2022 reading wrap-up

Every year end I like to do a roundup of my reading for the year. (Sometimes I even post them.) In 2021, I set a goal of reading 50 books, and accomplished exactly that. I was a little short of the same goal this year. I read 15. It's such an embarrassingly short list, I might as well just list the whole thing with a few comments.

I began the year with a fantasy classic: A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne. I've always liked Verne (and want to read more of him beyond the handful of his best-known works that I've done over the years). This choice stemmed from a conversation I had that inspired me to re-read it. I believe I was in my teens the last tie.

Next came True Grit, by Charles Portis. This is another re-read; I had read it for the first time in 2012. I decided in late 2021 that I wanted to expand my literary horizons a bit by reading an unfamiliar genre, and what's better for expansive horizons than Westerns? I actually started with Shane in late 2021, and my final novel of this year was The Virginian by Owen Wister, the first true novel of the Western genre.

After True Grit came yet another re-read: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. This classic spy novel was one of my "cursed" books: a short list of novels that I had started reading multiple times but never finished. I finally got through it, after five false starts, again in 2012. After seeing the British miniseries starring Alec Guinness, I decided to read it again. I also started the sequel, The Honourable Schoolboy, just before Christmas.

Over the years I have slowly been reading through Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels in order, and this year I read Witches Abroad. Being from a small town, I kind of appreciate the rustic humour of Granny Weatherwax and her friends. If I can make it through the series as far as Lords and Ladies this year, then I'll be poised to start on books that I have not previously read.

Roughly every six years I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. I believe this year was my fifth time through this quintessential fantasy story since the first time I read it in 1990. This is my favourite of the books I read in 2022. As a point of interest, Tolkien died in 1973, meaning it will be 50 years in September. That would have meant that in Canada, his works would pass into the public domain at the beginning of 2024. However, Canada extended copyright protection in 2022 from 50 to 70 years after the author's death—meaning LOTR remains under copyright now until 2044. (It isn't retroactive, though, so we can still download and read The Chronicles of Narnia with impunity.)

One of my long-term reading "projects" has been to work through the winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards for the best science-fiction and fantasy novels, in chronological order. I read one of these: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by the late Kate Wilhelm, which won the Hugo in 1977. Following an environmental catastrophe that leaves humans infertile, a group of scientists turns to human cloning to ensure the survival of the race. To their horror, the generation of clones rejects sexual reproduction and regards the surviving non-clones as obsolete. Probably the best novel I've read so far about cloning and its implications.

August 2022 was the 30th anniversary of the Ruby Ridge siege, about which see my previous post. To prepare that article, I re-read Every Knee Shall Bow by Jess Walter. This was one of only two nonfiction books on my list this year, where I normally aim for five. In my defense, I did an awful lot of nonfiction reading in 2022, if using programming textbooks as reference books counts.

I followed that up with The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, edited by Tom Shippey, which I reviewed briefly here in August.

The newest book I read in 2022 was No Plan B by Lee and Andrew Child, the latest thriller in the Jack Reacher series, hot off the press in late October. I read my first Reacher novel in 2012 (again), and it since became a habit to read a novel of the series when I went home for Christmas, on the return trip. This year, I caught up, which means now I'll have to find some other series of commercial thrillers to pass the time on the bus. I feel the quality of the series has decreased in recent years, but No Plan B felt like an improvement over the previous few outings.

On the outbound trip home, I read Andrew Klavan's short mystery thriller, When Christmas Comes. Klavan's use of language impresses me. I wish I was as impressed with the story, which felt like a short, somewhat lighteweight, John Grisham novel. Still, it was a good way to pass a couple of hours on the coach, and while When Christmas Comes was good rather than great, that didn't deter me from reading the sequel, A Strange Habit of Mind, sometime this year. Klavan is one of the authors I read for the first time this year, along with Wilhelm and Wister.

The last book of the year was, ironically, the one I started first: Morning Exercises, a book of devotional reading by Congregationalist minister William Jay. I'm happy to say this is the first year-long devotional book I've made it all the way through. (I started in 2020, but let's just overlook that part.) First published in 1828, this is the oldest book I read last year.

Though a short year for books, it was a good year. Normally I would have picked up a wallbanger or two, but the quality of my selections this year was surprisingly above average, such that I'm actually reluctant to name one book as "worst."

My goal for 2023 is to get back in the saddle and again achieve my nominal goal of 50 books, including at least five non-fiction ones. I'll continue with the Western genre. I want to read more poetry, after coming across some of William Cowper's (and it wasn't "God Moves in a Mysterious Way," either). I didn't read any of Stephen King's books in 2022, while he published two novels—and that means I'm now racing him to catch up. But I also want to clear away some of the incomplete books on my list, like Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills, Dickens' Bleak House, and T. H. White's The Once and Future King, amongst others. It's going to be a good year for reading.