Highlights of my reading world in 2022...
I’m glad to have reached my reading target this year, but I won’t be setting one in 2023. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read less - I spend a lot of my time buried in other people’s worlds rather than creating my own, and I’d love to write another novel. This year, I also read submissions for the Polari Prize - which definitely helped!
I wouldn’t want to start the year without a book-related project, and with that in mind I’m turning to one of my favourite Christmas presents this year. The present is a book called Ex Libris by New York Times book editor Michiko Kakutani (one of the few critics to be mentioned swearily in an episode of Sex and the City)! I’d originally discovered the book in a shop in Amsterdam, and was delighted to receive it after adding it to my wish list.
I’m about to get started on two of its recommendations, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore and The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz. I had a wild plan yesterday to read all 100 of the books in Ex Libris (so far, I’ve read 11 and one of them was Where The Wild Things Are). I don’t think I’ll be doing that as it will dominate my reading in 2023 and take time away from promoting as-yet-unpublished books. However, when I do see one of its books in a charity shop or 99p on Kindle, I’ve pledged to buy it and give it a shot, even if it’s not the kind of thing I’d usually read.
Because I usually focus on books published within the year when blogging, I haven’t been able to do the honourable mentions for books that have been published prior to 2022 but which I hadn’t read yet. With that in mind, Heather Clark’s biography of Sylvia Plath, Red Comet, was a huge highlight for me this year and one which I’d recommend to any hardcore Plath fans - and The Grapes of Wrath, which I hadn’t read up until now. The rest of the list is eclectic, as I'm sure you'll agree...
About Us - Sinead Moriarty
Bad Choices - Lucy Vine
Red Comet - Sylvia Plath biography - Heather Clark
French Braid - Anne Tyler
Sunny - Sukh Ojla
The Exhibitionist - Charlotte Mendelson
This is not a pity memoir - Abi Morgan
The Reunion - Polly Philips (2023)
Hush - Kate Maxwell
Something Fabulous - Alexis Hall
PS. I Hate You - Sophie Ranald
How to Murder Your Life - Cat Marnell
The Love of my Life - Rosie Walsh
Factory Girls - Michelle Gallen
Mad about You - Mhairi McFarlane
Again, Rachel - Marian Keyes
Wahala - Nikki May
Such a Good Mother - Helen Monks Takhar
The Girls are Good - Ilaria Bernardini
The Setup - Lizzy Dent
Never Simple - Liz Scheier
Our Wives under the Sea- Julia Armfield
Take My Hand - Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Baby Love - Jacqueline Wilson
The Club - Ellery Lloyd
Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner
And When Did You Last See Your Father?- Blake Morrison
A Line Above the Sky- Helen Mort
The Wedding Night - Harriet Walker
Breadsong - Kitty and Al Tait
Red, White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
My Child and other Mistakes - Ellie Taylor
Little Prisons - Ilona Bannister
In Love - Amy Bloom
First Time for Everything - Henry Fry
Duckling- Eve Ainsworth
City of Girls - Elizabeth Gilbert
We Had it So Good- Linda Grant
Ill Feelings - Alice Hatterick
Under the Rainbow - Celia Laskey
The Go-Between - Osman Yousefzada
Naked Nutrition - Daniel o’Shaughnessy
The Summer Place - Jennifer Weiner
Double Booked - Lily Lindon
The Snag List - Sophie White
Tell me Everything - Laura Kay
Sedating Elaine - Dawn Winter
The Shadowy Third - Julia Parry
Iron Annie - Luke Cassidy
The Turkey Baster Diaries - Elizabeth James
Muslim, Actually - Tawseef Khan
This Much is True - Miriam Margolyes
A Waiter in Paris - Edward Chisholm
Darling - India Knight
All of You Every Single One - Beatrice Hitchman
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
Top to Bottom - Finley Games
An Island Wedding - Jenny Colgan
Small: on Motherhoods - Claire Lynch
Shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson
The Last Days - Ali Millar
Not Safe for Work - Isabel Kaplan
You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty - Akwaeke Emezi
Is this Love? - CE Riley
The Saturday Night Sauvignon Sisterhood- Gill Sims
So Happy For You - Celia Laskey
Amazing Grace Adams - Fran Littlewood
Happy Go Lucky - David Sedaris
Pineapple Street - Jenny Jackson
Counterfeit - Kirsten Chen
Husband Material - Alexis Hall
Before I Do - Sophie Cousens
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
Bournville - Jonathan Coe
Let Down Your Hair - Bryony Gordon
The Three of Us - Ore Agbaje-Williams (2023)
Love and other Scams - PJ Ellis (2023)
We all Want Impossible Things- Catherine Newman (2023)
Take Away - Angela Hui
This Time Tomorrow - Elizabeth Straub
Girl Friends- Holly Bourne
Watch Her Fall- Erin Kelly
The Shite Before Christmas- Serena Terry
The Family Remains- Lisa Jewell
Preloved - Lauren Bravo (2023)
My Extraordinary Life - Rebecca Ryan (2023)
Mr Perfect on Paper - Jean Meltzer
Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble - Alexis Hall
The Do-over - Sharon M Peterson
Season of Love - Helena Greer
We Can Be Heroes - Paul Burston (2023)
Mad Honey - Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
A House for Alice- Diana Evans (2023)
Love from the Pink Palace- Jill Nalder
Can’t Let Her Go - Kianna Alexander (2023)
Deep Down - Imogen West-Knights (2023)
My Own Worst Enemy - Lily Lindon (2023)
The Upstart Crow scripts - Ben Elton
Sins of my Father- Lily Dunn
Loving Amy - Janis Winehouse
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