2022 Reading: A Year In Review

I Read 100 Books in 2022

2022 was an amazing year of reading for me. I created and participated in the 2022 Reading Challenge. I read a total of 100 books in 2022. I consumed over 30,000 pages.

I read 95 new-to-me books. I found a new top 10 favorite author. I discovered that I really enjoy murder mysteries.

If you’ve been following Spine & Leaf Books, you’ve probably seen my 2022 Reading Challenge as well as my monthly book updates. If you are new here, go ahead and check out the links below to get caught up.

• 2022 Reading Challenge
• 2023 Reading Challenge
• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December

I’ll break down the year into a few interesting categories to get a better feel for how the year went overall. After 100 books, it’s easy to forget about a few from earlier in the year.

I kept a reading journal all year to write down the books I was reading, the author, page count, and a rating out of 5 stars.

The List

Book #	Title	Author
1	To Sail a Darkling Sea	John Ringo
2	The Moment of Lift	Melinda Gates
3	The Musical Human	Michael Spitzer
4	Yes, Chef	Marcus Samuelsson
5	The Client	John Grisham
6	“A” is for Alibi	Sue Grafton
7	What I Talk About When I Talk About Running	Haruki Mura
8	Tom Sawyer	Mark Twain
9	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen
10	Built to Last	Jim Collins + Jerry I. Porras
11	That Summer	Jennifer Weiner
12	The Fishermen	Chigozie Obioma
13	Blood Countess	Lana Popovic
14	A Discovery of Witches	Deborah Harkness
15	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society	Mary Ann Shaffer + Annie Barrows
16	The House in the Cerulean Sea	TJ Kline
17	Lone Survivor	Chris Stringer
18	Practical Magic	Alice Hoffman
19	The Hawthorne School	Sylvie Perry
20	When Breath Becomes Air	Paul Kalanithi
21	Murder on the Orient Express	Agatha Christie
22	Fauci: Expect the Unexpected	Anthony Fauci
23	The Invisible Library	Genevieve Cogman
24	Alone on the Wall	Alex Honnold + David Roberts
25	Piranesi	Susanna Clark
26	Remarkable Creatures	Tracy Chevalier
27	Deja Dead	Kathy Reichs
28	The Night Circus	Erin Morgenstern
29	21 Lessons for the 21st Century	Yuval Noah Harari
30	The Violin Conspiracy	Brendan Slocumb
31	The Emperor’s Wolves	Michelle Segara
32	All Systems Red	Martha Wells
33	The City We Became	N.K. Jemisin
34	Kismet	Luke Tredget
35	On Juneteenth	Annette Gordon Reed
36	Bear Town	Fredrik Backman
37	The Ballerinas	Rachel Kapelke-Dale
38	Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them	J.K. Rowling
39	Rin, Tongue, and Dorner	Rich Shapero
40	The Thursday Murder Club	Richard Osman
41	Next	Michael Crichton
42	The Sacrifice of One	Emily Fortney
43	The Water Knife	Paolo Bacigalupi
44	American Zoo	David Grazian
45	Taller When Prone	Les Murray
46	Why You Eat What You Eat	Rachel Herz
47	Dreaming in Turtle	Peter Lauter
48	Legacy	Greg Bear
49	After Me Comes the Flood	Sarah Perry
50	A Dying Fall	Elly Griffiths
51	Hood Feminism	Mikki Kendall
52	The Sellout	Paul Beatty
53	Braiding Sweetgrass	Robin Kimmerer
54	Gut	Guilia Enders
55	2001: A Space Odessey	Arthur C. Clarke
56	The Liar’s Dictionary	Eley Williams
57	And Then There Were None	Agatha Christie
58	Breath	James Nestor
59	Shadow and Bone	Leigh Bardigo
60	A Spindle Splintered	Alix E. Harrow
61	The Midnight Library	Matt Haig
62	A Briefer History of Time	Stephen Hawking
63	The Vanishing Half	Brit Bennett
64	The Midnight Hour	Elly Griffiths
65	Stardust	Neil Gaiman
66	Venomous Lumpsucker	Ned Beauman
67	Pay Up	Reshma Saujami
68	John Dies at the End	Jason Pargin
69	The Girl in the Shadows	Audrey Blake
70	Triathlon for the Every Woman	Meredith Atwood
71	Women Who Tri	Alicia DiFabio
72	A Molecule Away from Madness	Sara Manning Peskin
73	The Four-Hour School Day	Durenda Wilson
74	The Anthropocene Reviewed	John Green
75	Eat and Run	Scott Jurek + Steve Friedman
76	Messy	Tim Harford
77	Death on the Nile	Agatha Christie
78	Deaf Utopia	Nyle Dimarco
79	The Keeper of Lost Things	Ruth Hogan
80	My Messy is a Bit of a Life	Georgia Pritchett
81	The Alchemy of Air	Thomas Hager
82	The Atlas Six	Olivie Blake
83	The Birds at My Table	Darryl Jones
84	The Plot	Jean Hanff Korelitz
85	The Latecomer	Jean Hanff Korelitz
86	Lark Ascending	Silas House
87	Take No Names	Daniel Nieh
88	Anxious People	Fredrik Backman
89	Poster Girl	Veronica Roth
90	Our Missing Hearts	Celeste Ng
91	The Atlas Paradox	Olivie Blake
92	A Man Called Ove	Fredrik Backman
93	Oath of Loyalty	Vince Flynn + Kyle Mills
94	A House Between Earth and the Moon	Rebecca Scherm
95	“B” is for Burglar	Sue Grafton
96	Tuf Voyaging	George R.R. Martin
97	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone	J.K. Rowling
98	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	J.K. Rowling
99	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	J.K. Rowling
100	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	J.K. Rowling

