The Year 2023 in Books

Continuing with our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through Sunday. Today we share the twenty-six (26) book reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2023.

(The cover for the book The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin).

Our highest rated read for 2023 was The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Earning 4.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5, the book, Rubin “set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” The subject matter was offering suggestions for how best to engage the construction of creatively made content effectively.

(The cover for the book Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon).

Five books earned 4.5-stars from Matt Lynn Digital in 2023, with Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon earning the top billing. The proper means for reading Heavy: An American Memoir is with an open mind and an open heart while aiming for empathy and understanding. Other books earning 4.5-stars include 60 Seconds & You’re Hired! by Robin Ryan, Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael D. Watkins.

(The cover for the book Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel).

Led by the Emily St. John Mandel book Sea of Tranquility: A Novel, three books read in 2023 earned 4.25-star ratings. The notion of experiencing a life moving through time and space on an emotional journey of self-discovery drew us to the St. John Mandel work. Other books also earning 4.25-stars were the extraordinary Dan Chaon book Sleepwalk and the Ernest Hemingway book To Have and Have Not.

(The cover for the book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers).

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter as written by Carson McCullers tops a stable of six books to earn 4.0-stars. The central point of the book using a mute as the protagonist while sharing the semi-autobiographical character Mick Kelly as an exposition for the writer were appealing concepts for the work. Others to earn a similar 4.0-star rating included Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

(The cover for the book The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel).

The Dava Sobel book The Glass Universe How the Ladies of Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars leads a stable of eleven (11) books to earn 3.75-stars for books that we read in 2023. Learning the histories of women including Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin made this reading worth the effort in recognizing women contributing to science and the social fabric of a society simultaneously. The remaining ten books we read this year included Stone Cold by David Baldacci, Red War by Kyle Mills in the Vince Flynn series, The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien with Guy Gruviel Kay and Christopher Tolkien, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving, Lethal Agent by Kyle Mills through Vince Flynn,  Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 10 Powerful Tools for Life and Work by Marilee Adams and Divine Justice by David Baldacci.

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Saturday, December 30, 2023

J.R.R. Tolkien and the book ‘The Silmarillion’

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien was published in September 1977, after the author’s death. Using an experience in Old English and Middle English partly as his muse, Tolkien, with an assist from Guy Gruviel Kay and Tolkien‘s son, Christopher Tolkien, wrote something more fictional history than epic fantasy with the world we get to see as precursors to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s better known works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

(J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the collection of myths named The Silmarillion that were completed and then published after his, Tolkien‘s, death).

A narrator of elven point-of-view offers knowledge and respect for the five sections presented in The Silmarillion. While a sense of depth and reality are given to specific events or characters through memory, legend or myth, we are given a testimonial of the age of the elves, the ascendancy of man, and the eventual sense of loss. A significant movement of the book centered on the Silmarils, three jewels created by the elf Fëanor. The motivations and narrative being of individual characters were not given much consideration with this book.

(Alternate covers for The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, which was completed and then published with the aid of his son Christopher Tolkien and fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay).

The five ages discussed by The Silmarillion began with Ainulindalë, providing the creation story of the world that is, called Eä. Valaquenta described the supernatural powers of the Valar and Maiar, peoples of Eä. Quenta Silmarillion provides the history of events before and during the First Age. Wars were fought over the Silmarils in this segment of the book. With the most significant segment of the book dealing in what became of these jewels, the book took its name. Occurring during the second age, Akallabêth details the downfall of Númenor and its people. The final section, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, summarizes the three books that were The Lord of The Rings.

(From left, Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay).

Given the scale of the stories of The Hobbit and the three books of The Lord of the Rings, asking for another three or four epics of fantasy seems like a daunting authorial task that I can see was beyond the lifetime ambition of one J.R.R. Tolkien. The groundwork for what came before serves an interesting world-building notion for those interested to inhabit; it is in this that I find appreciation for The Silmarillion. I grant The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, March 29, 2023