Books 2022

I read 83 books this year, and I'm 36% done with an 84th, which will no doubt be book 1 of 2023. I think I shall make 83 my goal next year. I met this year's first goal some time in October and that, quite frankly, was no fun.

What did I read? Here is what Goodreads shows.

Better visualization: My 2022 in books. _Comfort Me with Apples_ was dreadful, btw.

Best non-fiction book of the year: The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb. I reviewed it here.

Worst non-fiction book of the year: _The Bright Ages_, reviewed here.

Best fiction book of the year: Always a tough one! I read several excellent books, but Garth Nix is always a tough one to beat. So: The Left-Handed Book Sellers of London. I'll put the runners-up at the end of this post.

Worst fiction book of the year: Alas, there were several entries to this category, and I'm going to have a hard time picking. Don't want to link to them on Amazon, if anyone wants to purchase them, I want no part it in! I think the worse was... well, huh. I think I'm going to give it a 4-way tie, because the books in question were all awful. Links to reviews if I left one. Order in which I read them.

_Comfort Me with Apples_ by Cat Valente. At least it was short.

_Under the Pendulum Sun_ by Jeanette Ng. Best thing about this drivel was the title. My review.

_The Actual Star_ by Monica Byrne. I always felt like my review was not scathing enough.

_Child of Light_ by Terry Brooks. This one might or might not deserve to be on this list, but it's there because a) some editor let this out and b) Terry Brooks can -and has- written so much better books than this, so it's here more because of how relatively bad it was rather than how absolutely bad.

This one is probably the worst book I read this year, but the others were so bad, I couldn't be 100% sure: _A Taste of Gold and Iron_. It's so fucking DREADFUL, and I'm still agog at the fact that Tor published and continues to promote it. It's... well. My review, if anything, is kinder than the awfulness of the book deserves: 499 pages of poorly written drivel.

That was five books, ooops. A dishonorable mention to _Boneland_ by Alan Garner which was a heartbreaker because I'd so loved the first two books of the trilogy (one of them read as a kid)and I wish I'd skipped the third.

And but the good books, the ones I loved, even if they weren't my pick for The Best Book. _Hall of Smoke_ by H.M. Long, and the next book of the series, _Temple of No God_. _Legends and Lattes_ by Travid Baldree. The October Daye books that I read this year, as well as _Spelunking Through Hell_ from the Incryptid series, by Seanan McGuire. The first two books of T. Kingfisher's Paladin series. _All the Seas of the World_ by Guy Gavriel Kay. _The Golden Enclaves_ the last book of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series. _A Restless Truth_ by Freya Marske.

Various bits of End of Year Recap

* Linnea went back to Bellingham by herself today, almost a week before school started. She insists she is not planning on a party or anything for NYE. Since Anne-Chloe insisted on going out on NYE one year, promised us she'd not drive anywhere and then went out with friends, and proceeded to take up with Dishit, fall of the Dean's list to end up barely passing classes... well, I am a bit scared about seeing Linnea head down this same pathway, despite her "I really have to do this" bullshit. Ugh. Parenting sucks. Felt the same way when Perry decided to be a covidiot and go back to Bellingham to finish the quarter by himself in his apartment back in 2020, something he freely admits in retrospect was a horrid mistake. Anyhow.

* Christmas at my sister's, got to hang out with my fab niece. Anne-Chloe managed to make it down, with Dipshit, alas. Nobody likes him, and I'm concerned they're getting their relationship back on track. He was really obnoxious, and everyone was kinda biting their fingers because we all wanted Anne-Chloe there, but Chris's loud braying, know-it-all-ness, and general annoyingness put everyone on edge.

* MIL has covid. So far she's doing ok. She didn't get her bivalent vaccine, WTF? She got her flu shot, but didn't want to get them on the same day (because her arm was sore last year) so waited on Covid and now this. Ugh. I hope she starts feeling better soon. She started on meds two days ago, and dh said she was better yesterday then before meds, so fingers crossed. Not giving up my N95 any time soon. Blah.

* We had lots of snow and some pretty awful weather. Seattle got freezing rain while we were away, but it looks like we didn't, I'm guessing the Cascades cold never allowed the warm air intrusion over us so not rain possible.

* Dh had to work during the holidays. Still not quite sure why, since while he did take off a month for vacation this year, he should have had accrued time. Ah well. There were some projects I wanted to get done, fingers crossed we can tackle them in January.

* Not liking the uptick in Covid numbers. Especially not liking the people who think that if we can ignore it for long enough, we'll miraculously be transported back to 2019. Not going to happen. The more research that comes up, showing how pervasive and cumulative the damage from repeated infections is, the more concerned I get for kids, who were thrown to the wolves and sent back to school with no precautions in place to catch it repeatedly, with no idea what the long-term consequences might be.

*

Ring Out, Wild Bells by Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

* Best wishes for 2023, people!