Happy New Year, y'all!
As a friend of mine mentioned on F-book, "If Betty White didn't want to live in 2022, this doesn't bode well for the rest of us."
My fingers are too worn out to be crossed, but please, Lord, let it be better. It doesn't have to be perfect, but not 2021 level.
ON TO THE BOOKS!
According to Goodreads, I read 95 books this year. My goal had been 100. I'm pretty impressed with myself that I accomplished what I did, actually! As always, my definition of a 'book' for the purposes of adding it to my list is fairly broad. I don't count picture books or young children's books that I read aloud to the children. I don't count collections of comics (unless I read the Complete Works of something), or anything that isn't a substantial example of its genre. I do count graphic novels, YA books, stuff I read aloud, stuff I pre-read for the kids, stuff I read myself, e-books, print books, and I'd also count audio books if I ever listened to them, which I don't.
My shortest book was A Girl Called Echo - a graphic novel exploring Indigenous time travel. It clocked in at 48 pages.
My Longest book was Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers - 501 pages!
32 of the books were classified as 'children's' or 'young adult' books and 63 were 'adult' books. I never really understand those arbitrary designations but there you have it.
20 were nonfiction, and 75 were fiction.
My LEAST favourites of the year were these ones:
The Dan Harris book was a long, whiny ridiculous piece of garbage, and I wrote a fairly scathing review about it.
Olive Kitteridge was very well written but just so harsh and dark and sad that it didn't appeal to me at all.
The NYPL book was full of neither peculiar questions nor practical answers, thereby negating its whole point of being, and I just didn't like Tony Hawks. No good reason, just thought it was a silly book is all.
My MOST favourite (new reads) were:
I hadn't picked up a Nancy Mitford before and I thought she was hilarious, witty and cutting in the best possible way. The Pursuit of Love is the first in a trilogy (I only read the first two) and I thought it was the best.
Piranesi was absolutely outstanding. I loved...I loved everything about it. It was a little creepy, which usually doesn't appeal to me, but honestly if ever a storyline required an atmospheric eeriness, this was that story.
Gaudy Night is one of four Sayers that feature the Wimsey/Vane relationship prominently, and again I managed to read three of those books and thought this was the best of the ones I read.
Ella Minnow Pea had been on my to read list for years now, and I was so taken with it and how the author managed to not handle the topics he did with a heavy hand, which would have been all to easy.
Twice this past year I challenged myself to read a book 'blind'. The first time, I went into a store and selected a novel based only on the cover illustration, with no other knowledge. That gave me this one:
A very disturbed family consisting to two parents who put on performance art pieces and their two children, Child A and Child B, unwillingly roped into the pieces and eventually betrayed utterly by themselves, their relationships, their friends and finally, their family. Imagine if The Royal Tenenbaums had all been deeply mentally ill and psychotic. It was...it was a different book than I usually read, that's for sure.
For the second, I actually wrote an article about choosing a book totally without knowing what it was about. Since The Family Fang was chosen for the cover, which gave me some control, I ended up picking this one by using Libby Overdrive and writing down the first five titles that came up under 'popular'. Then I had my husband randomly pick a title. Which is how I read this one:
I haven't read a Moriarty before. I find it interesting that these sorts of plots are so popular amongst women - it's all spousal abuse and cheating husbands and disagreeable children. Not really the sort of things I find myself drawn towards, frankly. I mean, ANOTHER high society murder of rich white people? It's all not really my cup of tea, I guess. But I read it. It wasn't a bad book.
And finally, only 8 of the books were read aloud to the children this year, which is my most disappointing statistic. It was a rough year for read-alouds. Let's hope that changes in 2022!
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