Read With Keri: Books I Read in January
The first book review post of 2023!
Who’s excited?
I love reading and sharing my recs with you. Whether or not we have similar tastes in books, I hope these posts are beneficial to you even if you never end up reading any of them.
There will be more book-related content coming up this year, and I hope you’re as excited as I am for another year of reading. To check out the full list of books I read this year, visit my 2023 Bookshelf, or follow me on Goodreads for real-time updates.
Reading looked different for me in January. With a newborn, I found myself gravitating towards audiobooks because I could feed Vienna and listen to a book simultaneously. At night, when Luke was home and holding Vi, I’d pick up my physical book. I say this because everybody’s reading journey is different, and if you’re not reading as many books as you’d like to, OR if the way you read books is changing, that is okay.
With that said, I finished four books in January: two that I adored, and two that I think are “skippable.”
Organizing Your Office and Your Life: Clear the Clutter and Your Mind — Laura Stack (3.5/5 stars)
I started off the year by listening to this super-quick audiobook on organizing your office (and therefore, apparently, your life). This quick read focuses on ways to organize your office (mostly, all the paper that typically comes your way during the workday). I enjoyed learning the different suggestions Laura provides, including scheduling 15-30 minutes at the end of each workday to go through emails and various papers and make a to-do list for the next day. Some of her ideas were outdated because the book was written a while ago, but still a good resource for inspiration.
The 15-Minute Inbox: Control Email. Create Time. Lead Your Business. — Joost Wouters (2.5/5 stars)
How to have a 15-minute inbox can be summed up in less time than it took to read this book. My goodness was it repetitive! Joost provides a list of strategies so your email inbox doesn’t dictate your workday, and don’t get me wrong, they were great ideas. But he went on (and on and on) about them. Here are a few of them so you don’t have to read this book:
Turn on and customize your out-of-office automated email response when you’re working on a big project so you’re not constantly being distracted by emails.
Unsubscribe from, or create rules for, email newsletters and various emails that don’t require a response so they either don’t come into your inbox at all or automatically go into a folder that you can review later.
Check your email in the morning and if an email requires a response that will take less than 5 minutes, do it then.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones — James Clear (5/5 stars)
Can you tell January ended up being a book month about habits and ways to organize your life? It wasn’t intentional, but I’m okay with it. I finally read Atomic Habits, and it is a phenomenal read. I’ve had it on my “Want to Read” list forever and it finally became available on Libby. The book details how we form habits, why habits are so important, and explains strategies to create new habits and break old ones.
The Violin Conspiracy — Brendan Slocumb (5/5 stars)
This was my only fiction book for the month. It came highly recommended by my sister-in-law, and I always trust her recommendations. She’s never steered me wrong! This was no exception; I loved this one. The Violin Conspiracy came out in 2022. It’s about an up-and-coming classical violinist, Ray, who is constantly faced with others’ preconceived notions that a Black person can’t be a professional classical musician. He also happens to be the owner of a rare and extremely valuable violin, which mysteriously goes missing days before the most intense competition in Ray’s life. It’s equal parts mystery, thriller, and “coming of age” fiction and I loved it.