2022: The Year in Reading

 And thus ends the year in reading that was 2022. What was the rundown?

For books and longer works: 171 (up from 156 in 2021).

For short works of all types: 525 (up from 416 in 2021).

Once again, there was a net positive as I cut back on viewing time to one hour a night and continued to prune podcasts. I also did a lot more "synchronized reading" where I would listen to the audiobook while walking or driving and then switch over to the electronic book while at home. I can't listen to a book as fast as I can read pages (paper or on a screen), but by combining the two, I continue to increase my reading overall.

Best reads of the year? A mix of fiction and non-fiction. On the fiction side, the best reads included Gregory Benford's Galactic Center series (six books, a reread); Nicola Griffith's Spear (an expansion of the Arthurian Canon); Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (which might be better than everybody's favorite in his Amber Series); and the two Monk and Robot books by Becky Chambers. 

It would be hard to pick the best out of these: Benford soars when it comes to his descriptions of astronomical phenomena and being able to combine transhumanism with Mark Twain. Griffith brings us a fresh new take on Arthur, something I didn't think was possible anymore. Zelazny is the oldest of the three, but his gonzo take on Buddhist mythology, space opera, and religious war has not been matched.  I'm not sure if the Monk and Robot books are a new genre of "hopepunk" or just what you need after multiple years of crazed politics and pandemic in the form of comfort reads. 

Runner ups would include The Expanse (9 books and one anthology) by James S. A. Corey; The Amber Series by Roger Zelazny; the Murderbot Series by Martha Wells; the Revelation Space/Cojoiner Series by Alastair Reynolds and the first two books of The Red Trilogy by Linda Nagata. 

All of these were rereads, and might have been in the earlier category if they had been first reads. This run through was to take a look at each, plus who doesn't love a good Sec Unit (Murderbot). 

On the nonfiction side, the best reads were The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (covering the Vietnam War); The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (designing a new computer); Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson; Mars Rover Curiosity—An Inside Account From Curiosity's Chief Engineer by Rob Manning and William L. Simon; Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944–1945 by Ian Toll (the third in a trilogy on the Second World War in the Pacific Theater). 

It would be hard to pick out the best here, as each was read for a different reason. Kidder and Manning/Simon turned out to give me some thoughts about my job. McPherson was a fantastic read showing a lot about the American Civil War that is overlooked by many popular histories on the subject (politics and economics). Halberstam is part of an ongoing project to understand a major conflict that we should have studied more before getting involved in other conflicts. And the Toll was the third installment of a trilogy that continued to make me drop my jaw in terms of learning things about a conflict I thought I already knew a lot about. 

Runner ups would include The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman; Danse Macabre by Stephen King; Future Shock by Alvin Toffler; The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. 

As with the fiction runner ups, these were all rereads. Each has stood the test of time (no suck fairy here) and have been made relevant by other things since I first read them (while they illuminated those other books when I read those). 

There were disappointments this year: The Planeteers by John W. Campbell, Jr. (this space opera series did not age well); Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy (sometimes a trunk novel should stay in the trunk); Chieftains by Bob Forrest-Webb (congratulations, you made war boring); Switched-On Bach by Roshanak Khesti (if it had actually been about the album, and not the author's political theories, there might have actually been a mediocre book there); Martian Summer by Andrew Kessler (the author affected an air of ignorance and bad humor throughout the book that completely took away from the story he was claiming to want to document).

What will next year bring? Stand by!