2022 in Books

20 December 2022

In 2022 I read 39 books - mostly novels, but some non-fiction and collections as well - and I listened to 24 audiobooks. So which were my favourite?

At the end of the year, I have seven books that I gave 10/10 for how much I enjoyed them. This isn’t a comment on how “good” they are - just how much I loved reading/listening to them. Here they are…

  • My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
  • Euphoria - Lily King
  • Six Against the Yard - collection of classic crime authors
  • Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
  • Bewilderment - Richard Powers
  • The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
  • The Foundling - Stacey Halls

Here is where I would usually pick a very favourite, but I can’t! Perhaps Euphoria, or Bewilderment… but I’m not sure.

There were another 11 books that I gave 9/10. So of these 18 books, two were short story collections. All the rest were novels. No non-fiction in my best lists this year. Anyone got any good non-fiction to get me going in 2023?

One of my top-18 books this year was by a collection of authors, three were by men, and the other 14 by women. The publication dates ranged from 2022, back to 1859. Only one of them (Bewilderment) was a 21st-century-published book, set in the 21st-centry, which surprises me!

Here are the rest of my list:

  • The Hours Before Dawn - Celia Framlin
  • The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
  • The Appeal - Janice Hallett
  • Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
  • Stories of Your Life & Others - Ted Chiang
  • The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry
  • The Christie Affair - Nina de Gramont
  • The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice
  • Confession - Jessie Burton
  • Absent in the Spring - Mary Westmacott
  • New Boy - Tracey Chevalier