Em’s 2022 Reading Roundup: The 24 books read + one-line reviews of my top 5
Total number of books read has dipped sharply in 2021 – again! From 52 in 2020 (mostly pre-baby), to 32 last year, to 25 this year.
A 32 per cent drop from last year to this year. A 55 per cent drop from pre-baby to now. This is unacceptable. I miss reading! Yeah, yeah, I hear you, you can't have a baby and expect life to stay the same. But this isn't the baby's doing, not all of it.
It's also been a year in which I held down three jobs – only one as a parent of a two-year-old. Another as a full-time journalist, and one as a writer, squeezing edits of my next book (publishing September 2023) and small-business admin into the fringes.
The fringes became thinner and thinner as this year on. A year that began with the death of a friend from cancer and continued full of stress from the above workload. Then came a long isolation period due to a bout of COVID-19 followed by pneumonia, and some terrible family news. A year that has ended with another long isolation due to more COVID-19, missing both our family Christmases, four of our closest friends' annual parties, and going without countless other small occasions of summer fun, connection and fellowship.
It's also a year I found myself starting a lot of books and discarding them after a few pages, and not making the effort to go out and buy books or request them at the library at the time I was excited about them, and then later lost my enthusiasm. I multiple times put on hold books I wanted to read, for books I felt I should read or was asked to read for various professional reasons. I also didn’t manage to do a proper review of each book I read, which was the goal.
Really, given how crappy this year has been, I should have turned to reading more, not less. But I lost myself, listlessly, in the glow of blue-lit screens when I should have snatched a minute to read. Most significantly, I didn't speak up, either to my closest loved ones or to myself, for what I needed: breathing space, alone. The responsibility is mine.
But I plan to address this decline before it is irreversible. I have dropped my journalism hours recently to three days a week so I can balance life a bit better. One of the new books I’ve just started is Stolen Focus by Yohann Hari. Watch this space … and for fun, I’m halfway through Wild Dogs by Michael Trant and I bought the new Stephen King. They’re on top of a to-be-read stack that also includes a Dickens biography, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Who Gets to be Smart by Bri Lee, and several others. Watch this space. I will not go gently into that good night.
Without further ado – here are my top recommended reads for the year (not all were published in 2022).
Em’s Top 5
The Every, Dave Eggers (contemporary fiction. A novel with big flaws, let down by its length, structure and ending, but also a refreshingly big, ambitious, complex, bitingly funny book that really grapples with what our society is and what it is becoming. Full review here.)
The Unicorn, Iris Murdoch (classic Gothic fiction. A piece of real literature that flooded my parched brain with memories of what it was to think, to contemplate synmbols and meanings, to glory in language, and to be lost in the compulsive pull of a story.)
The Spare Room, Helen Garner (contemporary fiction, fact-based. The mind-blowing beauty and precision of Helen Garner’s writing is why she is one of my all-time favourite authors. This account of the death of a friend came at a poignant time for me but is an incredible piece of writing that everyone should read. I was hard pressed as to whether I put this or the third volume of her diaries on the top five list; both blew me away.)
This One Wild and Precious Life: A hopeful path forward in a fractured world, Sarah Wilson (non-fiction, a mashup of science, philosophy, journalism, hiking manual and spiritual guidebook. This came thundering into my life at a time it was most sorely needed. A call to arms and a true inspiration that has reignited my will to act on climate, among other things. A beautiful object in itself, makes a wonderful gift for any person who cares about the world but feels paralysed or powerless, i.e. all of us.)
The Martian, Andy Weir. This one just completely knocked two others from the shortlist. A phenomenally researched, funny, utterly convincing, gripping piece of sci-fi. The year’s most pleasurable read. Yes, the movie was good, but the original is better.
My complete reading lists
Note: I didn’t read a bad book this year. These are all worth a read. Some of them were excellent. So if you have a question about one of these, leave it in the comments and I’ll let you know more!
Fiction
The Brink, Holden Sheppard (review here)
The Every, Dave Eggers
The Unicorn, Iris Murdoch
The Spare Room, Helen Garner
Seeing Other People, Diana Reid
Skimming Stones, Maria Papas
The Hush, Sara Foster (review here)
Monkey Grip, Helen Garner (re-read)
So Many Beats of the Heart, Carrie Cox (review here)
The River Mouth, Karen Herbert (review here)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
The Moonspinners, Mary Stewart
The Castaways of Harewood Hall, Karen Herbert (review here)
The Martian, Andy Weir
Mr Pye, Mervyn Peake
The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
Nonfiction
This One Wild and Precious Life, Sarah Wilson
Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I 1978–1987, Helen Garner
One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995, Helen Garner
How to End a Story: Diaries: 1995–1998, Helen Garner
Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown
Untamed, Glennon Doyle (review here)
The Family Firm, Emily Oster
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy
Women of a Certain Rage, Liz Byrski (ed, review here.)