical fiction or historical fantasy so alternate history would be a first).