My Top Books of 2022

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?

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

One of the most terrifying parts of ageing is the possibility of experiencing or having a loved one who experiences Dementia. I know someone who is wrestling with this issue now and it's such a complicated, difficult and heartrending issue. I'm not sure whether it's consoling or distressing to read a novel which deals with this if it's a condition you're wrestling with but I feel that's up to the individual reader. Nevertheless, I think “The Swimmers” brilliantly depicts how life changes for a character named Alice whose memory deteriorates to the point where her daughter brings her to a care facility. We're first introduced to her as one of many people who frequently swim at an underground pool. The opening section is narrated in their collective voice as they describe the customs of regular swimmers at this pool and how a loose sense of community forms at this location. But one day a crack appears in the pool and this causes a lot of anxiety for the regular swimmers. Shortly after it becomes necessary for Alice to go into care and we learn about her process of being admitted into this facility.

What's so impressive about this novel is that so much emotion is conveyed without the author necessarily delving into the interior thoughts and feelings of the characters. It's a reckoning with mortality that's conveyed so gracefully it left me breathless. I loved the way the opening section describes the sense of freedom the swimmers find in the routines and rules which become established at their pool. There is a solace here in being both known to the other swimmers but also anonymous because this is a space completely detached from ordinary life. Life is reassuringly constant in the pool – until it's disrupted by the fracture which is both literal and a metaphor for the way tragedy infiltrates all of our lives at some point. It's also incredibly moving how the dilemma of Alice's daughter is delicately shown over the period of admitting her mother to the care facility. I intensely felt both her struggle and the process of Alice losing her sense of self. This powerful novel is both beautiful and devastating and I'm so glad I read it.