Favorite New-To-Me Books

• Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin
• Beartown by Fredrik Backman
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• Oath of Loyalty by Kyle Mills and Vince Flynn
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Re-Reads

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling

Longest and Shortest Books

• Longest Book at 734 Pages: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
• Shortest Boot at 88 Pages: Taller When Prone by Les Murray

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

Genres

I’ve gotta say I was surprised with how many book genres I’ve read. Of course, there’s always some overlap where a book can fit multiple categories. But it’s also hard here to make sure that science fiction is kept separate from non-fiction science books. And historical fiction is different than historical non-fiction.

Overall, I really enjoy sci-fi and fantasy and that really shows in the numbers with the majority of my books coming from these two categories. And fantasy was a whopping 20%! One of every five books!

What I Learned

What I learned this year is that there are too many books to ever read. I was never short on books and frequently had to choose what to read and what to leave behind. The constant new releases can be a bit overwhelming, and I like to keep up with at least some of the new popular books in the reading world, but I know I’ll never be able to do it.

Most of the books I read were new-to-me, but actually quite old in the literary world. I think this works for me because there’s something to be said about picking up a worn-out, heavy, torn book from the library shelves. It means that countless others have had the same joy of reading the book already. It means I can join a group of long-time readers that also love some of these favorites and who aren’t ready to leave them behind just yet.

The Worst Part

The worst part of reading 100 books is keeping track of them all.

I’m not one to normally write down everything I do, but I do like the end result. I like when my fitness watch records my workouts for me because I like seeing the results at the end of the month or at the end of a training program, but keeping track of it all myself would be too daunting.

With books, I tried to write down enough info to remember the book and be meaningful, but not so much that it was a bother. Originally, I was writing about what I thought of the book, what was good, what was bad, but that was too much for me.

I noticed if I wrote down the title, author, genre, and page count in my book journal that I’d remember the book. I’d spark something that brought back the good and the bad. Also, with this blog, I was already writing a few sentences at the end of each month in my monthly updates. If I really wanted to go back, I’d still have that digital record to remember.

In addition to a journal and the blog, I was also updating GoodReads. I love the site and appreciate what it does, but I think I’d be better off with only one or two ways to record books each month instead of three. I guess I have to choose for next year!

I wonder if there’s an app that scans barcodes so it automatically uploads all the book’s info for you?

The Best Part

My absolute favorite thing about the challenge is that I realized I like murder mystery books! A whole new genre has opened up to me and there are some real gems in there!

I have never really appreciated murder mysteries and frankly, I’m not sure why I never picked them up. But I’m so glad I did.

Agatha Christie is as amazing as everyone says she is. She has earned every accolade and award she’s ever received. I’m seriously impressed with how good her books are.

The second best part is also about an author. Swedish author Fredrik Backman. I was way behind the curve on this guy too. But he really gets people. He understands humanity and what it means to be human. I will continue to read his books next year because they are too good to put down.

What About Next Year?

Next year, 2023, I’m not sure if I’ll read 100 books.

I love reading.

I’ve loved this experience and setting this goal for myself.

But, there are also other things I love too.

So, in 2023 I will make sure my other hobbies get their fair share of my time. I want to be a well-rounded individual. To me, that means always learning, always trying something new, and always being ready for the next goal. I will absolutely keep reading and I never plan to give that up.

For now, I am setting a reading goal for 2023 to complete the 2023 Reading Challenge. I’m extremely excited because a few of the items will be a real challenge. I want to continue to branch out in what I read because I know it will help me discover things I never knew I enjoyed. But 100 books might be out of the question.

Thank You!

I want to end the post with a thank you to everyone that participated in the challenge with me! I loved hearing what others were reading and I’m just beyond grateful that others thought this challenge was going to be fun.

I wrote it for me, but the fact that others found the blog and joined in will forever make me happy to be a part of the reading community.

Thank you to all and I hope to see you in 2023!