Past editions of this list: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008. This list is also available in pictorial format at Pinterest, and I often post photos of books on Instagram too.
Picture above: The 44 books I finished in 2022
It was a very good year for reading here! Forty-four books finished. I stop reading books without guilt; so you can also assume I also didn’t finish a dozen or so titles, and it probably wasn’t any fault of theirs. I have continued to enjoy audio books through Libby and cloudLibrary. Reading (by ear and by eye) has improved my daily early morning walk, and given me some mental space to roam beyond my house’s four walls.
Notes: Just because I read a book and listed it here doesn’t mean I liked it or would recommend it. By my count (corrections welcome), 28/44 books listed are by female or non-binary authors this year. 37/44 are novels (including science fiction, fantasy, historical), 1 is a short story collection, 6 are memoirs (broadly defined). Some are classified as YA, but that’s not something I always notice. If there’s a slight Japan focus in this year’s list, that’s not an accident; daughter moved to Japan over the summer, and I visited her there in November.
These are numbered in more-or-less chronological order (sometimes I read more than one book at a time), from January to December.
1. Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun
2. Sarah Pinsker, We Are Satellites
3. Kimi Eisele, The Lightest Object in the Universe
4. Ann Patchett, The Dutch House
5. Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys
6. M. R. Carey, The Trials of Koli
7. Carrie Vaughn, Bannerless
8. Zoraida Cordova, The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina
9. Jennifer Bruder, Nomadland
10. Nell Scovell, Just the Funny Parts
11. Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police
12. Graeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody Project
13. Victor Lavalle, The Changeling
14. Paul La Farge, The Night Ocean
15. Claire Luchette, Agnes of Little Neon
16. Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland
17. Alexandra Kleeman, Something New Under the Sun
18. M. R. Carey, The Fall of Koli
19. Dawnie Walton, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev
20. Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
21. Sandra Newman, The Heavens
22. Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
23. Will Leitch, How Lucky
24. Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea
25. Erin Hope Day, If, Then
26. Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper
27. John Gerard Fagan, Fish Town
28. Lauren Groff, Matrix
29. Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters
30. Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
31. Susan Orlean, The Library Book
32. Carol Birch, Jamrach’s Menagerie
33. Peng Shepherd, The Cartographers
34. Tana French, The Searcher
35. Matt Haig, How to Stop Time
36. Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars
37. Tochi Onyebuchi, Riot Baby
38. Chuck Wendig, Wanderers
39. Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go In the Dark
40. Jhumpa Lahiri, Surroundings
41. Marieke Nijkamp, Before I Let Go
42. Tara Westover, Educated
43. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
44. Michel Faber, D
Pennamite 