The Best Books of 2022
Here we are, at the end of another year so – time to look back at the year just gone by in a blur. I reviewed a record breaking 104 books this year! I doubt if that will ever be exceeded and, I’m guessing, only rarely equaled. I think it’s been a pretty good reading year overall with very few poor reads and not a single DNF. As usual I’ll list the best books below with the best of the best in BOLD.
Fiction:
In The Woods by Tana French
Victory by Julian Stockwin
Sharpe’s Honour by Bernard Cornwell
Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann
Ghosts of War by George Mann
The Liberation by Ian Tregillis
Dodgers by Bill Beverly
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
Defectors by Joseph Kanon
Caliban’s War by James S A Corey
Sixty Minutes for St George by Alexander Fullerton
The Hate U Give (THUG) by Angie Thomas
Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M Harris
The 12.30 From Croydon by Freeman Wills Crofts
God’s Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
The Horns of the Buffalo by John Wilcox
The Poisoned Island by Lloyd Shepherd
V2 by Robert Harris
November Road by Lou Berney
Non-Fiction:
One Summer – America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Seashaken Houses – A Lighthouse History from Eddystone to Fastnet by Tom Nancollas
Fast Food Nation – What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World by Eric Schlosser
Code Breakers – The Secret Intelligence Unit that Changed the Course of the First World War by James Wyllie and Michael McKinley
American Character – A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good by Colin Woodard
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Hiking With Nietzsche – Becoming Who You Are by John Kaag
The Physics of Wall Street – A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable by James Owen Weatheral
The King and the Catholics – The Fight for Rights 1829 by Antonia Fraser
Transcendence – How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time by Gaia Vince
Hurricane – Victor of the Battle of Britain by Leo McKinstry
Footnotes – How Running Makes Us Human by Vybarr Cregan-Reid
How Spies Think – Ten Lessons in Intelligence by David Omand
The Vertigo Years – Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914 by Philipp Blom
How To Lose A Country - The Seven Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran
Auntie’s War – The BBC During the Second World War by Edward Stourton
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism And Other Arguments for Economic Independence by Kristen R Ghodsee
Radio Caroline – The True Story of the Boat That Rocked by Ray Clark
As you can see it was a bumper year for great reads! Hopefully 2023 will be as good and I’m off to a good start as I’m presently reading one of the best books I’ve come across in years....
In other news...
The publication date age spread wasn’t bad this year – from 2021 to 1934, so a range of 87 years. I’d have liked to read more from the 19th century but that just didn’t happen this year. The average book length is still falling and is presently 315pp. I had hoped to hit 350pp at some point but that’s a LONG way off now. My reading speed/page count per day seems to have dropped off quite a bit despite having all the time I want to read these days. Not sure what’s causing that. My review pile is at rock bottom with only 3 waiting reviews. This will mean I’ll be prioritising some more short books coming up. But my future ‘plans’ will be addressed next Saturday.
15 comments:
Looks like a lot of variety! Have you watched the Fast Food Nation documentary? I feel like I watched it a long time ago but I might be mixing it up with "King Corn" which was also good.
Variety is what I do [grin]
Haven't seen the doc. I bought the book a LONG time ago and thought it was an interesting insight into the US Food industry. If I ever visit the US again I might have to bring my own food... [lol] But thankfully at least I wouldn't need to worry about your meat product regulations (or lack of)!
I haven't read many of those, but I did enjoy A Murder is Announced, V2 and The Poisoned Island. I will try to read more non-fiction in 2023 as I feel I've read very little this year!
I was struggling a few years back with non-fiction numbers, so I instituted 'Non-Fiction Sunday' which essentially meant that roughly 50% of my reads were non-fiction. It worked out really well. My only real problem is focusing on any particular topic!
I definitely have 'plans' for next year. We'll see how well they work out! [lol]
It's interesting how different the Schlosser subtitle is in your part of the world. Makes me wonder if the content is different!
I have a number of books with multiple sub-titles: one on the cover & one inside. Sometimes they're just slightly different, other times radically so. I don't know why publishing houses mess around with titles of books. I guess I can understand covers being different (different cultures and so on) but titles....?
Massive variety, love it. You get into way more detail than I do. Next year you can do my list for me, lol
Slow Horses and SAS Rogue Heroes are must reads whether or not you have seen them on TV. If you are interested in John le Carré’s secrets which were linked to the cousin of Field Marshal Montgomery, one Kim Philby, you should already have read about SAS Rogue Heroes, Dead Lions and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
However, you may have missed how 22 SAS Regiment was formed in Malaya (1952) and other gems so we suggest you read Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files about the real reprobates in MI6 aka Pemberton's People.
If you are interested in this and more besides do check it out at TheBurlingtonFiles website and for starters read the intriguing News Article dated 31 October 2022 … Pemberton’s People, Ungentlemanly Officers & Rogue Heroes. Rest assured, it is thrilling and intriguing stuff.
Thanks MI6, I have several of those books you listed in various piles. I hope to get around to at least 1-2 of them later in the year.
Great ... you should find them all intriguing, exciting and different.
I was surprised to find only one book on your list that I also read, One Summer, because we seem to talk about the books we read quite a lot. But I guess that just shows that there are so many great books out there and, even if we have similiar interests, we cannot possibly read them all.
It was nice to see your list. Thanks. And thanks for visiting mine.
I've said to Stephen, over at Reading Freely, that despite being interested in pretty much the same topics we always seem to find different books on them - often ones that the other has never heard of. But, as you say, there's a LOT of books out there plus Stephen & I are coming at things from rather different cultures and political perspectives.
I'm sure we'll hit a few targets in common soon enough. I know your Blog has prompted me to look at new authors or advance already owned books up my reading schedule. We'll see what the new reading year brings. I expect it'll be an interesting one. My 'plans' (such as they are) will be posted on Saturday.
And vice-versa. I seem to put books you talk about on my wishlist forever. One day, I will get to, well, if not all of them, at least some.
My Amazon List just gets longer and longer. I've learned to live with that... [grin]
I think we all have to. LOL
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