Books Read During the First Four Months of 2022
Ten days into January, 2022, I wrote a list of the content I’d consumed in 2022 up until that point. Now it’s something like a hundred days into 2022. Here’s an update.
If you haven’t read one of these lists by me before, the two questions I always like to ask when I think about a book:
Do I recommend this book?
Would I read it again?
I don’t always answer those questions but that’s what I like to think about. And no, most of these books aren’t worth of a re-read in my opinion.
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Medium: Audiobook
You can read more about this in a blog post I wrote dedicated to it. It’s fun enough.
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Medium: Hardcover
Another one I wrote more about, here. I think most people should read this book, even if there are some things I didn’t like about it.
Also, I’m obsessed with this idea “can a dog be twins” from it, even if I’m troubled by the author’s obsession with social media and validation.
What this means is that now I’m waiting for this featured snippet to go from this answer from the American Kennel Club to something immediately addressing the reason someone is really searching this.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Medium: Hardcover
I saw no sense in writing more about this one. I don’t think I have any special opinions on As I Lay Dying that anyone needs to hear. But yeah, read it. I’ll read it again too if it encourages you.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Medium: Audiobook
A fun, interesting book that I wouldn’t really recommend to anyone. Not much to read but I don’t regret reading it. Made for a good audiobook listen.
Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner
Medium: Paperback
I read this because I read As I Lay Dying and I wanted more Faulkner and this is a book I already had on my bookshelf. I don’t think it’s a book everyone needs to read. It’s probably in the category of for Faulkner completionists only, which is not something I consider myself to be but I could see myself drifting in that direction with enough time. I know that I’ve read his four most major, significant books—The Sound and the Fury, Sanctuary, Light in August, and As I Lay Dying, read in that order—and now I’ve read Requiem for a Nun, which is a sequel to Sanctuary and at least one notch below it.
I know there is debate about where Sanctuary belongs. I’ve read the internet apocrypha about it being written as a potboiler for money alone. If that’s what the book was meant to be, it fails. Requiem for a Nun is not that. It’s half play, for one. But there are parts of it, the historical parts, the history of the town and its courthouse, that really spoke to me. The man had a way with prose.
The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
Medium: Kindle
This was a sorta fun book. I don’t think it needs to be at the top of anyone’s reading list. I read it because I wanted more Liane Moriarty after reading Apples Never Fall. I think I’ve had my fill of her for the time being.
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
Medium: Audiobook
My third time reading this one. I’ll keep reading it with some regularity, I expect, especially the first story in it, which contains multitudes. I’ve read it as both a paperback and an audiobook book now. Both are good, but the audiobook come with the added bonus of some excellent narrators. Nick Offerman, Michael Shannon, Dermot Mulroney, Will Patton, Liev Schreiber. That’s one hell of a lineup.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Medium: Hardcover
I wrote more about this one, here. To repeat my friend Conor, again, it’s maybe the worst Ishiguro book and still a great one. (In fairness, Conor has not read The Unconsoled. More on that below.)
American Melancholy by Joyce Carol Oates
Medium: Hardcover
A gift from my wife, a year ago, for my birthday. Like a lot of books of poems by a single author, I read it cover to cover but it took me a long time. A year. Joyce Carol Oates isn’t primarily known for her poems. But her poems are good. You should read them.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Medium: Audiobook
Nothing like the movie. Better than the movie.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Medium: Audiobook
I finally read this! And it’s just as great as people say it is, even if it is probably a bunch of lies. I would tell you to read it but I think I was the last American left you hadn’t read it.
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Medium: Kindle
A beautiful, simple novel. Read it.
Devil House by the guy from the Mountain Goats
Medium: Kindle, Audiobook
We read this for my book club. The more I think about this book, the less I like it. I don’t think I recommend it. I will not read it again. I absolutely do NOT recommend the audio version. Like most of the worst audiobooks I’ve listened to, it’s read by the author himself.
And I expected to love this thing! It opened as true crime metafiction, but by the end it’s muddled incoherence, and not in a good way.
The Apartment by K. L. Slater
Medium: Audiobook
I already barely remember this book. I assume that means I wouldn’t recommend it.
Blitzed by Norman Ohler (Author), Shaun Whiteside (Translator)
Medium: Audiobook
First I read When We Cease to Understand the World. The first chapter of that discusses the Nazis and their suicides and their uses of drugs and I wanted more of that, so I read a whole book about it. Read it if you need an entire book about Nazis and drugs. Skip it if you don’t. You probably don’t, but maybe you do?
The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre
Medium: Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook, all at once
One of my favorite le Carre books. And a nuanced, thoughtful look at the Israel Palestine conflicts. I read a review that said it transcends its genre, and I completely agree. (Although I think the same can be said about most of his books.)
The Marriage Lie by Kimberley Bell
Medium: Audiobook
I read this because it was free.
Wow, the prose in this book is ROUGH. I think the phrase “spiky ball of _____” [insert “nausea” or “anxiety” or “anger”] is used like ten different times. Also, there are some really questionable elements, including an unarmed black man being shot toward the end, a scene that seems to give zero concern to the protagonist until someone points out to her that, yeah, that was a murder. So, no, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone, although it is a nice example of a book that does keep you guessing until the last word. Too many books these days seem to have these dragged-out sentence-heavy endings (remember The Goldfinch?) and this one still has shit happening right until it ends. So it had that going for it but, no, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Books I’ve Read Partially in 2022 and Not Finished Yet
The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet
Status: 100 Pages Left. Been Reading it All Year.
I loved HHhH, the first novel by this author. This one is, well, tough. I don’t really know what’s going on. Part of me wants to save all my thoughts of when I eventually finish this book, but let’s just say that this book makes me feel unintellectual. Who are all these French intellectuals caught up in a feud? What is happening here? Can anyone keep track of all these characters?
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Status: Not Even Halfway Through.
Medium: Kindle and Audiobook
Maybe this should be read via paper, if read at all. Disappointed. So unlike every other Ishiguro novel. What the hell is this book?
Berta Isla by Javier Marias
Status: Almost Halfway Through.
Medium: Kindle and Audiobook
I described this to someone as “Roberto Bolano writing a John le Carre novel. In a good way.” And that’s the best description I can think of.
Essays One by Lydia Davis
Status: Again, about halfway through.
Medium: Paperback
Beautiful writing, although there are some small notes I’ve taken here and there, little moments where I question the advice she’s giving or where she’s coming from. I wrote a few blog posts so far.
What Other Books Am I Kinda Reading That I Can’t Remember?
I don’t know. There’s a bunch of them around. Too many. But I’m trying to start figuring out which ones I need to own, which ones I want to own for the foreseeable future, which ones belong in my little free library.
Oh, yeah, check out my little free library if you haven’t:
I’m attempted to curate it.