Once again, it's time for my yearly reading roundup. In 2022 I read 66 books. Since I started keeping track in 2007, I've read 1063 books.
Here is the list of books I read with links to the Amazon page and authors with links to their websites (or other media presence).
In 2022 I read a total of 14,182 pages and listened to 310 hours of audiobooks. The longest book I read was Daniel Silva's Portrait of an Unknown Woman, 496 pages, and the shortest book I read was מותרות by Yael Mishali, 176 pages. The longest audiobook I listed to was John Irving's The Last Chairlift, 32 hours and 47 minutes long. The shortest audiobook was Julie Otsuka's Swimmers, 4 hours and 6 minutes long.
My biggest accomplishment this year was reading three books in Hebrew! Two novels by women I follow on Facebook and a very interesting historical novel about Joanna, the wife of Shlomo Halevi, a Spanish Jew who converted to Christianity, and became an archbishop. I enjoyed all three books and recommend them.
I read or listened to 11 nonfiction books in 2022. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family and The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice were both outstanding and thought provoking. I enjoyed Noa Tishby's Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth but I felt like she's preaching to the prior and I find it hard to believe she'll convince anyone that Israel isn't evil personified if that's what they think. Listening to Michelle Obama narrate her own book, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, is a treat and regardless of politics I once again came away with a tremendous amount of respect for her and President Obama.
One third of the books I read (22) were by authors I've previously read. I believe in loyalty and also in giving authors a second chance. I didn't love Jake Tapper's second novel, The Devil May Dance, and I think I'll give any future novels a miss. By far the most disappointing book from a beloved author was Faye Kellerman's The Hunt, which supposedly is the last book in her Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series. The Decker storyline was repetitive and uninteresting. The case endlessly dragged on with them continually rehashing the same points and even the resolution of the case was ho-hum.
The additional storyline was not believable and was filled with gratuitous and violent sex and rape descriptions. If this really is the final book of the series, it's going out on a very low note.
On the other hand, John Irving's The Last Chairlift, was wonderful. Irving stated that this will be his last big novel, and big it is, weighing in at 900 pages or 32:47 hours, and filled with many themes from Irving's previous books. I didn't love all of it but overall, I thought it was one of his best novels (The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Cider House Rules being my other favorites). If you're a fan of John Irving, I highly recommend The Last Chairlift. And if you're not, it's time you became acquainted with his books.
My favorite quote this year was from The Last Chairlift : "Then the snowshoer explained how he never drove anywhere in the beetle without what he called an emergency novel. If I drive off the road and am lying upside down in a ditch, unable to move my legs or get out of the car, I want to have something good to read." This is a philosophy I fully endorse.
Another hefty audiobook (25 hours) by an author I've read before is Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen, and to be honest, I'm not sure how I felt about it. There were times I wanted to abandon it as I found all the characters very unlikable but I carried on only to discover when I finished that it is the first of a trilogy Franzen is planning on writing. I'm not sure I'm going to continue.
There were two other books by repeat authors which I loved - Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts and Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility. Both novels are tagged as dystopian and science fiction but don't let that discourage you. I am not a big fantasy/science fiction/dystopia reader and I adored both books.
Additional books by previously read authors which I liked were Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant, Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler (yes, that Booth), Horse by Geraldine Brooks (though I thought she had at least one unnecessary storyline), and Clare Pooley's Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting (fun).
Some of the other books I really enjoyed were We All Want Impossible Things (trigger warning: cancer), Sorry For Your Loss by Jessie Ann Foley, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (loved it) and Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (wonderful).
I also read a mix of mysteries, mostly by repeat authors thought I did give a chance to some new ones. Not every book in a series is going to be a home run but I did like the newest installments I read this year, including Daniel Silva's Portrait of an Unknown Woman (though I'm sad Gabriel left Israel) , Lee Child's No Plan B, Gregg Hurwitz's Dark Horse, John Sanford's Righteous Prey, and Jeffery Deaver's The Midnight Lock.
I'm also a sucker for books about libraries, librarians, bookstores, booksellers (are you sensing a theme?) and The Woman in the Library, Bookish People, The Bookshop of Yesterdays, The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, and The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep (did not like it) fit the bill.
I think the strangest book I read this year was The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier. I usually avoid books about airplanes (why add to the flying phobia) but this was worth the read.
I've already finished my first audiobook of 2023 and the list of books I'm hoping to read keeps growing. I'd love to hear what you enjoyed last year!
