non-fiction

My 2022 Year of Reading

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A photo of myself next to a neon red love heart

A belated Happy New Year to you all. My plan had been to post this list early in January, but the weather was lovely and we were on summer holidays and frankly swimming and visiting came ahead of writing. And then, a week ago, after three years of hiding, lockdowns, isolations, vaccinations, masking up and going out, I was finally felled by the plague. Covid hit me early on Tuesday morning and it was painful and sudden, with all the expectant symptoms. Due to having been hospitalised in August of last year with RSV (ambulance dash to the  resuscitation unit at my local hospital and an ensuing protracted illness and recovery) meant I was on the high risk list and I received antivirals within a few hours of testing positive and I have been bed bound and isolating ever since. The meds have worked, I am still isolating so I have turned my time into writing for the blog, and gratefully I tested negative just yesterday. 

Up until late October of 2022, my reading continued to be fractured and interrupted by life and all its oddities, however, in late October, I felt like my pre-PhD, pre-uni reading mojo was back, having read 70 books from November onwards – over double for the rest of the year. And that reading mojo also had me giving 5 stars to 25 books – a quarter of all I read! I think it is a bit much to go into depth with all 25 books (though 11 of those were picture books), I will have a brief description of my absolute favourites and only list the rest.

102 Books

Fiction: 29 – Romance fiction: 25

Audiobooks: 20

Picture Books and Junior fiction: 27

Non-Fiction: 34 – Memoirs, histories, narrative non-fiction: 21, Design and travel 6, Academic 4

Graphic Novel – all memoirs – 11

Australian authors – 8

YA – 1

DNFd but counted: 2

The five star books for 2022

Fiction

Flirting with Forever – Cara Bastone

Can’t Help Falling – Cara Bastone

Love and Other Puzzles by Kimberley Allsop

Starfish by Lisa Fipps – made me cry

Meet Cute by Helena Hunting

To Sir With Love – Lauren Lane

Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron

Best of the fiction best: 

Flirting with Forever by Cara Bastone.

This was such a deep, slow burn of a romance. A flirty, confident heroine, with an awkward foot-in-mouth nerdy hero (who doesn’t turn into a swan). I loved who thoughtfully the main protagonists in this story grew and developed throughout this story. The hero John Modesto-Whitford is a serious man not taken to having fun, serious about his public defender job, serious about not allowing his rich father contribute to his life. He presents as boring but still-waters-run-deep and this man… ““John was being active. Inside the walls of this crumbling but noble building, he was never passive. He was doing something about that complicated world. Each hour of concentration he lent to his cases he was making the world a more just, fair place.” ….this man is a fair man. Just swoon.

Love and Other Puzzles by Kimberley Allsopp.

What an absolute delightful book. I loved the way it was written, the protagonist’s cheeky, clear eyed voice, it was just fun. It was more chick-lit than romance, Rory is devoted to her rigid routines, judges life by the rom-com openings they reflect, and how well they reflect them, and doesn’t really cope when things are out of place. Until she decides that she needs to break her routine so she allows the clues in the New York Times crossword puzzles dictate her life decisions. In the space of a week, her life is changed. I loved it. 

Pink cover for Love and Other Puzzles
Blue cover for Flirting with Forever

Non-fiction

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love – Dani Shapiro

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

A City is Not a Computer by Shannon Mattern

The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by C.J. Hauser

Best of the Non-fiction Best: 

Deep blue with bioluminescence of sea creatures on the cover of Phosphorescence

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird. An Australian author, journalist exploring the world of phosphorescence and how to find our own internal light. This book worked for me but I think it did this because I was in an unusual headspace even for myself. I read it only a few weeks after my hospitalisation and it spoke to that darkest part of ourselves, especially as I had stopped breathing on two occasions and it was difficult to comprehend the severity of what I was experiencing. This book made me consider how I think about things that give me awe.

Some of quotes that I felt deeply included “Keep in mind that the most important quality in a person is goodness” and “Don’t make the mistake of dismissing decency as dullness” (p. 139) Especially that last one, oh the amount of women I have known who craved the “bad boy” for romance and mistreated the decent man as dull. It always angered me. 

“It might take you decades to speak up about things that matter to you, but, being able to speak your truth is a vital part of being human, of walking with certainty and openness on the earth, and refusing to be afraid. Once you have found your voice, you must resist every person who will tell you to bury or bottle it.” (p. 151). This quote stung me. I felt much more outspoken prior to my PhD and somehow, I find that 2 years later, I still haven’t got my voice back. I have stopped trying to get it back too. I hope with time it will come back.

