In which I pick some favourite books of the year
2022… the year the pandemic-lag and the realities of academic study finally smashed into my ability to read fiction. It took me a month to read a John Le Carré novel this year, and that was at the end of the summer vac in which I was supposed to regain my reading mojo. LOL, etc. I’m hopeful, after a small run of good reads at the end of the year, that my joy in reading might be picking up again — though I might spend the first half of 2023 re-reading some old friends, for a bit of safety.
Anyway here are ten books that I read this year that are on the scale of ‘really enjoyed to loved’, and that I’d recommend (in no particular order) - with not much to say about them, because I think I’ve forgotten how to write about books after struggling with how to read them. There feel like quite a few of them that engage with big ideas with quite a light and generous touch.
Beloved, by Toni Morrison. This was my first book of the year, so a strong start. It had been on the shelf for ages, but I think I’m glad I read it at this sort of time in my life, when I was ready for the story it wanted to tell me and the way it wanted to tell it to me (and I don’t think it hurt at all that I’d been ‘spoiled’ as it were for some of the story). I think what’s really stayed with me is the sense of tangibility of its people and its place.
The Promise, by Damon Galgut. Another book about complicated people in a difficult place, grappling with the trailing consequences of an unjust society, that somehow manages to make you see the its characters without completely rejecting them. It felt like a really interesting and helpful view into post-apartheid South Africa, as well as just working as a story.
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel. I was so glad to really enjoy this, having not really got on with Mandel’s previous The Glass Hotel after adoring Station Eleven. I like the way it threads together through its different sections, and its almost-woozy atmosphere.
Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng. Ng is a writer whose prose just flows for me. I read this within two days this ‘twixtmas, and massively enjoyed it. I think it does a really nice job of suggesting where certain current political and rhetorical themes might lead and showing the ways people choose to ignore things that don’t directly affect them, often for very good reasons, without over-egging it. I think the perspective switching worked, and found the narrative of ‘The Crisis’ and the way some of the characters survived it quite powerful, thinking about what the world’s future might hold. Most of all, I like the way the ending marries hope with reality, in a way that felt honest.
Babel, by RF Kuang. If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably seen this one piled up all over bookshops, and to be honest, it really worth its hype. My main criticism is that I don’t think it quite trust its readers to get what is going on inside its characters and the critique of the world that the author is making in the story and its themes, so its a bit too prone to explain those things to the readers. Equally, I might have felt this in part because I’ve spent the past 18 months reading postcolonial criticism and literature, so it was very in my wheelhouse. At the same time, I loved this book despite that, so hey. The characters are great, and the story rocks along, and frankly, the ideas and themes are important to me, so I don’t mind being bopped on the head with them a bit.
The Harmony Silk Factory, by Tash Aw. It was nice to return to Tash Aw and finally read his first novel. I’ve enjoyed-but-not-loved a lot of his work —other than Five Star Billionaire, which I did flat-out love—and I was happy to find that this was more towards the loved-it end of the spectrum. It felt like it had a lightness of touch with its big themes that has been lacking in a couple of his others, and his descriptions of the landscape of Malaysia are wonderful.
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsin Muir. I picked this up on a recommendation and really enjoyed it—but equally, I am pretty sure that it is is not for everyone. It has a very particular style and referentiality (which really comes through in its sequel Harrow the Ninth) which I enjoyed but I don’t think will land for everyone. For me it worked best in Gideon as the voice of the character Gideon, sparky and sarcastic, but also really kind of genuine, and in the way it nicely punctures the tone of some of the sci-fi/fantasy world which often takes its world-building so, so seriously. I’m not sure I really have a clue how this world holds together, but also I’m not sure I really care.
The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, by Ursula Le Guin. I’m gonna sneak my two Earthsea reads in together and not apologise for it even a little bit. This series is the polar opposite to Gideon… in terms of its world-building and mythology and its care with language, and yet it is so sincere and almost simple it is definitely not in the class of ‘needs its earnestness punctured.’ I really enjoy the way Le Guin deploys Ged as a secondary character in these two stories after him being the lead in Wizard of Earthsea: I like that this world isn’t all about him and its stories don’t all totally centre on him, and I particularly loved spending time with Tenar in Tombs .
Minor Detail, by Adania Shibli. I’d forgotten I’d put this on my wish list, when some friends gave it to me for my birthday, and it was such a treat at a time when I really needed something not-too-long to read because it’s very slim and in no way slight. It’s going to be a book to be read and re-read to really explore how its two parts hold together, but I really appreciated how it explored the way it managed to show the damage that exists on both sides of the oppressor/oppressed divide without reducing the trauma of oppression and the difficulty of uncovering the stories of the past in such a context.
The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich. I’m in the middle of this now, and it’ll probably be the last book of this year and the first of next, and oh my gosh, is that a good thing. There’s a moment when the narrator, Tookie, describes the kind of book she needs, “I needed the writing to have a certain mineral density. It had to feel naturally meant, but not cynically contrived. I grew to dislike manipulation…” and that feels like this book for me right now. It’s about something (which at the stage I’m at seems to be experiences of being indigenous in and around the Twin Cities area and about being haunted, in the broadest sense), but mostly the experience of reading it is about spending time with people, and it’s making me so happy.