books
- The Name of the Wind
- Treacle Walker
- The Vanishing Half
- Spring Cannot be Cancelled
- Great Circle
Finished reading: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo 📚
Forgot I had to post about this for it to count towards my reading goal. It’s a charming YA novel about discovering who you are.
Finished reading: My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout 📚
Quick weekend read.
Currently reading: My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout 📚
Not far into this but can’t help feeling that it’s like an accessible version of Ducks, Newburyport
Finished reading: GREY BEES. by ANDREY. KURKOV 📚
How much I enjoyed this book and how much I cared for the bees really crept up on me. I’m going to miss starting my days with Sergey and his bees.
Currently reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 📚
In anticipation of having more demands on my time when I start a new role at the end of the month, I’m finally sitting down to read this.
Finished reading: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 📚
Should have trusted my judgment and skipped this one. Me and Ishiguro don’t get on. The start was promising but after half way I was just waiting for it to be over.
Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
Subtle yet powerful, a gem of a book 💎
Finished reading: Ghost Town by Patrick McGrath 📚
Not really much to say about this collection. The stories clipped along but didn’t really move me in any direction.
Finished reading: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr 📚
I really enjoyed this. The evidence is how fast I read it - just a couple of weeks is record breaking for me for a book over 500 pages
Finished reading: The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper 📚
Took me a little while to get into this. Lining it up for a re-read later in the year, feel the arrival of Spring didn’t fully allow me to get immersed in the atmosphere of midwinter.
Finished reading: Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper 📚
Bloomin’ marvellous! Sending this on to my Mum to read to my nephews at bedtime - two things they love are quests and King Arthur.
Finished reading: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles 📚
I read this with anticipation having loved the author’s previous book, A Gentleman in Moscow. Sadly this just isn’t anywhere near as good and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Underwhelming.
Finished reading: Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie 📚
I enjoyed the relationships and the range in this story (across both time and geography). However there were a few too many episodes that had the right people in the right place at the right time that felt obviously engineered.
Finished reading: Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing 📚
As with every other book I’ve read by Olivia Laing I’ve come away with a list of artists and authors, and their work, to follow up on.
Finished reading: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 📚
Woah 🤯 The perfect holiday read, I’ve devoured this over the past few days.
2022: A year in books
Here are the books I finished reading in 2022. I didn’t set myself a goal, it’s not helpful for me. Instead I prefer to aim to read a little every day. The final count of 18 feels about average for me over the course of a year.
Of these titles, the standouts were:
Finished reading in 2022: Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake 📚
Finishing up the Gormenghast trilogy. I was really surprised just how much I enjoyed it and how long the characters have stayed with me. Really want to re-watch the BBC TV adaptation.
Finished reading in 2022: The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz 📚
Finished reading in 2022: Roseanna (The Martin Beck series, Book 1) by Maj Sjöwall 📚
It’s difficult to tell whether the functional language of this was due to the author’s style or the translation to English. Either way, I found it’s starkness compelling and a good addition to the atmosphere of the story.
Finished reading in 2022: Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver 📚
I’ve read a couple of other books by Kingsolver which, while I enjoyed I found overly descriptive. This was both an easy and enjoyable read.