Here we are again! 2022 involved a lot of fun fantasy/sci-fi books (23, to be specific), compared to only 6 nonfiction. As always, most of these were recommended by friends and coworkers. I’m always up for a book recommendation!
How did this year’s books compare? Here are the highlights and lowlights:
- No one-star books this year (phew!) but nine books with only two-stars. Unsurprisingly, most of those were not recommendations – and two that were recommended were the 3rd book(s) in a series.
- Happily, I also read a few new five-star books. I highly highly recommend the short story compilations Exhalation, by Ted Chiang, and That Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Nigozi Adichie (one of my favorite authors). I will also be buying a copy of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Ciado Perez, and I may finally buy myself Mistborn, my favorite Brandon Sanderson book (which I treated myself to a reread of, at the end of the year).
Let’s dig in.
The Rating System
If you’re unfamiliar with my rating system, here’s how it works:
- * I couldn’t finish reading it, I hated it so much
- ** I finished the book, but I wish I had the hours back I spent on it
- *** It was about as expected, glad I read it but I wouldn’t recommend it
- **** I really enjoyed reading the book, and would definitely recommend it to others
- **** I MUST OWN THIS NOW! ! I want to reread it over and over and over
Looking for past years? Here’s 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012.
Books I Read in 2022
Here they are
- Thrawn Ascendency: Chaos Rising, by Timothy Zahn***
- Neverworld Wake, by Marisha Pessl***
- Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker***
- Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley***
- Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell***
- A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears, by Jules Feiffer***
- Horns, by Joe Hill**
- Thrawn Ascendency: Greater Good, by Timothy Zahn***
- Thrawn Ascendency: Lesser Evil, by Timothy Zahn***
- All About Me, by Mel Brooks***
- All In, by Billie Jean King****
- Eva Moves the Furniture, by Margot Livesey***
- Exhalation, by Ted Chiang*****
- The Eiger Sanction, by Trevanian***
- Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett***
- Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk***
- Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel***
- The Sentence, by Louise Erdritch***
- The Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie***
- The Health Gap, by Michael Marmot****
- Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel***
- That Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Nigozi Adichie*****
- Big Cats, by Holiday Reinhorn**
- A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan**
- The Mirror and the Light, by HIlary Mantel***
- Good Morning Midnight, by Lily Brooks-Dalton**
- Detransition, Baby, by Torrey Peters**
- The Searcher, by Tana French***
- Gallant, by V.E. Schwab***
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders***
- Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh****
- The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger***
- The Mystery of the Blue Train, by Agatha Christie****
- A Girl is a Body of Water, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi****
- Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel***
- Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel***
- Only Human, by Sylvain Neuvel**
- To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis***
- Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Ciado Perez*****
- Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie***
- Sky Raiders, by Brandon Mull***
- Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel***
- Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie****
- The House on the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune***
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin***
- Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang**
- Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo***
- Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon**
- The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie***
- Thistlefoot, by GennaRose Nethercott****
- Everything I Need I Get From You, by Kaitlyn Tiffany**
- Before They Are Hanged, by Joe Abercrombie***
- Middlemarch, by George Eliot***
- The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke***
- The Last Argument of Kings, by Joe Abercrombie**
- Cold the Night Fast the Wolves, by Meg Long****
- Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson*****
