2022 Reading Retrospective

2022 saw a resurgence in my reading habit. I read 77 of books in total. I thought it would be fun to break down my favorites for the year including some honorable mentions, the worst books that I read this year, and wrap up with some graphic novels that I enjoyed.

Top Books That I read in 2022

In no particular order, the following are the top books that I read in 2022. These books introduced me to new ideas, inspired me, or challenged me.

Sea of Tranquility

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John-Mendel is the second book that I’ve read by this author. My introduction to her fiction came by way of the HBO adaptation of Station Eleven. Though I read that book this year after watching the HBO mini-series, it did not make this list. The HBO series upstaged it through it’s optimistic interpretation of the source material. Ironically, there’s a passage in Sea of Tranquility that addresses one of the criticisms that I have for Station Eleven the novel.

Setting Station Eleven aside, Sea of Tranquility is is a fascinating scienve fiction story. The second novel that I’ve read this year to address the topic of simulation theory, and this was much more sincere than the jokey Off to Be the Wizard. That sincerity sold me on the characters (especially Gaspery-Jacques).

Without spoiling anything, there’s also a narrative structure that I really enjoy when it’s done well. This structure turned a sincere character study into an engaging puzzle, and led to me to recommend it to the sci-fi readers in my personal and work life. It’s also the reason that my wife got annoyed by my not reading it with her. She knew that I would love it!

The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book is the fourth novel that I’ve read by Neil Gaiman (seventh if we count the two volumes of Sandman that introduced me to him in high school). While I don’t think that this book will stick with me as much as American Gods, I very much appreciated it’s depiction of Death and the dead. Death in this book is a kindly woman riding a gray horse, and once a year you might chance a dance with her and the dead. This dance they call The Macabre.

In a year that has come after a family lose, and in which I’ve had to support a partner in her grief, a positive and kindly Death was very much appreciated. If there is an afterlife, and there is someone to greet me on the otherside, I would very much love for it to be Gaiman’s depiction of Death in The Graveyard Book. And while I’m not very adept at dancing, I could see myself embracing The Macabre with gusto!

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes chronicles Caitlin Doughty’s early journey through the death inducstry. Much of the memoir is focused on her experiences working in a cremetorium directly after college. One of many books that I read this year that focused on death because of recent personal events, this book enchanted me with it’s frank discussion of the day to day life handling dead bodies. I found a lot of compfort and inspiration in the normalcy of death.

Worth noting, I also read Doughty’s other books this year: Will my Cat Eat my Eyeballs, and From Here to Eternity. The later was a close second to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. It deals with different death practices around the world, and is very much worth a read.

Dolores Claiborn

This year I have read five Stephen King novels: The Mist, Fire Starter, The Shining, Misery, and Dolores Claiborn. While I’ve read a handful of his books this year. I struggled with him this year. There’s a lot that I’ve found objectional about his writing (more on that later). That said, Dolores Claiborn is a treasure. I was feeling fed up with him, when my wife suggested that we read this book together. We downloaded the audio book from Audible, and I fell in love.

I may continue on to read other Stephen King novels, but so far the only one that I could see myself revisiting is Dolores Claiborn.

In Emergency, Break Glass

In Emergency, Break Glass by Nate Anderson explores what Nietzshe can tell us about focus in the attention economy. Some of the ideas that really stuck with me including the question of “if you were restricted in what you can read, what would your personal cannon be?” I’ve given that a lot of thought since reading In Emergency, Break Glass. I’ve already started to maintain a list of my cannon, and I’m hoping to start writing that up in this blog soon.

Parable of the Sower

Every year at Christmas, my cousin and I exchange books. Typically we send eachother a book that we read in the last year, but more recently we started exchanging lists. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler was on my 2021 Christmas list.

Parable of the Sower and the suquel Paravle of the Talents, which I also read this year, focuses on Lauren Olamida as she founds a new religion called Earth Seed in a post collapse United States. The novel is epistolary with each chapter comprised of at least one entry from Lauren’s journal. Through these entries we follow her as she is uprooted from her home in Southern California, and has to travel north along the Interstate. Through the formation of her own religion she embraces mutual aid and forges new alliances with strangers in order to survive.

