This year I had more time and energy so I read a bunch of books, more than I have since 2018. It was still a pretty difficult year for me; in the first half of the year I was dealing with my disability and all throughout the year my partner and I were on different sides of the planet, so I still sought out a lot of comfortable reads. I did still read a lot of good, new fiction and some expansive non fiction, which is good because last year in my annual book review I said I wanted to read more theory and work through some more difficult fiction. I also recently read 600 unique books (according to my goodreads), and I often talk about my 2:1 fiction nonfiction ratio, so I am happy to say that does seem like the most natural split for me, because I am at about 400 & 200 respectively.

I am not super sure what reading goals or aspirations I have this year, or to be more accurate, what vibe I am looking for, but I think I would enjoy having a more challenging year of reading, and making sure to not let comfortable and enjoyable reading completely replace more challenging, fresher, and more rewarding books. That dynamic between comfort and challenge is something I have been working on for many years, mirrored in my larger personal life, but I hope to strike a better balance this year. I was extremely moved by Dead End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto, and while I know it is unrealistic to expect that of every book, I still hope to find and read more books like that next year.

Something new for this year’s list is I typically have just listed the books on my “cream” shelf, but as I’ve gotten older and also as I’ve read more books it’s been rarer for me to come across books like that. I also found that this year I enjoyed a lot of books that I would like to recommend that didn’t quite make the cut for my “cream” shelf, which is why this year’s list is called Favorites instead.

2022 in books:

Favorites:

Here are my 29 favorite books from this year:

If you are interested in desire, identity, seeing / being seen, and how that personal struggle is mirrored in a larger political context, or if you are just in the mood for something atmospheric (the foggy kind), then read Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin.
If you enjoyed GEB, or if you are interested in what makes you you, or if you are interested in how consciousness arises, then read I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (top 3 non fiction of the year for me).
If you are interested in a funny and charming story about magic set in an alternate history of London’s magical oligarchy, or if you just like footnotes, then read the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.
If you enjoy reviews then read The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green. Personally I love a good review
If you are interested in the sharp indelicacies of being a woman then read Indelicacy by Amina Cain. Mostly though I just agree with this 5 star goodreads review: “Obsessssssssed with this bitch”
If you are interested in Murakami as a writer or as a person, or the writing process in general, then read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.
If you are interested in what orientalism is, or if you are interested in how a body of theory and practice can be created, produced, and transmitted, then read Orientalism by Edward Said.
If you are interested in how games are made from a technological perspective or if you just enjoy a well written programming book then read Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom.
If you are interested in how trauma is encoded in the body or if you just want another reason why Descartes has a lot to answer for for mind body dualism then read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.
If you are interested in examining your relationship with things then read The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki.
If you are interested in what makes games a unique art form, or how games crystallize agency, then read Games: Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen.
If you are interested in oranges, some of the best narrative nonfiction I have ever read, or how capitalism is ruining fruit, then read Oranges by John McPhee.
If you are interested in memories, and how they can be painful, sad, surprising, but also warm and radiant, then read Dead End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto. Two of my favorite short story endings ever, and my favorite fiction this year by far.
If you are interested in a cute, sweet love story then read Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
If you are interested in men’s fashion or Japanese menswear or how culture changes and adapts as it crosses borders then read Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by Marx, W. David.
If you are interested in words or if you are just in the mood for a nice cute children’s story then read Frindle by Andrew Clements. The perfect accompaniment to DFW’s dictionary review, Authority and American Usage.
If you are interested in fashion theory and what fashion is and how fashion is a social construct then read When Clothes Become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems by Ingrid Loschek.
If you are interested in feeling trapped by an unbreakable, invisible wall, in feeling bleak and depressed, or in a feminist story of survival and isolation, then read The Wall by Marlen Haushofer.
If you are interested in tomatoes or in once again how capitalism is ruining fruit then read Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook.
If you are interested in Roald Dahl’s darker shorts then read Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl. I read this first in middle school, and I think it is a large reason why I like short story collections so much.
If you are interested in how art is influenced by and influences culture, society, and politics and how art cannot be consumed or created properly without understanding its context, or if you just want to read a good essay on nudes, then read Ways of Seeing by John Berger.
If you are interested in a delightful short story about good taste or if you appreciate precise and polished prose then read The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt.
If you are interested in transportation and traffic or American transportation history then read Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Charles L. Marohn Jr. Together with The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Better Buses, Better Cities, the three are a great set of books on city planning and understanding cities.
If you are interested in women’s fashion, skirts, or good concrete examples for how fashion changes with the social context, then read Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell.
If you are interested in how to debug then read The Pocket Guide to Debugging by Julia Evans.
If you are interested in a good book about engineering management that is not written by a borderline psychopath then read Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner.
I typically don’t include rereads, but I wanted to be healed in December so I reread some of my favorite Vonnegut books and they are even better now, so if you are also in the mood for that, read God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Timequake, or Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut.