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

2021 Book Choices and Ratings

Below are the titles I chose to read in 2021, 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 is of some assistance.

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 priorities, 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

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte     📖📖📖📖+

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck        📖📖📖📖📖

The Waste Land - T S Eliot                             📖📖📖+

February

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters     📖📖📖📖+

Sisters - Daisy Johnson           📖📖📖📖

March

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck                            📖📖📖📖📖

Begin Again - Eddie S Glaude Jr                                📖📖📖📖+

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou   📖📖📖📖

April

Diary of a Young Naturalist - Dara McAnulty              📖📖📖📖

Spirit of Place - Susan Owens                                    📖📖📖

Ness - Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood          📖📖📖📖

May

Figuring - Maria Popova                             📖📖📖📖📖

The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin         📖📖📖📖📖

The Snow Ball - Brigid Brophy                   📖📖📖+

June

Women & Power - Mary Beard                               📖📖📖+

The Secrets We Kept - Lara Prescott                     📖📖📖📖

Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy      📖📖📖📖+

July

Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak                     📖📖📖+

The Passenger: Japan - Various                       📖📖📖📖

August

What it Feels Like for a Girl - Paris Lees                   📖📖📖📖

Empireland - Sathnam Sanghera                              📖📖📖📖

Nova Swing - M John Harrison                                  📖📖📖📖+

Tokyo: Art & Photography - Ashmolean Museum      📖📖📖📖+

September

Strange Bliss - Katherine Mansfield                                  📖📖📖

Luckenbooth - Jenni Fagan                                               📖📖📖📖

Gigantic Cinema - Alice Oswald & Paul Keegan (Eds)      📖📖📖+

October & November

Virginia Woolf - Hermione Lee                                     📖📖📖📖📖

Cheerful Weather for the Wedding - Julia Strachey     📖📖📖+

A Month in the Country - J L Carr                                 📖📖📖📖

December

Sterling Karat Gold - Isabel Waidner                      📖📖📖📖+

English Magic - Uschi Gatward                              📖📖📖📖

Treacle Walker - Alan Garner                                 📖📖📖📖

The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman          📖📖📖📖

Village Christmas - Laurie Lee                                📖📖📖📖

Here's to rich reading rewards of all kinds...

See also:  2020 - Reading in the Time of Covid

2020 - Reading in the Time of Covid

In this most difficult and disturbing of years my appetite for reading has unsurprisingly ebbed and flowed more than usual, and books have served many purposes, from aiding rationalisation of the world and local situations to providing much necessary insight, inspiration and motivation on a range of fronts. And considerable pleasure and perhaps a little escapism too. For what it's worth I share below the titles I chose to read, and as in previous years the crude rating system aims to give a measure of what I personally got from them. Any review is 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 is of some assistance...

📖📖📖📖📖    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

Genius and Ink - Virginia Woolf                  📖📖📖+          

The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino        📖📖📖📖

Ice - Anna Kavan                                        📖📖📖📖📖     

Anna Kavan's hallucinatory apocalyptic masterpiece may be over 50 years old, but is so relevant it hurts, and leaves you rightly scarred. Approach with caution...                      

February

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo        📖📖📖📖

On A Sunbeam - Tillie Walden                          📖📖📖📖                          

Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare                📖📖📖📖+

Diversity rules, ideal leap year fare!

March

Land - Antony Gormley, Clare Richardson, Jeanette Winterson        📖📖📖📖📖

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel                                                                      📖📖📖📖+    

Jeanette Winterson always writes brilliantly about art (see her Art Objects) but in the small polished gem of Land, developed around five of Antony Gormley's exquisitely located statues photographed by Clare Richardson, she excels. You could rush through it in an hour, but linger, reflect, leave and return, be open to being moved, and the rewards multiply...

April

Short Life in a Strange World - Toby Ferris                      📖📖📖+

Funny Weather, Art in an Emergency - Olivia Laing        📖📖📖📖

Strange times...

May

Lives of Houses - Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee (editors)    📖📖📖

The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld                📖📖📖📖📖

Territory of Light - Yuko Tsushima                                                📖📖📖📖

The extraordinary explicit disturbing family meltdown of Rijneveld's debut is not for the faint-hearted, and cannot be unread.

June

Unquiet Landscape - Christopher Neve       📖📖📖📖

Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf                📖📖📖📖+

Bloomsbury in Sussex - Simon Watney        📖📖📖📖

July

Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel    📖📖📖📖+

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood    📖📖📖📖

August

On the Red Hill - Mike Parker                                    📖📖📖📖+

The Man Who Went into the West - Byron Rogers     📖📖📖📖+

The draw of Wales...