As climate change worsens, institutions erode, and facism sees an increase in power across the globe, Parable of the Sower is more relavent today than it was in 1993.

Kingdom Come

I started reading comics again in 2022. With that I started looking at books that I hadn’t gotten around to reading, but had heard great things about. One of those books was Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. This was by far the most beautiful graphic novel I have ever read. Every panel is an oil painting. It’s rich in light and shadows. The characters are drawn with so much life and expression. Art alone would put this in my top ten for the year.

Aside from art, I really found the disillusioned priest to be a compelling protagonist. Despite being a vehicle for the audience to witness the events, he fit so well with the religious motifs and made a great foil for The Specter.

Remote Control

I found Remote Control by Nnendi Okorafor in a list of holiday reading on Ars Technica. The book features the wanderings of a young girl through a futuristic Nigeria. She has been blessed (cursed?) with the ability to kill technology (and people). She’s become a living legend, and is known widely as the Adopted Daughter of Death.

As I read this book, I saw it very vividly. If I had a billion dolors, I would option the rights to make a film and try to find the right person to make it. I was rivited and could not put it down. If I had to pick a book of the year from this short list, Remote Control would be a strong contender.

As a side note, I also encountered the author, Nnendi Okorafor, while reading The Shining this year. I was curious about what people were saying about King’s represantion of Black folk, and ended up reading her article about the magical negro trope.

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates was another Christmas present from my cousin. I had never read anything Coates before, though I had seen him interviewed a few times by Ezra Klien. The book contains a couple of letters that Coates has written for his son detailing what it is to be a Black man in the US. I found it gripping, compelling, and challenging. I think the phrasing of “people who think that they are white” still sticks with me since reading Between the World and Me.

The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin and subsequent novels in The Broken Earth trilogy tell the story of an opressed minority of people that are cabable of powerful terramancy. The novels deal with issues of slavery, sexuality, gender, and motherhood. The Fifth Season also includes a narrative structure that I also enjoyed in The Sea of tranquility, but won’t spell out because of potential spoilers.

This trilogy is my second foray into Jemisin’s work. I read How Long Til Black Future Month before the pandemic. I’m thinking about picking up The City We Became next.

Honorable Mentions

The following books were books that I enjoyed, but didn’t quite make the cut to be on my top 10 list. They are again in no particular order.

Locke & Key

I mainly wanted to read Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez because of the Netflix show. I haven’t watched the show yet, because I wanted to read the graphic novels first. The graphic novels feature very imaginitve concepts for how the magical keys work and solve the problems that the characters face. The artwork is fantastic. Unfortunately, there’s just too much sexual assault and other problematic elements for me to put it in my top 10 list.

I also didn’t realize when I started that Joe Hill was Stephen King’s son. I can see some stylistic similarities, and it’s interesting that one of the parents in the story deals with alcoholism. From what I know of The Black Phone, which had a film adaptation release this year, there may be a running motif in Joe Hill’s work related to parental alcoholism. I’ll see if I spot more of that in anything else of his that I read.

10% Happier

I had been meaning to read 10% Happier by Dan Harris for years. I bought it with an Audible credit years ago, and finally got around to listening to it this January. I found it rather resonant, and it finally got me to try meditation. I think it may be a good candidate for my personal cannon, and may write about it further in the future.

The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu is a highly imanginative science ficition about an alien invasion that explores the nature of humanity and our understanding of the universe. It had some unfortunately odd choices in its plot structure, and some very poorly placed exposition dumps, so I coudln’t quite put it in my top 10. I read all three novels back to back this year. I would recommend it to anyone who loves sci-fi.

Misery

Misery by Stephen King is a clearly close and personal work that’s dedicated to his biggest fan: cocaine. The story follows a writer with a substance abuse problem that gets in an accident and is held hostage by a fan. This fan then forces him to ressurect their favorite character and write a new novel just for them. I think this is the most genuine piece of work that I’ve read from King, and so far it’s the only other book of his that I’ve liked aside from Dolores Claiborne.

Ratio

Ratio by Michael Ruhlman is a cookbook that teaches it’s readers fundamental ratios for cooking. These allow a cook to make simple things like bread or a ruex; and transform them into more complex food. Since getting this book, I’ve made some excellent pancakes and made my own gravy for poutine.

