My Year In Books: 2022

As I’ve been doing these past 3 years, today I will be taking a look at the books I read during 2022. I had shared the books I read between January and June, part 1 here and part 2 here ,but I never got round to doing the same for the books I read between July and December due to the blogging slump I fell into during the second half of the year.

Overall, I had a very good reading year. Out of the 41 books I read, 34 were by authors who were new to me. My most-read genre remained historical fiction, followed by literary fiction and classics. Out of the 41 books I read, 9 were non-fiction and five of these were memoirs (which remain my favourite type of non-fiction genre).

According to The Storygraph, which gives a very detailed insight into the reading patterns of members, last year I mostly read emotional, reflective and sad books that were slow-paced.

MY YEAR IN BOOKS 2022

• Number of books read: 41 (2 more than the 39 I read in 2021)
• Total number of pages read: 13 097 (down from 15 316 in 2021 but I had a bit of a reading slump in the last 3 months of 2022)
• Average book length: 319 pages
• Shortest book: A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar at 128 pages
• Longest book: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly at 502 pages
• Most popular (i.e. most read): The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (which was marked as read 3 508 805 times)
• Least popular: The Adventures of a Curious Cat  by Curious Zelda (which was read 542 times)
• Highest rated by Goodreads readers: Lalechka by Amira Keidar with a 4.00 average

• My average rating for 2022: 3.6 stars which is a bit better than it was last year (3.4)
• The first book I read: A Thousand Days In Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi 
• The last book I read: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• The book I read that has been published longest: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte in 1847
• The most recently published book I read: The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin in April 2021
• My top 5 fiction reads: The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain (4.8), Suite Française  by Irene Nemirovsky (4.5), Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (4.4), The Absolutist by John Boyne (4.3) and Fresh Water For  Flowers by Valerie Perrin (4.2). 
• My top 5 non-fiction reads: The Twins of Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor (4.5), The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Aushwitz by Jeremy Dronfield (4.25), A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar (4), 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (4) and A Thousand  Days in Tuscany and The Lady in the Palazzo by Marlena de Blasi (4) – I know that makes 6 books but I really enjoyed all the 4 star reads so I couldn’t really leave one of them out.

• The book I enjoyed least: this was a tie between The Virgins by Pamela Erens and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (both of which received a 2.6 star rating)
• Most disappointing book: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid - there was a lot of hype around this book and it got many rave reviews but I felt it just did not live up to its promise. Here’s a small extract from my review: ‘Everything about Evelyn’s life seemed very superficial, including her love life. I felt that if we scratched beneath the surface we wouldn’t find any substance. And therein lies my biggest issue with this book.’
• Best suited for a book club: The Absolutist by John Boyne which deals with the subjects of absolutism, conscientious objection, and unrequited love.
• Month in which I read most (based on the number of pages): February
• Month in which I read least (based on the number of pages): October (no surprise, it happens every year) and December (let’s blame Christmas)

2022 will always be a special year for me from a reading perspective, as I really seem to have found ‘my tribe’ on Instagram, or Bookstagram, as we like to call it. My Bookstagram handle is lorees.reading.nook and if you’re on IG and love books, please send me a message so we can connect. The feeling of discussing books with like-minded individuals is very special and we all gain so much from these conversations that we have on a daily basis with other bookworms. The whole process has enriched my reading and this year I will be reading more books recommended by people who have he same tastes in books that I do. I will try to veer away from historical fiction, especially the WW2 trope, because I’ve read too many books from that genre in 2022 and it got really old. I felt like I was reading the same thing repeatedly and only the characters were different but the plots were very similar. I’m also avoiding new releases, books that come with lots of hype and anything on Oprah or Reese Witherspoon’s ‘must read’ lists. I’ve been disappointed too many times.

My plan for 2023 is to read books set in as many different countries as possible. My goal is to read books from 23 different countries in 2023. This is to try to get away from books set in the UK and the US. I am sure that this will be very enriching and rewarding, as it will not only expose me to different cultures, some of which I know nothing about, but also to perspectives that I could never have imagined. I am sure I’ll let you know how I’m getting along in future blog updates. 

For today I’ll end it here because books are my favourite topic and I could go on forever. I am just going to add the list of books I read between July and October, my respective rating and the genre. If there are any that you have any questions about, please let me know in the comments.

The Absolutist by John Boyne (4.3) - historical fiction WW1

The Virgins by Pamela Erens  (2.6) - campus fiction

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell (3) - psychological thriller

Life Of Pi by Yann Patel (2.9) - philosophical fiction

The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield (4.25) - memoir

The Lady In The Palazzo by Marlena de Blasi (4) - memoir

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi (3.4) - historical fiction

The Room On Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel (2.8) - historical fiction WW2

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (4.2) – historical fiction

Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky (4.5) - historical fiction WW2

The Island by Victoria Hislop (2.8) - historical fiction

All We Left Behind by Danielle R. Graham (3) - historical fiction WW2

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (2.9) modernist fiction