2022 50 BOOKS - OR AS MANY AS YOU CAN MANAGE

48. Losers Club by Yvonne Vincent. A cosy murder mystery. It’s pretty silly, I only read it because it’s set in NE Scotland which I am familiar with.

That’s it for 2022! I’ve already got plenty to keep me going through next year.

Thank you for your collated list, Terribull and thank you for this annual thread, which I really enjoy.

Happy New Year, everyone! Xx

I have started reading a book I'd never heard of which is a Christmas present from my daughter. It's called To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara, and if I'm honest I wasn't that keen but thought I'd give it a try .... am now on p. 52 and am enjoying it, but won't be reading it in bed as it's a hardback with over 700 pages, so will need something else for bedtime reading.

Has anyone read this?

Happy New Year to fellow bookworms.

Ok, I’ve only posted once but here’s my books read in 2022 list 🙂
A Still Life by Josie George - a beautiful memoir about living with chronic illness and disability. Also posts on Twitter.
Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla - fascinating interviews with several generations living in an isolated village
Exit by Belinda Bauer - I enjoyed this a lot but it does deal with voluntary euthanasia so may upset some
The Lido by Libby Page - enjoyable, feel-good read
In a Good Light by Clare Chambers
Salt on My Skin by Sarah Kennedy Norquoy - an interesting memoir, mainly about sea swimming, set on Orkney
A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee - historical crime fiction set in India. I enjoyed this and plan to read the next in the series
Duckling by Eve Ainsworth - I loved the quirky characters in this. The author has written YA fiction. I think this is her first for adults.
Like a Charm by Elle McNicoll - a YA title set in Edinburgh and with a cast of figures from folklore and fantasy, a heroine who has dyspraxia and a hidden gift.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue - good read let down by a sentimental ending and some weak characterisation
The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson - entertaining as always
The Colony by Audrey Magee - beautifully written but felt ‘incomplete’ to me. Set on a Gaelic speaking island off the west of Ireland - an artist and a linguist visit for a few weeks in the summer, neither is happy that the other is there.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie - a modern telling of the Antigone story set in a Muslim community in London. This was absorbing and thought provoking but also disturbing
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths - I read the first in this series a while back and have been picking up copies in charity shops and keeping to read in order.

Calendargirl most authors are strong supporters of libraries. They do receive an annual sum based on the number of loans of their books, through the Public Lending Right scheme. Also research has shown that people who borrow from libraries generally also buy books.
My strategy is to buy at least one book from any independent bookshop I visit when travelling around the UK - often they are presents for family or friends (but not always 😀). Bookshops often have coffee shops too! I feel a new thread coming on 😂

Phew just got it in to my 2022 reads!
#75 Louisiana Longshot Jana DeLeon.
A very entertaining read set in a small town called Sinful in the Bayou. It features a murder, an undercover CIA assassin who is hiding out in town and a wonderful cast of senior citizens. It appears to be the first in a series so I may revisit Sinful at some point.
Happy new year everyone.

I have 14 library books at the moment, including several Anton du Beke books, James Patterson and Damien Boyd so will make a start on them. Then Beekeeper of Aleppo, before continuing on my own large library of books . I read 60 out of a challenge of 52 in 2022, will probably do about the same in 2023.

Just finished The Empire in thime for the end of the year. I won`t start another till tomorrow.

Here’s my 2022 list. I give each one a mark out of 10, so have left that on.

I’m a bit narked with myself that I didn’t get to 50 this year. I seem to have slowed down from November, but it has been a busy time. Plus I’m in the middle of The Ink Black Heart audio book - I hadn’t realised the actual book is 1000 pages long, but I did think it was going on a bit! It can be my first read on the 2023 thread.

With that in mind, Happy New Year to everyone!

