Well this is embarrassing. As I started to pull together the top books I read in 2024, I noticed that I hadn’t ever posted about my #1 book of 2023! In fact, I hadn’t posted anything on this blog since March! For the few of you who read this, my apologies. I can’t promise I’ll do better in 2025, I will at least try to get my favorite books of 2024 out there. And in the meantime, here is my top book of 2023!
#1 – My Rock ‘N Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn (2021)
Still riding high on my women in rock memoirs, the talented Tracy Thorn came in at #3 with Naked at the Albert Hall. Ms. Thorn also topped my list of books read in 2023 with her outstanding work, My Rock ‘N Roll Friend. This is certainly quite a feat for any author, especially one who is mainly known for being the lead singer and songwriter of the band Everything But The Girl, who, incidentally, released their first album in 23 years last spring.
Accomplished singer/songwriter and frontwoman for the band, Everything but the Girl, impressed me greatly with her first memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star. With her latest work, My Rock ‘n Roll Friend, Thorn not only writes a compelling and fascinating memoir about her friend, Lindy Morrison, drummer of the Australian 80’s band, The Go-Between, but she also chronicles their nearly 40 year friendship, and most startling of all, she writes an insightful, intellectually scathing feminist showcase about how women are systematically erased from history. Tracey is a writer to be cherished. Her prose is casual, self-reflective, yet immediate and powerful. Her voice is singular, and unique… unexpected even for those who only know her through her work as a pop star. Her ability to bring her subject to larger-than-life reality, whether you know a little, a lot or nothing about her is remarkable, and certainly makes you want to know more. I also hope Tracey continues to document her observations about life, feminism, friendship, relationships, and life.
And for those keeping track, here is the complete list of my favorite books read in 2023:
- My Rock ‘N Roll Friend – Tracey Thorn (2021)
- Stolen – Ann-Helén Laestadius, Rachel Willson-Broyles (Translator) (2021, 2023 in the U.S.)
- Naked at the Albert Hall: The Inside Story of Singing – Tracey Thorn (2015)
- Rat Girl – Kristin Hersh (2010)
- The Unfolding – A.M. Homes (2022)
- The Museum of Failures – Thrity Umrigar (2023)
- Girl in a Band – Kim Gordon (2015)
- Stories I Might Regret Telling You: A Memoir – Martha Wainwright (2022)
- Swim Home to the Vanished – Brendan Shay Basham (2023)
- The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud (2006)
- TNight Sky Mine – Melissa Scott (1996)
- The Memory of Animals – Claire Fuller (2023)
- You Only Call When You’re in Trouble – Stephen McCauley (2024)
- Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me – Bernard Sumner (2015)
- Boys in the Trees: A Memoir – Carly Simon (2015)