Last year I finally beat several Goodreads records from 2015, although an earlier one from 2013 eluded me. I read 138 (versus 134) books, with a total pagecount of 34,176 (versus 33,492). I just missed, in December (I made a push in the final two weeks over the course of two long weekends), my August 2013 total of 21 books with 19. I was knowingly chasing the first two (although I guess I was probably safer with the second one than I'd thought), and would've definitely pushed a little further had I known how close I was with the third!
Such are the achievements of a book nerd...
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which I passed up reading for years, figuring a popular book club bestseller couldn't really interest me, but I finally reconsidered on the basis of the film adaptation once again placing it on bookshelves. I actually love the film better, but the book is basically the American version of the Millennium Trilogy's full arc for Lisbeth Salander, and that comes with considerable praise for me. I figure it's as close to a true classic as has been published in the last decade.
- The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith, the latest Strike/Ellacott mystery tackles social media poison from the same mind that has been cracking the modern psyche so brilliantly since it was done with wizards. No further legitimate intellectual defense necessary.
- The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, the latest (slim) volume from the writer who has very quickly become one of my favorites. I read her collection Some Trick twice this year, as well as Lightning Rods for the first time, and of course this. Her Last Samurai is another modern classic.
- Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris, which is the last and probably clearest spotlight for the famous cannibal, which in later film appearances perhaps got lost in the infamy but I also explored this year in Hannibal, the sequel that cemented his later reputation, both in book and film.
- Metamorphica by Zachary Mason, a spiritual successor to his Lost Books of the Odyssey, both being miracles of modern interpretations for Greek myths.
- The Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway, which is fairly self-explanatory. I didn't start reading Hemingway until Woody Allen's brilliant Midnight in Paris, which led me to A Moveable Feast, which led to everything else I've read to date, which covers what I believe to be all of the major works at this point.
- Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas by Robert Bolano, the latest posthumous collection from my favorite writer, well worth the wait and yet another easy suggestion for anyone who still has yet to experience him and wants something simple before tackling his masterpieces (2666, The Savage Detectives).
- Big Red by Jerome Charyn, the latest from another favorite writer, this time honing in on yet another creative dynamo, Orson Welles, and Rita Hayworth.
- Sugergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King & Bilquis Evely, my favorite of the many graphic novels I read in 2022, and my favorite of the several Tom King masterpieces among them (including Rorschach and Strange Adventures). This one's one of his shortest works, but most inventive, harking back to his best work, Omega Men.
- Gump & Co. by Winstom Groom, the best of the considerable backlog of books on my shelves, a sequel to the first book and not the movie adapted from it, although cleverly written with an eye to it, a true piece of classic Americana that's been all but lost in an era that has little use for such things as it cherry picks for whatever is most useful for current needs.
