I’ve always loved to read.
As a young child, I would spend hours at the top of the the mimosa tree in my backyard, nestled in a perfect arrangement of branches forming an natural lounge chair and lap-table, my own little organic reading nook. There were of course times, like just after graduating university, where I needed a break in order to rediscover my joy of reading by following my interests outside of any assigned syllabus.
Nonetheless, books have accompanied me along the way. They have kept me company while life shifted and changed, from my days as a single artist in New York, through motherhood, migration, career and family ups and downs, even (and especially) during lockdown in a the global pandemic. I crave the escape offered by immersing into someone else’s experience, story, perspective, and imagination, and despite said pandemic, I seem not to have lost my flavour for a juicy, post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy.
As an experiment, I started writing down the titles of the books I read each year: like a journal entry tracking the ebb and flow of my interests, a through-line of learning and discovery. After a recent conversation where a colleague asked for recommendations, I realized that maybe my list could serve a purpose more than just satisfying my own curiousity.
Thus the inspiration for my very first "Year in Books" blog post, where I'll happily share my reading list from 2022 with you, not to intimidate (seriously, even I was shocked to see a whopping total of 71 titles!), but to inspire. Some were wonderful escapes (thank you YA fiction!), many kicked me out of my own perspective, others kept me wondering how the seeds we sow create ripples in the lives and futures of others. My absolute top favs are bolded, in case you're curious.
No matter what the title, I'm happy to share my insight if there's a particular title or author that grabs your attention - drop me a line.
Happy Reading, and stay tuned: in my next blog post I'll share where I source my titles, both for my personal pleasure as well as for for the littles in Storytime!
My 2022 Reading List:
A Children‘s Bible, Lydia Millet
Termination Shock, Neal Stephenson
A History of Wild Places, Shea Ernshaw
Of Women and Salt, Gabriela Garcia
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
Bird Box, Josh Malerman
Mallory, Josh Malerman
You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, Janina Matthews + Jeffrey Cranor
The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris
Reprieve, James Han Matteson
Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr
The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan
Mouth to Mouth, Antoine Wilson
How High we Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu
Deep Dive, Ron Walters
Atlas 6, Olivie Blake
They Both Die at the End, Adam Silveria
American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo
The Passage, Justin Cronin
Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki
How Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue
The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak
Sorrowland, Rivers Salomon
The 5 Wounds, Kirstin Valdez Quade
The Cartographers, Peng Shepherd
Siege and Storm, Leigh Bardugo
Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo
The Book of M, Peng Shepherd
The Vanishers, Heidi Julavits
Truly Devious, Maureen Johnson
The Circus Infinite, Khan Wan
The Book of Accidents, Chuck Wendig
The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins
This Thing Between Us, Gus Moreno
The Resting Place, Camille Asten
When We Were Birds, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Mexican Gothic, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
The New Wilderness, Diane Cook
Sanatorium, Sarah Pearse
Come With Me, Ronald Malfi
The Southern Book Club‘s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix
Neverworld, Neil Gaiman
The Woven Kingdom, Tahareh Mafi
The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz
And Then I Woke Up, Malcolm Devlin
Reverie, Ryan la Sala
The Cabin at the End of the World, Louis Tremblay
The People’s History of the Vampire Uprising, Raymond A Villareal
Black Mouth, Ronald Malfi
Hide, Kierstan White
No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood
Little Darlings, Melanie Golding
A Head Full of Ghosts, Louis Tremblay
A Cosmology of Monsters, Shaun Hamill
Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez
The Fold, Peter Clines
Thislefoot, GenneRose Nethercott
The Honeys, Ryan la Sala
Femlandia, Christina Dalcher
Hotel Magnifique, Emily J Taylor
All my Rage, Sabaa Tahir
The Bird King, G Willow Wilson
How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, Elif Shafak
Woman Eating, Claire Kodha
Weaveworld, Clive Barker
Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson
Poster Girl, Veronica Roth
The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid
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