Picture Books

Purple book, stars in the scar, sweet young girl. Cover of When Molly Ate The Stars

Stacey’s Remearkable books by Stacey Abrams

When Molly Ate the Stars Joyce Hesselberth

The Octopus Escapes by Maile Meloy

Blankie by Ben Clanton

Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

I love you like by Lisa Swerling

Moonlight by Stephen Savage

The Perfect Tree by Corinne Demas

If You Were A City by Kyo Maclear

It Had To Be You by Loryn Brantz

White cover of a narwhal holding a yellow blankie

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack

Best of the Picture book Best: 

When Molly Ate The Stars by Joyce Hesselberth was slow, bright, starry, delightful and light. It had an ethereal sense to it that just made me happy. 

Blankie by Ben Clanton is a board book with rhythms and humour. It would just be delightful fun to read to a toddler.

Weirdest Book

Green and mottled cover for Upright Women Wanted

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Bat-shit-crazy

gunslinging

anti-fascist

lesbian librarians

in a futuristic dystopian American West.

Like, I really don’t think I need to describe it any further.

This is a must read.

Just for the cray-cray.

The Best What-the-fuck-did-I-just-read book of the year

A couple on the cover of Promoted to the Greek's Wife. She's in a pink flowing dress, he's in a tuxedo.

And just because I feel I need to make a comment…I did read a Lynne Graham novel this year and yes it made me happy and made me laugh.But I have comments!

Promoted to the Greek’s Wife: An Uplifting International Romance by Lynne Graham

Let’s start with the novel. It was the usual angsty Graham novel which engages in love, romance, rich entitled men and poor waifish women who get the hots with each other while they jetset around the world while navigating the difficulties of unconventional families. Heroine Cleo, billionaire hero Ari, work romance (though they call it before it gets unethical – Lynne’s gone woke!). Lots of tension. Lots of foster kids, lots of social issues and lots of love. This book was fun and I really enjoyed it.

However, there is a particularly large elephant in the room. That large elephant is the subtitle. 

An uplifting International Romance.

AN UPLIFTING INTERNATIONAL ROMANCE!

AN UPLIFTING INTERNATIONAL ROMANCE?????

SERIOUSLY!?

I had to check my book cover. Had I accidently picked up an Inspirational romance? Has Lynne Graham stopped writing Sexy’s?

What is happening? 

This is not my Mills & Boon and I really don’t like it.

Inspirational kiss my big fat Greek-Australian arse!

This book was many things but it was not uplifting and it certainly wasn’t inspirational.  But it definitely was fun.

Reading Milestones: Observation Note 111 and Reading Note 46

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Observation note 111: I’m an avid reader. I reached a personal milestone this weekend. I have read 2500 books since I started keeping my own digital reading records. Starting on WeRead from 2008, then migrating my data over to Goodreads in 2012 where I joined many of my other bookish friends (this probably coincides with my ceasing to post my reading choices on FB). This is the only social media platform I use consistently, facilitating nearly a decade and a half of record keeping – the habits of avid readers!

Diligently adding information to my digital reading record grew out of my readers’ advisory practices as a librarian. My access to my library records prior to using these book sites provided only a partial snapshot of my reading as it didn’t include the books I was buying and reading outside of the library. The books I found myself buying also informed me as to the biases in library collections.

Keeping track of my reading has always helped me in my workplace in understanding user behaviours and anticipating reading requirements, especially during my time as a team leader at the City of Sydney where I was coordinating up to 7 storytimes a week for the various childcare centres in Ultimo (separately from the children’s programming) which explains the “library-storytime” tag (143 books) where I was assessing picture books for performance suitability. But even once I stopped working in libraries, I couldn’t stop the record keeping. You can take the librarian out of the library, and all that.

Now for some statistics: My year for the most books read was in 2012 – 365 books. My year for the least books read was 2013 – 26 books. The years I spent studying deeply impacted my book reading outputs, especially as many of those years I was working in two jobs, along with studying, along with general family and home responsibilities. Reading opportunities in those years became treats and luxuries, though the list would be off the scales if I was able to count journal articles on GoodReads!

I have approximately 580 subject tags “shelves”, though my early records don’t have many tags, my later ones are rich with description – this practice emerged as the digital world became more sophisticated. Folksonomic categorisation rather than taxonomic predetermined ordering systems FTW! My highest read genre is romance fiction (814), picture books (599), non-fiction (589). I love that along standard tags such as “graphic novel” (64 books), “historical fiction” (86 books), I get to created my own descriptors and some of the more esoteric ones are “bat shit crazy” (10 books), “fake name trickery” (23 books), “yeeha cowboy” (27 books) and “hatch-back hero” (a pathetic 2 books). I even have a “vassiliki” tag for books with characters who have my name (5 books).

Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Reading Note 46: Furious fury. For the record, my 2500th book was Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Added to my TBR in March 2019. It’s on the obfuscation of women from data collection and its deep life and historic impacts. It made me incredibly angry at the extent that womens’ lives continue to be marginalised from health, education, road safety, employment and every day life opportunities. Men continue to be the default at the expense of women’s lives. I think this book should be a must read for everyone, especially policy and decision makers.

Reading avenues for the Shell-Shocked, Time-Strapped Reader: From First-time Parents to Corporate Workers

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For many people, reading fiction means escaping into another world, losing yourself in the setting, becoming one of the characters in the book and feeling that you are there too. To do this, as a reader, you need uninterrupted time, seamless moments to relish the language, space and activity taking place but, unfortunately, when your workplace commands much of your waking time or a newborn enters your household, uninterrupted time may be only half an hour whether it is your commute or your rest time between chores and baby napping. And half an hour for most readers is not sufficient to immerse and lose yourself in a novel.

For those of you who need to see the written word at least once a day, who need that tactile sense of paper and no electronic devices and for those of you who miss reading but can’t seem to delve into characters lives like you did in those pre-work committment, pre-baby  times, here are a few reading alternatives that I have suggested to library borrowers who come enquiring. You may want to consider:

Short Stories:

Succicint, minimalist with an economy of words, the short story is a great place to start rediscovering reading. Short stories range from 2000 to 20 000 words making it a great entry point for many time strapped readers. Anthologies tend to have a thematic vein with a variety of authors. Some great examples are Girls Night Out, Zombies vs Unicorns, Steampunk. The other short story style is the one author with a variety of their own stories: Margo Lanagan’s Black Juice, Steven King’s Four Past Midnight, Tobsha Learner’s Yearn. Some of these stories stand alone and others are interlinked. Short stories are a great way to explore new genres, new author voices or just delve into a previously loved writing theme.

Literary Magazines:

There are many literary magazines all of which have short fiction, essays, poetry and the like. There is the New Yorker, Granta Magazine (thematic based approaches to compiling reading materials), McSweeney’s amongst others.

Observers:

Essayists, comedians, people who write about the funny, peculiar occurrences that they observe are often great reads for the busy person. Often a collection of their works can be dipped in and out of over a period of time. Some of my favourite observer/essayists are David Sedaris, Laurie Notaro, Adam Gopnik, Gervase Phinn.

Non-Fiction:

Non-fiction is a fabulous antidote to the reader who misses reading but not necessarily fiction. Dipping in and out of most non-fiction is a simpler task than with novels as they are fact driven. Wit the exception of biographies, most non-fiction doesn’t require the reader to emotionally attach themselves to character lives (though, that said, sometimes it is harder to let go of the real life people you read about in some history books). DK Books have great information design that facilitates dipping in and out of books, some arm chair travelling, dreaming of artists, reading about the military, atlases of history, unattainable homes in architecture books or science trivia books can be very rewarding reads.

Children’s Fiction:

In general, children’s novels are much shorter than adult novels and there is a plethora of enjoyable reading. From Dick King Smith’s The Waterhorse, Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell’s Far Flung Adventure Series to the darker Sisters Grimm series many of these stories often surprise adults with their themes and quality writing.

Mythology:

With the prospect of reading tales from around the world, reading mythology is a rediscovery of tales told either at the dinner table or in the classroom. From Aboriginal dreamtime, Homer’s Odyssey or Arthurian tales mythologies may be shorter reads but they have inspired many generations with their epic adventures.

Poetry and Lyrics:

Poetry and lyrics are the delivery of ideas in rhythm and cadence that stays in your mind long after you have re-shelved the book you read it in.

To add to all these, there are newspapers, comics, graphic novels and many other shorter writing options that can be suggested to readers. Websites, blogposts, zines and a number of online options are also available but for the purposes of this post I wanted to focus purely on the print reading options that are available.

For the busy worker, the lack of reading opportunities can sometimes go un-noted  for many years as it occurred incrementally but for the first-time parent this transition isn’t a slow one but one which seems like a severance of a body part. And though some of the above suggestions may seem overly obvious, when someone is overtired it is easy to overlook simple ideas until someone mentions them to you.

So whether you are a time-strapped executive who is working 12 hour days, a cleaner who physically is exhausted at the end of a long shift or a new-time parent struggling to find any time to themselves, hopefully the above avenues are helpful and bring lots of reading pleasure.