The Books I Read in 2022
A compilation from the BOOKS I READ log
I added twenty-one books in 2022 to my reading log, a small drop from the twenty-four in the 2021 log. I logged eleven novels, five memoirs, one play, and four non-fiction — two of these were collected essays. I split evenly between books released in the 21st century versus those from the last century. Unlike last year, no author made the list more than once.
The most memorable book from this year’s list was Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies (log entry); it bares the illusions and deceptions of the American dream. Paired with Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America, a sobering collection of essays, they’re bound to give any optimist a dreadful fright. The most enjoyable read was Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments (log entry) for its raw honesty of a mother-daughter relationship. Most surprising was Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, a book he labels a fictional memoir, a time capsule from an era that seems similar to and as remote as the Love Story movie.
The list is shown in chronological order, showing the month in 2022 that I finished the book. The links are to my reading-log posts, which include a short review. These are unlisted (hidden) posts. It’s the only way to keep them from crowding my Medium profile page.
(New: I’ve generated Bookshop.org 2022 list for anyone interest in picking up any of these books. Every purchase on Bookshop.org financially supports independent bookstores.)
- H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014) posted Jan 2022
- Macbeth - William Shakespeare (1623) posted Jan 2022
- Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro (2021) posted Feb 2022
- Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966 - Thich Nhat Hanh (1966), translated by Mobi Warren (1998) posted Feb 2022
- The Overcrowded Barracoon - V.S. Naipaul (1973) posted Mar 2022
- A Fan’s Notes - Frederick Exley (1968) posted Apr 2022
- The Unsettling of America - Wendell Berry (1977) posted May 2022
- Fierce Attachments - Vivian Gornick (1987) posted May 2022
- A Childhood: The Biography of a Place - Harry Crews (1978) posted Jun 2022
- The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead (2019) posted Jun 2022
- Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (2001) posted Jul 2022
- Waterland - Graham Swift (1983) posted Aug 2022
- Gun Love - Jennifer Clement (2018) posted Aug 2022
- Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel García Márquez (1993) translated by Edith Grossman posted Sep 2022
- Homeland Elegies - Ayad Akhtar (2020) posted Sep 2022
- Death in Venice - Thomas Mann (1912) translation by Kenneth Burke posted Sep 2022
- The Shawl - Cynthia Ozick (1989) posted Sep 2022
- Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders (2017) posted Nov 2022
- The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown (2013) posted Nov 2022
- I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive - Lynn Melnick (2022) posted Dec 2022
- The Bomber Mafia - Malcolm Gladwell (2021) posted Dec 2022
