2022 reading round-up

[lizbee]

For reference, here is my 2021 reading round-up

What's notable is that I read 95 books in 2021 ... and I read 95 books in 2022. It's a sweet spot, I guess.



By genre and audience:

Classics: 1 (that was Sense and Sensibility, back when I had time to think about doing a podcast)

Contemporary (adult): 5
Contemporary (YA): 2
Contemporary (middle grade): 4

Last year I said, "I think we can safely say that adult contemp is not my genre -- I am trying to branch out, but 100% of those books were by Liane Moriarty." Obviously I have reconsidered - only 20% of those five books were by Moriarty, and I read two books about, um, dramas among families who live in Melbourne's affluent eastern suburbs. Aliens, basically.

Middle grade contemp remains an absolute standout -- I would wholeheartedly recommend every single book I read in that category:

How To Tackle Your Dreams - Fiona Hardy
The Goodbye Year - Emily Gale
The Jammer - Nova Weetman
Dress Coded - Carrie Firestone

It's probably not a coincidence that three of the four were Australian. Of particular note is The Goodbye Year, one of the few recent contemps I've read to acknowledge covid, and specifically the Melbourne covid experience.

Fantasy (adult): 10
Fantasy (MG): 2

I said last year, "It's weird to realise how much fantasy is also not my genre."

So really I should stop making these proclamations.

HOWEVER, five of the ten adult fantasies were by Tolkien (I counted the LotR appendices as a separate book), as was one of the two middle grades.

The fantasy authors other than Tolkien were:

• Ben Aaronovitch
• Shelley Parker-Chan
• Rebecca Roanhorse
• Davinia Evans
• Amie Kaufman and Ryan Graudin

Three of the five are actually my friends, and all their works are outstanding. But I will draw particular attention to Notorious Sorceror by Davinia Evans, as a queer adventure-romance with fantastic worldbuilding, which I think deserve more attention than it's getting.

Graphic novels: 4. Three were by Neil Gaiman, because I made the mistake of rereading Sandman ahead of the Netflix series. (This was only a mistake because it highlighted the shocking mediocrity of the adaptation in comparison to the original works.)

Historical fiction (adult): 2
Historical fiction (MG): 3

There was technically more historical fiction than this, but it slotted into other genres like mystery. These were the pure historicals.

I thought I'd try a Dunnett reread, but lost momentum.

Memoir: 2

If I were to compile a top 5 or top 10 books for 2022, Jeannette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Is Dead would be up there.

Mystery (adult): 32
Mystery (YA): 2

ANOTHER YEAR OF CRIME

I particularly enjoyed Laura Shepherd-Robinson's two novels, based around a couple whose marriage of convenience is full of problems (starting with the fact that they can never quite be in love with each other at the same time). But I also read all of Attica Locke's works, Emma Viskic's quartet about a Deaf Australian PI, and I'm now into a Barbara Hambly reread. There was also a fair amount of Ann Cleeves.

Non fiction: 16

This includes two DNFs, The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough by Ophelia Field and Women All On Fire by Alison Plowden - for some reason, that particular brand of feminist history isn't working for me these days.

Overall my NF reading was an unhealthy mixture of history, politics and true crime, with a particular interest in Soviet Russia, just because.

I'd like to get into some Communist Chinese history this year, but it's hard to find good sources because the Chinese Communist Party is still a going concern, and its members (I assume?) use crowdsourced reviews to muddy the waters when it comes to quality and accuracy. (See also: my attempts to find good books about contemporary Russia, although the war in Ukraine has led to more books being published and reviewed by sources I trust.)

Science fiction (adult): 7
Science fiction (YA): 1
Science fiction (MG): 1

I started the year reading Leviathan Falls, the final book in the Expanse series. It was a fitting and well-earned end to the series, with a bunch of new characters who didn't feel intrusive, but I was pretty outraged that we're nine books in and suddenly Jim Holden is hot. To me. And all it took was a time skip of decades followed by several months of torture. Do not appreciate being pandered to in this manner (please keep pandering).

That was literally the only adult SF novel I read by a white person; everything else was by people of colour. And I would like to thank the genre for making it so easy to find diverse SFF; it's much, much harder in other areas.

The highlight, though, was the middle grade novel, Mars Awakens by H. M. Waugh, which is hard SF for kids with great worldbuilding and characters. It felt in some respects like "what if The Expanse but for young audiences?" which is not at all a bad thing. Middle grade SF is as rare as hen's teeth, especially from Australian authors, so I'm delighted to have Waugh around.

Author stats

Last year, just 13% of my reading was from authors of colour, and I resolved to do better. But I'm a little scared to tally the numbers up, because while I did great early in the year, by mid-year I was sort of in a slump and did a lot of rereading...

Australian authors: 26%
Authors of colour: 22%
Women: 66%
Non-binary authors: 1

Clearly there's room for improvement across these metrics, and I'm going to keep actively seeking out authors of colour. (I would be delighted to accept recommendations for mysteries and crime novels, particularly by WoC; I don't care for cosies or hardcore noir, but will give anything else a go.)

The nerdiest stats

Rereads: 19
Library loans: 33
Ebooks: 66

My goals for 2023 are, as I said, to diversify my reading, and also to get back into actively following YA and MG releases. And I'm gonna see if I can create a similar spreadsheet to keep an eye on TV viewing - I have Letterboxd for movies, but I always forget what TV I've watched.

Comments

[aella_irene]

I have recs! 1) The Ben January series by Barbara Hambly, (and, if you can get hold of it, her Abigail Adams series, writing as Barbara Hamilton, in which Abigail Adams is trying to solve crimes and run a household with four children while John gets involved in politics. She will get the cow milked and then she will solve the crimes!) 2) China Mieville's October: The Story of the Russian Revolution which is a book about the Revolution which I found hopeful, and charming, because most of the terrible things haven't happened yet, and the response of the revolutionaries to new information/events is often "We shall hold an urgent committee meeting."

[kelly_chambliss]

(Oops, I see that I accidentally just commented on your 2021 post instead of this current one. Sorry! Well, better late than never?)