My year in books, 2022

This year, I went through several reading slumps and read very few of the books I planned to get through this year. I learnt it’s a bad idea to try and plan 12 months’ worth of reading.

However, discounting the books I DNF’d, I read 42 books this year. Out of those 42, there were 15 I wanted to talk about.

These books are arranged in the order that I read them. I should also clarify that their inclusion does not necessarily mean they were “better” books than those that didn’t make the list. These 15 were just the ones that I had the fondest feelings towards when reviewing my year in reading.

This year, I have also highlighted my top three reads (🥉🥈🥇). These three books had the greatest impact on me in 2022. They’re also the books I’m most keen to recommend.

My favourite books of 2021

I read 45 books this year and started a 46th on Christmas Day. Out of all those books, there was not a single one I’d call a bad read. Thus, narrowing down a list of favourites from this year wasn’t easy.

In the end, after much deliberation, I settled on the 20 listed below. So here are my favourite reads of 2021, listed in the order that I read them:

My favourite books of 2020

Every year I set myself a reading goal. I set it high enough to be a consistent nudge to read often but never too high that reading becomes stressful.

My goal was to read 35 books in 2020, and I read a total of 45.

It was the first year that theatre plays didn’t contribute to that final number, which made reading in 2020 a completely different experience to the previous couple of years. Instead, I read a great deal more non-fiction than I normally would, which I found to be equally as pleasurable as reading fiction. I also learnt a lot, too.

I enjoyed most books I read last year, but I’ve decided to list 15 I felt were worth highlighting. I’ve listed them in the order I read them. I considered ranking them but that led to overthinking, and I already have enough of that in my life.