What I Read This Year: 2022
2022 was not a good reading year for me. As the world haltingly moved towards “normality” - and we won’t even get into if such a thing is even possible - I found more forces pulling on my time and energy to read. Not all of this pulling was bad: I did get back onstage for the first time since 2019, but I also wasted a great deal of time. For what it’s worth, here is my year in reading:
Working - Robert A. Caro
A short memoir by the author of the acclaimed multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, which details both Caro’s beginnings as a writer and his research methods while writing the LBJ books and The Power Broker (his biography of the New York urban planner Robert Moses, who exerted far too much power over shaping modern Manhattan). I found Caro an engaging writer, and I look forward to this documentary detailing his ongoing efforts to complete his Johnson books.
Snow - John Banville
A perfectly entertaining English village mystery novel. I have another Banville on my desk that I may crack soon as a palate cleanser.
Moving On - Larry McMurtry
My reading achievement of the year. McMurtry tops four figures in page count in this early novel of 1960’s Houston told from the point of view of a young woman determined to keep pushing towards happiness. Some very funny scenes that are no doubt riffs on a young McMurtry’s experiences around the film industry, and if you know McMurtry you’ll be pleased to see characters from the forthcoming Terms of Endearment here.
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
Dead Lions - Mick Herron
Very enjoyable if you’re a fan of spy fiction. You can watch an adaptation of this second novel in Herron’s series in the second season of Apple TV+’s Slow Horses.
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters
Silverview - John Le Carre
Cinema Speculation - Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino has won two Oscars for writing, so if this book reads like him detailing his memories of mostly 1970’s genre films while sitting with you at a bar then that’s exactly what he wanted. Cinema Speculation also may be the closest thing to an autobiography that Tarantino will ever write, and the last chapter is stirring in a way I didn’t expect.