I forget how many years I’ve been doing this particular type of post — at least 15 years on my old blog. And before that I was in an APA throughout the 1990s, administered by Maureen Kincaid Speller, who is much missed; and I’m pretty sure I wrote something in that each year about the best books I’d read in the preceding twelve months.
And now I find myself tired of the whole thing. It feels like a meaningless exercise. I don’t limit my reading to newly-published books, so I can’t list my pick of books published in 2022, which is, let’s face it, what publishers, publicists, and even authors, really want. I’ve been known to buy books and have them sit on my bookshelves for nearly two decades before actually reading them.
I’m not in the business of selling books — well, not any more, at least; Whippleshield Books kof kof — either directly, or indirectly. I document my reading, and write about the books I’ve read, for my own pleasure. And because I’m one of those people who enjoys ticking things off on a list.
Of course, I also derive pleasure from reading books. And from some books more than others. Hence this post… and why I dropped “best” from the title. Here, then, are those books among the 126 I’ve read to date since 1 January 2022 which stood out for me, for a variety of reasons.
I’ve long been a fan of Mary Gentle’s fiction, but it usually takes me a while to work up the motivation to read her novels — partly because of their enormous size… and their level of detail and extensive world-building. It took me fifteen years to get around to reading Ilario: The Lion’s Eye (2006, UK), despite buying it when it was published, and ten years before I read Black Opera (2012, UK). Both are alternate history slash fantasy slash science fiction, of a sort Gentle has made her own. The first is set in the same world as the excellent Ash: A Secret History (2000, UK), but its story takes place earlier. Black Opera is about, unsurprisingly, opera, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a secret society’s plot to cause Mount Vesuvius to erupt, and Napoleonic-era politics — not a single one of which pushes any buttons for me. But Gentle makes of them a fascinating and exciting read.
The more by Gentle I read, the more I admire her fiction. The same is true of Claire North. I liked the concepts of her first two novels, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014, UK) and Touch (2015, UK), back when I read them in their years of publication, but I thought them uneven. She’s improved with each new novel, and Notes from the Burning Age (2021, UK) is an accomplished work, and just as high-concept as her earlier novels — with some excellent world-building, a dash of contemporary politics, and important points about climate change. Perhaps the central mystery proves a bit of damp squib, but there’s enough going on to more than make up for it.
I was reading a best of the year post on a commercial blog recently, one of those where a handful of reviewers pick their best books of the year. And almost every single reviewer used phrases like “grabbed me by the heart”, or the book helped the reviewer “when my heart hurts”, or something similar. I do not read with my heart. I do not judge the quality of a book using my heart. I use my brain. Emotional manipulation takes no real skill — in films, they use subsonics; in music, it’s minor keys. And while many people read only for story — they don’t care how it’s told, only that they can follow it, that it has a beginning, middle and end, that they can follow its twists and turns, and that their prejudices are mostly reinforced. Characterisation, originality, excellent prose — none of these are required.
When it comes to excellent prose, which is something I personally appreciate, few can match Henry Green. I’ve been steadily working my way through his short oeuvre — only nine novels, published between 1926 and 1952. This year, I read Caught (1943, UK), which is set in London during the World War 2. The protagonist is, as Green himself was, a fireman during the Blitz. If science fiction works require exposition to explain their world to the reader, and mainstream works do not because they share their world with the reader, then Green has managed to pull that back one step further and everything is implied — the relationships between the characters, their back-stories, the situation in the world at large… Masterful stuff.
The most surprising read of the year, and I said as much back in June, was Jeanette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun (2017, UK). I’d expected the sort of fantasy that was being published at the time in the UK, but instead found myself reading an accomplished piece of world-building which riffed off fiction by female Victorian writers, women’s rights of the period, and British missionary colonialism. I’m eagerly awaiting Ng’s next novel.
2022 has also been a year of rereading. There are many books I read in the 1970s and 1980s I’d like to read again. And when I had access to them on my book-shelves, of course I never bothered. But now they’re in storage… I’ve been buying ebook copies when they’re on offer. I’ve been rereading Robert Silverberg, EC Tubb, Samuel R Delany, Jack Vance, Robert A Heinlein, Frank Herbert, CJ Cherryh, James Tiptree Jr and John Varley. Some have survived their rereads better than others. More recent books I’ve been rereading include Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, which I’m determined to finish this time, and the novels of William Barton, long a favourite author.
I mentioned earlier ticking things off on lists, and books series and authors’ oeuvres both qualify as lists. I’d read some of the early Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett back in the 1980s, so when they started popping up as ebooks for 99p, I decided to work my way through the series. And they’re worth it. I’m currently at book seven, Pyramids (1989. UK). Only thirty-five more to go. I read several of John le Carré’s novels, also during the 1980s, usually borrowed from my father. His books have also recently appeared on offer, so I bought a bunch of them. A worthwhile purchase. Other writers whose books I enjoy or admire, or both, and whose oeuvres I have been working my way through include Michel Houellebecq, Ali Smith, Iain Sinclair, Robert Harris, Sara Paretsky, and Rose Tremain.
And, for the record, I did read some, well, two books actually published in 2022. They were Eversion (2022, UK) by Alastair Reynolds and This is the Night They Come for You (2022,UK) by Robert Goddard. I do have more, however, on the TBR. But it might be a decade or two before I get around to reading some of them…
