Best Books Read in the First Half of 2023

  In a serious knee-jerk reaction from not being able to read as much as usual in 2022, by the end of June of this year, I'd already read 105 books. So as not to make choosing the best a complete impossibility, I'm choosing the best from the first half of the year now, and then I'll do another "best" post when the year is complete.

Here are the ten I have selected as the best reads of the first half of 2023, in alphabetical order.

Title	Author	Genre
Brief Review
Adnan's Story	Rabia Chaudry	true crime
This is a really scary account of how a young man was profiled for being Muslim and sent to prison for about two decades for the murder of his ex-girlfriend with no actual evidence at all. He was finally exonerated, although the crime has never been solved. He was a teenager when he was convicted. I would never say that all law-enforcement behaves this badly, but this was a bit of a wake-up call about how when decisions are made based on assumptions, things go from bad to worse.
In the Kingdom of Ice	Hampton Sides	history/adventure
I had never heard of the U.S.S. Jeannette before reading this book. Now, I don't think I'll ever forget it. The Jeannette sailed for the North Pole in 1879, hoping to prove the then-popular scientific theory that there was a ring of ice around the "Polar Sea," which was warmer and open. It is hard for me to get my mind around the fact that only three years before my grandmother was born serious scientists believed this. This book has a lot of bad reviews on Amazon, but what those readers don't like was part of what I really liked about the book. There is tons of extraneous material about the times, the quirky man who sponsored the expedition, the captain's wife, and more. I appreciated gaining a better understanding of how the adventure fit into the culture of the era. You know I have a hard time picking a "favorite" anything, but this may be the most memorable book from these six months.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts	Neil White	true crime
Although listed in the true crime book lists, this book defies being categorized. A man is sentenced to federal prison for a white-collar crime, basically kiting checks, big checks. As it turns out, the government is trying to consolidate some of their facilities, and some white-collar criminals are sent to the last operating leper colony in the U.S. for the term of their sentence. White learns a whole lot about the nature of people, the artificial categories we create for them, and the value of being a person of integrity who cares about his fellow humans.
Island of the Blue Dolphins	Scott O'Dell	children's
I've already extensively reviewed this book because it was the Newbery medal winner in 1961. This is basically a fictionalized story of a real woman who was the last of her people to survive alone on an island in the Pacific. She lived there for 18 years before being brought to California in 1853. Her story in her words was never recorded because she died very soon after being "rescued," of dysentery, caught from the white people. You can see my much longer review at Island of the Blue Dolphins
The League of Frightened Men	Rex Stout	Mystery
One of the things I've done this year is to reread (maybe the 5th time) all of the Nero Wolfe books. There is hardly a bad one in the lot, but I do think I have a couple of favorites. Two of them are making this list. There is something so clever and creepy about this story that it captivates me every time. The "league" is a group of grown men who were all in the same fraternity in college. One of the hazing rituals (this story was written in 1935) was for a young man to cling to the side of the building and tiptoe along a ledge to get to the next window- we've all seen this done on TV. But in the story, the young man, Paul, falls and is crippled for life. The rest of the boys form their league to care for and help this man. Then one of them dies, and each one in the league receives an enigmatic poem suggesting that Paul was responsible for the death and that he scorns their pity. Then two more die and two more poems are received. The league employs Nero Wolfe to investigate.
The Lighthouse Road	Peter Geye	regional fiction
There are three books (this is the first) in this series which trace a family from its roots in Norway, to a logging camp in northern Minnesota, to modern times. The Lighthouse Road is only lightly diguised from being the Gunflint Trail, and the village of Gunflint is obviously Grand Marais, Minnesota. The books hop around from generation to generation in the chapters, but once you get used to that, it's ok. In fact, that technique helps build one of the author's points-- that we are shaped in many ways by our heritage whether we understand it or not. I'm not Norwegian, but I do accept that I am certainly a product of the ways my parents and grandparents were raised. I found that it resonated with me.
Too Many Cooks	Rex Stout	mystery
Here's another Nero Wolfe story, another of the early ones, from 1938. Wolfe has traveled to a chef's competition (one of the very few reasons he ever leaves his house), and of course someone is poisoned. Wolfe must convince the black staff persons to tell what they know about what happened. His speech to them is eloquent and very timely for being written almost 90 years ago. They have clammed up, not because one of them is actually guilty, but simply because the crime was "white man's business" and they disclaimed any responsibility for helping to solve it. Interestingly enough, the young man who finally "talks" comes to Wolfe many years later in A Right to Die, where the man's now-grown son does not share his father's appreciation for trust of the Caucasian Wolfe.
The Treasure of Our Tongue	Lincoln Barnett	linguistics
I also reviewed this book at length at Bunny Trail to a Treasure. Written in 1964, the opening is outdated, but after that it is just treat after treat about how so many words in the English Language came to be and are related.
Wicked Takes the Witness Stand	Mardi Link	true crime
This is another Michigan true crime book by the author of Isadore's Secret and When Evil Came to Good Hart. I know Mardi, so that makes it extra fun, if you can call true crime, fun. Anyway, this is an account of a 1986 murder in Gaylord. The crime is still unsolved, although it seems likely it was an accidental death from a drug overdose. The key witness is a mentally unstable woman who is coached and pampered by the prosecution to weave a story that put six people in prison for years until they were finally vindicated. Another scary story of good intentions to catch a murderer gone wrong.
World of the Celts	Simon James	history
This is a straight-up history book which attempts to trace who the Celts actually were and where they came from. It has LOTS of color pictures of artifacts. I had read it before, quite a few years ago, but there is so much valuable material, I decided to read it again.

In other news: I finished pulling the autumn olive in the main part of the yard, and got the first mowing done on that section. It was too hot and humid to do much outside. Not that it's exactly cool in the house, but the fans help. Made some progress on many projects, all too slowly, but that's no reason to give up! The stack of books is what I've read in the last two weeks.

See Best Books Read in 2022