September

Song at the Year's Turning - R.S. Thomas    📖📖📖📖+

Summer - Ali Smith                                        📖📖📖📖

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter           📖📖📖+

A Shropshire Lad - A.E. Housman                📖📖📖

Pew - Catherine Lacey                                  📖📖📖📖

Magnetic Field - Simon Armitage                  📖📖📖📖+

October

Fairest - Meredith Talusan                    📖📖📖+

Selected Poems - Dylan Thomas         📖📖📖📖+

On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin        📖📖📖📖📖 

On Connection - Kae Tempest             📖📖📖+

Chatwin's empathetic capture of Welsh hill farming life and hardship is unparalleled and quite beautiful; it was moving to read this while holidaying in the Black Mountains this autumn, walking the very hills, and past the particular farms, on which it is based.

November

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong                        📖📖📖📖+

The Owl Service - Alan Garner                                                    📖📖📖📖

The Mabinogion - Sioned Davies (translator)                              📖📖📖

No One is Too Small to Make a Difference - Greta Thunberg     📖📖📖📖
(though the message is pure five-star)

December

Behold, America - Sarah Churchwell                                        📖📖📖📖📖

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again - M. John Harrison    📖📖📖📖+

Carol - Patricia Highsmith                                                         📖📖📖📖📖

The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) - Alain Fournier            📖📖📖📖+

Sarah Churchwell's deeply disturbing forensic book nails the history of the huge dark heart of the US up to World War Two, but it's glaringly obvious this persists to the present day (who can miss it in the news?), to the point where Trump can still tap into it to get 74 million votes after four appalling years as President.

After this my mood was wonderfully rescued by Patricia Highsmith's ground breaking lesbian romance from the 1950s, which took decades to achieve respectability after originally being released under a pseudonym. It's exquisitely paced and gradually builds the tension like the thrillers for which Highsmith is best known, and is so good I almost don't want to watch the recent film in case it spoils it (though I know the film is highly regarded).

 

Here's to continued great reading in 2021, in hopefully happier circumstances

See Also: 2019 Reading Choices & Ratings

2019 Reading Choices & Ratings

Once again here for your consideration are my past year's reading choices, plus simple ratings to indicate broadly what I personally got from each book (rather than what others may have thought).

An (R) next to a title denotes a re-reading.

📖 📖 📖 📖 📖  Truly Special, exceptional.
📖 📖 📖 📖       Very Good and deeply rewarding.
📖 📖 📖             Middling to Good, competent and worthwhile but not special.
📖 📖                   Poor and disappointing.
📖                         Dreadful.
+                            Plus half a rating.

January

Everything Under - Daisy Johnson   📖 📖 📖 📖 📖

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Simon Armitage & Clive Hicks-Jenkins   📖 📖 📖 📖
On the Marshes - Carol Donaldson   📖 📖 📖 + 

February

The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad   📖 📖 📖 📖

Three Poems - Hannah Sullivan   📖 📖 📖 📖 
Battleship Yamato - Jan Morris   📖 📖 📖 +

March

Seven Gothic Tales - Isak Dinesen   📖 📖 📖 📖

Art Objects - Jeanette Winterson   📖 📖 📖 📖 +
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf   📖 📖 📖 📖 📖

April

Orlando - Virginia Woolf (R)   📖 📖 📖 📖 📖

Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees   📖 📖 📖 +
Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom - Sylvia Plath   📖 📖 📖 +

May

Grayson Perry - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Wendy Jones   📖 📖 📖 +

Conundrum - Jan Morris   📖 📖 📖 📖
Spring - Ali Smith   📖 📖 📖 📖
Among the Bohemians - Virginia Nicholson   📖 📖 📖 📖

June

All The Lives We Ever Lived - Katharine Smyth   📖 📖 📖 📖 +

Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector   📖 📖 📖 📖
Underland - Robert Macfarlane   📖 📖 📖 📖 📖 

July

Hidden Nature - Alys Fowler   📖 📖 📖 📖+

Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney   📖 📖 📖 +
Unsheltered - Barabara Kingsolver   📖 📖 📖 📖

August

Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri   📖 📖 📖 📖

Horizon - Barry Lopez   📖 📖 📖 📖 📖  

September

To See Clearly, Why Ruskin Matters - Suzanne Fagence Cooper   📖 📖 📖 +

Light - M.John Harrison   📖 📖 📖 📖 + 
The Mother of All Questions - Rebecca Solnit   📖 📖 📖 +
Europa - Sean O'Brien  📖 📖 📖 📖 +

October

The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson   📖 📖 📖 📖 +

Tomorrow Will be Different - Sarah McBride   📖 📖 📖 📖 +
The Education of an Idealist - Samantha Power   📖 📖 📖 📖
Surfacing - Kathleen Jamie  📖 📖 📖 +

November

The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin   📖 📖 📖 📖

A Year Without A Name - Cyrus Grace Dunham  📖 📖 📖 📖 +
Where There's A Will - Emily Chappell   📖 📖 📖 📖
What Time Is It? - John Berger & Selcuk Demirel   📖 📖 📖 📖

December

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang   📖 📖 📖 📖

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson   📖 📖 📖 📖 +
Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot   📖 📖 📖 📖 

Happy New Year's Reading

See also: 2018 Reading Choices & Ratings