1. Christmas on Coronation Street, Maggie Sullivan 7
2. Little Darlings, Maggie Golding 7
3. In Plain Sight, Marion Todd 7
4. The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward 4
5. The Motion of the Body through Space, Lionel Shriver 9
6. The Secrets You Keep, Kate White 6
7. Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter, Carol Ann Lee 9
8. The Beekeeper of Aleppo 9
9. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, Sophie Hannah 4
10. Only Child, Rhiannon Navin 7
11. The Good, the Bad, and the Little Bit Stupid, Monica Lewicka 5
12. Girl A, Abigail Dean 9
13. Hell is Always Today, Jack Higgins 6
14. The Family Tree, Sairish Hussain 6
15. The Good Sister, Sally Hepworth 9
16. The Last Thing to Burn, Will Dean 8
17. The Sight of You, Holly Miller 9
18. The Family Holiday, Elizabeth Noble 7
19. Right Behind Her, Melinda Leigh 5
20. Like Me, Hayley Phelan 5
21. The Couple at the Next Table, Sophie Hannah 4
22. The Man Who Died Twice, Richard Osman 6
23. A Life Lost, Cathy Glass 4
24. Life Without Children, Roddy Doyle 7
25. Copycat, Diane Saxon 5
26. Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle 9
27. The Siege, Helen Dunmore 9
28. A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy, Anne Cleeves 7
29. Cry Baby, Mark Billingham 7
30. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett 9
31. Dolphin Junction, Mick Herron 6
32. Deconstructed, Liz Talley 6
33. All the Lies They Did Not Tell, Pablo Trincia 6
34. The Coronavirus Doctor’s Diary, John Wright 8
35. The Murder Book, Mark Billingham 7
36. A Keeper, Graham Norton 7
37. Left You Dead, Peter James 7
38. Home Stretch, Graham Norton 7
39. She’s Up To No Good, Sara Goodman Confino 7
40. The Curfew, T M Logan 7
41. A Slow Fire Burning, Paula Hawkins 7
42. The Hike, Susi Holliday 5
43. Rabbit Hole, Mark Billingham 6
44. The Love of my Life, Rosie Walsh 7
45. Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith 8
46. The Reading List, 5

Good to read your list Maggie, I do hope you will join the '23 thread when you are ready. Happy New Year.

Oh I certainly will, TerriBull, once I finally, finally, get to the end of that Ink Black Heart.

I'm reading that too, 50 or so pages to go, I reckon I'll finish it sometime today, if I don't get too many interruptions

Hi folks and happy new year. I haven’t posted any updates for a while, but I have kept a list, all scored out of 10. I made it to 62 in 2022, pretty good for me.
I have enjoyed reading your recommendations and have added a few to my wish list as a result. I get most of my books from Little Free libraries or charity shops, but every now again I treat myself or ask for books as gifts.

Here my list:
1. Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson 8
2. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler 9
3. Monogamy by Sue Miller 8
4. A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale 8
5. Summer Water by Sarah Moss 8
6. The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Haddow 6 (200 pages too long!)
7. Apologise, Apologize by Elizabeth Kelly 8
8. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 8
9. The Absolutist by John Boyne 7
10. An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel 7
11. Out of Bounds by Val McDermid 9
12. Possession of Mr Cave by Matt Haig 6
13. Wolf Winter by Cecelia Ekback 8
14. 1979 by Val McDermid 9
15. Cunning Women by Elizabeth Lee 6
16. All Adults Here by Emma Straub 9
17. The Japanese Lover by Isabelle Allende 8
18. The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida 8
19. Grandmothers by Sally Vickers 8
20. Containment by Vanda Symon 9 (my first from this author, really enjoyed it and have read a couple more since)
21. Benediction by Kent Haruf 9
22. The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson 8
23. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman 8
24. The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 8
25. Plainsong by Kent Haruf 10 (a re read)
26. Eventide by Kent Haruf 10
27. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay 8
28. The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak 6 (very disappointing)
29. Some Luck by Jane Smiley 9
30. Trio by William Boyd 8
31. Modern Lovers by Emma Straub 8
32. Overkill by Vanda Symon 8
33. Worst Case Scenario by Helen Fitzgerald 6
34. The Death of Remembrance by Denzil Meyrick 8
35. In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear 7
36. Angels Burning by Tawni O’Dell 8
37. The Blackwater Lighthouse by Colm Tobin 8
38. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates 7 (disappointing)
39. The Last Flight by Julie Clark 8
40. Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama 7
41. The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt 6
42. Surface Rights by Melissa Hardy 9 (a real surprise, found in a charity shop in the US)
43. The German Heiress by Anika Scott 7
44. So Lucky by Nicola Griffith 7
45. Good night, Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson 7
46. Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver 7
47. After the Party by Cressida Connolly 7
48. Commonwealth by Ann Patchet 7
49. Mrs England by Stacey Halls 7
50. The Cardturner by Louis Sachar 8
51. The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn 8
52. Cold Case by Quintin Jardine 8 (the first l’ve read of his, so I have a lot of catching up to do)
53. Death of a Sunday Writer by Eric Wright 8 (left by a visitor from Canada)
54. The Ninth Child by Sally Magnusson 7
55. Different Class by Joanne Harris 8
56. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout 8
57. The Light They Left Behind by Tessa Harris 7
58. The Ringmaster by Vanda Symon 8
59. A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville 8
60. Nantucket Nights by Edin Hilderbrand 7
61. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith 8 (first time I’ve read this classic)
62. The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf 9

My favourite books of the year were Plainsong and Eventide by Kent Haruf, such beautiful writing. It’s good to read over my list again, there are a lot of good memories in it.

Now…on to 2023.