Here are my top 10 books of 2022! A video is up on my YouTube channel discussing all these titles and why they made the tippity top of my year's reading pile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R6z-i1zDws

As usual, I followed a lot of book prizes this year. The winner of the Booker Prize ended up being one of my favourite books. It was a thrill to be able to attend the award ceremony and learn that Shehan is a fan of my YouTube channel. It was wonderful to be able to interview Joyce Carol Oates again this year about her most recent novel as well as the new film adaptation of her novel “Blonde”. Of course, a real highlight of the year was having two books of my own published. I was commissioned to write these titles suggesting 50 great romances and 50 great mystery novels. It was a fun project and they’ve been turned into two lovely little books.

I read around a hundred books in the past year but these are some which have made the most impact. From a mother struggling to find out how her daughter died to a recently deceased war photographer seeking his killer, these are gripping tales with characters embroiled in emotionally dramatic journeys. Many portray historic battles and wars through a personal lens. Others depict the deep personal impact chronic illness has upon the lives of families and lovers. These books bring to life the unique personality of characters caught in wide scale social and societal change. Some draw on the models of classic literature while others seem to invent their own form of storytelling.

A few such as “Demon Copperhead” and “Nights of Plague” stretch to hundreds of pages while others such as “Elena Knows” and “The Swimmers” are so slender they could be read in a day. There are scenes of heartbreaking cruelty as well as exquisite tenderness in novels such as “Bolla”, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” and “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies” which stick out in my memory. Books like “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” and “The Colony” made me laugh as much as they made me cry. Some I read at the beginning of the year, but I only read “Trust” a few weeks ago and I was so struck by its inventive structure to reexamine the way we view history, capitalism and those in power.

Have you read any of these? What are the best things you've read this year?

Having a serious illness inevitably changes a person's relationship to their own body. This is the experience which is creatively and movingly dramatised in Maddie Mortimer's debut novel. Lia is a writer and artist who illustrates children's guides to the body as well as being a wife and mother. At the beginning of the novel she receives the news that her cancer has recurred and she will have to undergo another cycle of brutal treatment. The story follows Lia and her family's extremely challenging process of dealing with this and come to terms with her past. While they love and support Lia through this illness, her adolescent daughter Iris and her academic husband Harry struggle to deal with their own issues because ordinary life doesn't stop.

Running alongside the tale of their lives is a narrative voice which is marked in bold type. The identity of this narrator is intentionally elusive as it could be interpreted as the disease, Lia's body, a projection of her psyche (feelings of guilt, anger or restlessness) or genetics itself as it travels through generations. The voice is sporadic at first, but it comes to have a stronger and more prominent presence in the story. It's both an antagonist and a reliably familiar presence in Lia's life. It can be at turns mischievous and funny in its (high and low) cultural references as well as threatening and manipulative. Though it can feel disarming to have this odd presence amidst a more traditional narrative it comes to feel like an integral part of the story and makes sense since when our lives are disrupted by serious illness it can feel like another entity with its own agenda is constantly with us.

I was somewhat hesitant to start this book since people very close to me have struggled with cancer, but I ultimately found it extremely beneficial reading such an impressive debut novel. It helped me process my feelings surrounding this condition and the emotional and practical implications of dealing with such an illness. The story sympathetically shows how everyone has their own unique ways of coping with the life altering challenges which accompany cancer. It's also extremely artful how Mortimer describes methods of viewing the body and how we can reconsider our relationship to our physical being. There are also multiple emotionally-charged scenes which I know will stick with me such as when Iris undergoes a painful stunt to impress the school bully only for it to backfire and when Lia is groped on a train by a group of raucous lads. Scenes of strife are also mixed in with moments of tenderness such as when Harry cares for Lia or when Iris and Lia playfully come up with multiple creative answers for Lia's school test questions.

There were some moments where it feels like the author is controlling the nebulous voice to make a statement or get a point across rather than it coming organically, but for the most part it feels like an authentic presence that Lia is inextricably linked to. I was also somewhat uncertain if the scenes from Lia's early life were necessary to flash back to, but ultimately this comes together to make a poignant statement about how the past and present intersect, just as the beginning of life/potential of life circles back to our lives' inevitable end. Overall I was impressed by the scope and ingenuity of this novel to give a different perspective on the physical and mental process of illness. It's a moving and memorable experience reading it.

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AuthorEric Karl Anderson
CategoriesMaddie Mortimer
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