The Recap: 2022's Book Choices

Below are the books I chose to read in 2022, and as in previous years the crude rating system aims to give some indication of what I personally got from each of them. Any review is obviously as much about the reviewer as the title, so I don't guarantee you will get the same from any given book but hopefully it provides some guidance.

Choosing what to read for maximum reward is itself an absorbing activity, the result of extensive reading of trusted reviews and recommendations, coupled with past experience, personal interests, and a hefty dose of instinct. It's an enjoyable but inexact process so while the ratings are generally quite high as a result, things can be disappointing on occasions.

📖📖📖📖📖    Truly Special, exceptional

📖📖📖📖         Very Good, and deeply rewarding

📖📖📖              Middling to Good, worthwhile but not special

📖📖                   Poor and disappointing

📖                        Dreadful

+                           Plus half a rating

R                           Denotes a re-reading

January

Seeing Ourselves, Women's Self-Portraits - Frances Borzello     📖📖📖📖+

Nature Cure - Richard Mabey        📖📖📖+

It Says Here - Sean O'Brien           📖📖📖+

February

Detransition Baby - Torrey Peters                  📖📖📖📖

Experiments on Reality - Tim Robinson         📖📖📖

Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake                  📖📖📖📖

Derek Jarman's Modern Nature - Various      📖📖📖📖

          

March

Albert and the Whale - Philip Hoare        📖📖📖📖+

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter        📖📖📖📖+

April

Surviving the Arctic Convoys - Charlie Erswell     📖📖📖+

The Treeline - Ben Rawlence                               📖📖📖📖

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan            📖📖📖📖+

Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney               📖📖📖📖+

May

The Chosen - Elizabeth Lowry                             📖📖📖📖

The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy        📖📖📖📖+

Orlam - P J Harvey                                               📖📖📖📖

June

Thin Places - Kerri ni Dochartaigh                                   📖📖📖+

Wild Mull - Stephen Littlewood, Martin Jones (Eds)        📖📖📖📖

Archipelago, A Reader - Various                                      📖📖📖📖+

July & August

If Not, Winter - Sappho, Anne Carson (translator)    📖📖📖📖

After Sappho - Selby Wynn Schwartz                       📖📖📖📖📖

Nemesis, My Friend - Jay Griffiths                            📖📖📖📖+

England On Fire - Stephen Elcock, Matt Osman      📖📖📖📖+

Another Country - James Baldwin                            📖📖📖📖📖

September

Notes from an Island - Tove Jansson, Tuulikki Pietila     📖📖📖

American Gods - Neil Gaiman                                        📖📖📖+

October

Seven Steeples - Sara Baume                                   📖📖📖📖+

The Flow - Amy Jane Beer                                         📖📖📖📖📖

We Are Made of Diamond Stuff - Isabel Waidner       📖📖📖📖+

November

O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker                                 📖📖📖📖

Howdie Skelp - Paul Muldoon                                 📖📖📖📖+

The Birds - Tarjei Vesaas                                        📖📖📖📖📖

Simple Passion - Annie Ernaux                               📖📖📖📖

The Analog Sea Review: Number Two - Various     📖📖📖📖

December

The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters           📖📖📖📖

None of the Above - Travis Alabanza        📖📖📖📖+

Vuelta Skelter - Tim Moore                        📖📖📖+

Happy Reading!

See also:   2021 Book Choices and Ratings