The first novel I completed in January 2022 was Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah. The last was Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux translated by Tanya Leslie. From one Nobel Laureate to another! So that’s the the title of this post explained.
Reading resolution revisited
My reading resolution for last year, as for several years now, was to read to the end at least 50 titles. It seems every year I manage it by the skin of my teeth, or just fall short. In 2022 I fell short. At the end of the year I had two books on the the go, but both were still unfinished when the New Year bells rang out. I carry them over to 2023.
Counting everything up in bleary-eyed January, I found I’d read only 49 titles last year. One major problem was the reading doldrums I fell into in March that extended into May. For three of the year’s quarters I read fourteen titles each, but in the second quarter I only managed seven.
Nor did I manage to keep up blogging about my reading as much as in previous years. But that’s not part of this resolution, so I won’t beat myself up about it.
Anyway, here below – in alphabetical author order – are the 49 titles I read completely during 2022. Maybe there’s something here for your own reading list?
The books of 2022
As usual, titles connect to the book’s page on GoodReads where it exists. Author links go in the first instance to the author’s (and translator’s) professional website, in the second instance to their Wikipedia entry. And in the third instance to anywhere remotely relevant I’m able to point you!
- In Every Mirror She Is Black by Lola Akinmade Åkerström (I had the pleasure to meet Lola Akinmade Åkerström at SWF22)
- The Earliest English Poems edited and translated by Michael Alexander
- Are We Europe #15: Down to Earth (See also Fishcakes my grandmother made from May 2022)
- Are We Europe #16: Vices and Values
- Are We Europe #17: The Borders of the Union
- Rivers of London by Ben Aronovitch
- Stet: an Editor’s Life by Diana Athill
- Good Bones by Margaret Atwood (And see Wild Girls on the Salt Path from March 2022)
- Segra Eller Dö: Ett Reportage by David Baas (Swedish journalist – the links are to Swedish language pages)
- The Business by Iain Banks
- The Player of Games by Iain M Banks (The same person as Iain Banks above!)
- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- A Three Dog Problem by SJ Bennett
- Of Daisies and Dead Violins by SB Borgersen (One of my fellow Pens Around the World writers)
- The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves
- Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard (I had the pleasure to meet Aliette de Bodard at SWF22)
- Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter
- Dearie: a Narrative Memoir by Bruce Louis Dodson (One of my fellow Pens Around the World writers)
- A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie) (This is the Nobel Org link for Annie Ernaux)
- Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie) (This is the Wikipedia link for Annie Ernaux)
- The Promise by Damon Galgut
- Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah (This is the Nobel Org link for Abdulrazak Gurnah)
- Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah (This is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s page on the website of RCW his literary agency)
- Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer by Russell Hoban
- The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban
- Analfabeten by Agota Kristof (Swedish translation by Marianne Tufvesson) (I read this in Swedish translation. Links for the title and author go to English language pages. The translator’s link goes to her Swedish language Wikipedia entry.)
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Call for the Dead by John le Carré
- Silverview by John le Carré
- The Wild Girls Plus by Ursula K Le Guin (And see Wild Girls on the Salt Path from March 2022)
- The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
- Real Estate by Deborah Levy (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy
- The Kids by Hannah Lowe
- The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (See Old books – more than the sum of their parts from November 2022)
- Innan Frosten by Henning Mankell (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (Link goes to Macmillan, her publisher’s official page)
- The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
- The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohammed (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- A Daughter of the King by Catherine Pettersson (Links to her page on the Stockholm Writers Group website. I had the pleasure to meet Catherine Pettersson at SWF22)
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (See From Fortune Birds to Treacle Future in September 2022)
- Many Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen (See this blog post from January 2022)
- Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh
- Överlevarna by Alex Schulman (See also A Swiming race to disappointment and Machine translation and translating a literary text from June and July)
- The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida (I had the pleasure to meet Elise Valmorbida at SWF22)
- The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
