Lovely lists - second time in two days I’ve seen Seven Steeples mentioned, but I’d never heard it before then.
Also interesting to see Fuccboi on your list. Both you and
@Someboy have now given it a thumbs up, but I’ve seen it
savaged elsewhere.
Edit: Actually maybe it was just you mentioning it twice ddd. But I’m happy to get Someboy’s attention as I wanna know what he’s enjoyed this year.
Cutie.
Here's my 2022 list:
o The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
o The Girls by Emma Cline
o A Separation by Katie Kitamura
o Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
o A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
o White on White by Ayegül Savas
o In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
o Free Love by Tessa Hadley
o Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
o The White Album by Joan Didion
o Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
o Heartbroke by Chelsea Bieker
o Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
o Cherry by Nico Walker
o How Strange A Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman
o Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej
o Luster by Raven Leilani *
o Hammer by Joe Mungo Reed
o Objects of Desire by Clare Sestanovich
o The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart
o The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
o Dirtbag, Massachusetts by Isaac Fitzgerald
o Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
o We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart
o Homesickness by Colin Barrett
o NW by Zadie Smith
o Trust by Hernan Diaz
*Luster was a re-read.
There were also several false starts that hopefully I can list in 2023. Stay focused!
Let's see... The Incendiaries was beautifully written and with a big, beating heart for such a short book; Little Rabbit, which of the sex and power debuts (A Very Nice Girl, Acts of Desperation, Acts of Service, We Do What We Do...) felt the most whole to me with a truly great ending; Trust lives up to the hype, Diaz's control of language is incredible and my only regret is that I kept picking up other books when I was halfway through, so I read it far apart; NW, fantastic, brilliant, etc., I had tried White Teeth a few times and could never persist, but I was determined to read a Zadie Smith novel, so I'm really happy I picked up a different one, and gives me confidence to go back to some of her other work. Also Hammer and Free Love, neither of which reinvent the wheel, but are just good, all around novels.
Of course, there's other heavyweights like Galgut, Gaitskill, Didion, and Kitamura, all of which I enjoyed and are flagged and underlined from front to back.
It's staggering to see some of you list 40, 50, 70 books a year, and it blows my mind when I see people on socials talk about reading over 100 books. Unless I had a huge lifestyle change, I think 30 would be my top limit, which is more than a book every two weeks by the way!
Fuccboi's in paperback in a couple of weeks, I'll cop it then.