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood is another book that I finally got around to this year. The tale about a woman forced into sexual slavery to help Christo-facists reproduce is unfortunately more relevant than ever now that the Supreme Court of the United States has undermined the right to bodily autonomy. The Handmaid’s Tale is a clever and scathing book that’s likely a little too defeatist to make my top 10. I’m hoping that there’s more resistence in The Testaments when I finally get around to reading the sequel.

Worst Books that I read in 2022

Unfortunately, I can’t like every book. The following books in no particular order were the books that I didn’t like but still finished.

John Dies at The End

John Dies at The End is an inventive and occasionally funny horror comedy. Unfortunately, at around 400 pages it overstayed its welcome, and had enough r-slurs to make me want to toss my iPad. I wanted to love this book. I just couldn’t.

One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One Who Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a book that I probably should have read in highschool. Reading it my 30s wasn’t very impactful. I just couldn’t click with it, and since it’s this classic that’s had its reputation extolled quite a bit, it fell so short of expectations that it ended up on my worst books list.

Fire Starter

Stephen King has a long history of problematic elements in his writings. Fire Starter features a monsterously scared Native American that seems to be a blend of nobel savage and sociopath. There’s also a character that’s presented as mentally unstable because they experience a desire to cross dress, and with a push from one of our PoV characters they end up unraveling. Ultimately they commit suicide by way of garbage disposal, which seems like an example of the kill your gays trope. Like most of the books on my worst list, I almost didn’t finish it.

Stranger In a Strange Land

I’m done with Robert Heinlien. I’ve read Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Stranger in a Strange Land. His libertarianism is bad, and if we were still alive he should feel bad. I think the only positive thing that I could say about Stranger in a Strange Land is that it once and for all showed me that Robert Heinlien is not an author that I want to spend more time on.

Notable Comics

With my return to reading comis this year, I thought I’d also mention some other great graphic novels that I read.

Maus

Before the book bannings in 2022, I read Maus by Art Spiegelman. It was on my 2021 Christmas list, and I was curious about it since it’s the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer. Maus explores generational trauma through the relationship between Art and his father Vladek who survived Aushwitz. It’s an unflinching view of a horrendeous episode in history. The only reason I can’t quite put it in my top 10 is the depiction of Polish people as pigs. That didn’t sit well with me, and I think there is likely some ethnic resentment that led to that particular choice.

Moon Knight

In andvance of the TV series, I read the Moon Knight run from 2016. It was visually stunning, and likely had the most interesting panneling and page layout of any graphic novel I read this year. It was worth the read, and I liked it quite a bit better than the Disney+ adaptation of the character.

Umbrella Academy

After watching the most recent season of Netflix’s Ubrella Academy, I decided to read the Gerard Way comics that the series adapts. The series in inventive, but reads as all the ideas that Way could throw up against the wall whether they stuck or not. If someone’s already a fan of the show and is itching for more, the series is certainly worth a read.

Hellboy

I was feeling a little nostalgic around my birthday, and decided that I wanted to watch the Guillermo del Torro Hellboy film (along with Pan’s Labrynth and The Shape of Water). After watching that film, I was curious to see what Hellboy books I could get through my local library. I ended up reading 17 Hellboy and 2 BPRD trade paperbacks (TPB).

Asside from a trip down memory lane (and finding new stories that came out after I was in high school), I found myself really appreciating the sketch books at the end of each TPB. They’ve been a nice resource for learning more about drawing and sketching. I’ve also taken the opportunity to screenshot some panels that I want to study.

Through my most recent read through of the series, it was also fascinating to see more of the Mike Mignola’s writing process. There are many Hellboy stories that involve taking older folk tales and inserting Hellboy into them. It’s a great re-mixing of older fiction.

Final Thoughts

One of my goals this past year has been to avoid buying books and to use the library more. I’ve felt very accomplished given that at least 47 of the books that I read this year came from my local public library.

I wanted to read more comics. Not only because I missed the genera, but also because I’ve been solwly teaching myself to draw. In 2022, I read 36 graphic novels.

Overall 2022 was an excellent year for reading, and I feel pretty proud of all the books that I’ve read.

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