This was the year of the books.
I read 74 books in 2022.
It really didn’t seem that many until I added it all up the other day. Then my eyebrows hit the roof. That is more than a book a week people!
I thought it would be fun to break it down into genres, so here we go! (As a quick note, some of the books fit into more than one genre, which created much consternation, so I chose the genre I thought it fit best in.)
I read 24 Scifi/Fantasy books, 13 Classics, 12 Non-fiction, 8 Realistic Fiction, 7 Mysteries, 5 Poetry collections, and 5 Romance novels.
I am not surprised Fantasy takes the lead. It was my favorite genre for a long time and they tend to be easier reads than the classics and non-fiction. However, I am suspicious that I read so much romance (rom-coms mostly). Did wedding planning fry my brain? Probably.
My favorite books of this year are ‘A Slow Regard of Silent Things’ by Patrick Rothfuss, ‘Piranesi’ by Susanna Clarke, ‘With’ by Skye Jethani, and possibly ‘Gone with the Wind’ by Margaret Mitchell. (I am still waffling about the last one, there were so many good things about it, and many things that drove me crazy. I plan to do a book review on it here soon.) Both of the first two books have limited characters, a slow plot, and a romantic view of the regular things. The small things that make up life and often we pass by, such as getting up in the morning, or seeing a beautiful view. Both books encouraged me to see the beauty in my ordinary little life. ‘With’ is a book of theology that changed the way I view God for the better.
My least favorite books were ‘The Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel, and ‘Imposter Syndrome’ by Kathy Wang. ‘The Life of Pi’ is written beautifully, but the content is awful. I have had waking nightmares because of the book. Also, I am not able to enjoy some of the food that I used to like because it reminds me of the book. Moral of the story, don’t read it. ‘The Imposter Syndrome’ had some great potential but wasn’t well written in my opinion.
As I look back, I realized how many ‘meh’ books I read. Which are books that were okay, but didn’t float my boat or I just didn’t enjoy. I didn’t think they were awful, but I didn’t particularly enjoy them either.
I don’t ever make goals for reading. I hope to read less ‘meh’ books this year, but you never know what a book will hold until you start reading it, so we shall see!
I hope your reading last year was good, and may it be even better this year!
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 