Sunday, January 08, 2023

2022 Reading List

(I posted this list on December 31 as a promissory note, but here it is again, with my reflections on the year added at the end.)

   

Books
1. The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum, January 2, 2022, 5 stars
2. The Book of Genesis, January 13, 2022 (reread)
3. Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum, January 17, 2022, 5 stars
4. Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum, January 31, 2022, 4 stars
5. The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien, February 7, 2022, 7 stars
6. The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum, February 14, 2022, 5 stars
7. Rinkitink in Oz by L. Frank Baum, March 1, 2022, 6 stars
8. The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum, March 16, 2022, 6 stars
9. The Book of Exodus, March 30, 2022 (reread)
10. The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum, April 11, 2022, 6 stars
11. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien, April 29, 2022, 7 stars
11.5 The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings Box Set by J. R. R. Tolkien April 30, 2022
12. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, May 2, 2022, 5 stars
14. The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum, June 23, 2022, 3 stars
15. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, August 28, 2022, 8 stars
16. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney, September 16, 2022, 3 stars
17. Animorphs 1: The Invasion by K.A. Applegate, September 22, 2022, 4 stars
18. The Iliad by Homer, September 24, 2022 (reread) 9 stars
19. The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass, October 17, 2022, 7 stars
20. Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum, October 20, 2022, 3 stars
20.5 The Complete Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum, October 20, 2022
21. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells , October 30, 2022 (reread), 8 stars
22. The Histories by Herodotus, November 12, 2022, 8 stars
23. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, November 28, 2022, 8 stars
(and finished The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan on December 28, 2022, but no review yet)

2. Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume by Jeff Smith, June 13, 2022
4. The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman , June 24, 2022
5. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets by Hergé, July 5, 2022
6. Tintin in America by Hergé, July 8, 2022
7. Tintin in Cigars of the Pharaoh by Herge, July 13, 2022
8. Tintin in The Blue Lotus by Herge, July 14, 2022
9. Tintin in The Broken Ear by Herge, July 15, 2022
10. Tintin in The Black Island by Herge, July 23, 2022
11. Tintin in King Ottokar's Sceptre by Herge, July 25, 2022
12. Tintin in The Crab with the Golden Claws by Herge, July 26, 2022
14. Tintin in The Seven Crystal Balls by Herge, August 3, 2022
15. Tintin in Land of Black Gold by Herge, August 20, 2022
16. Tintin in The Secret of the Unicorn by Herge, August 30, 2022
17. Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1: The Coming of the Avengers by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Don Heck, August 31, 2022
18. The Death of Superman, September 3, 2022 (reread)

Well, it's been a year.  And what a year!
We've welcomed baby number 2 into our lives, and our lives have gotten so much busier as a result.
In retrospect, I totally did not appreciate how much more work a second baby was going to be.  I had been thinking, "Well, we're already busy taking care of one child.  Adding another one into the mix won't make any difference at this point.  It'll just mean that in the time when we're already taking care of one kid, we'll just be taking taking care of two kids during that same time."  
I suppose I had envisioned being able to take care of both the toddler and the baby together at the same time, but I didn't realize that they were each going to constantly demand our full attention.  Especially once the baby got a bit older.
The first couple months the baby was relatively easy, actually.  As I wrote of the first baby in 2019:
When she first arrived, she spent a lot of time sleeping, and I actually got more reading done than usual.  (The first books of this year were all a result of that time.)  But then once the baby started getting older, she required constant attention, and I didn't get any reading done after February.
Same thing with baby number 2.  The first few months I got a bit of reading done, but after that, the baby demanded constant attention. 
So when the wife was taking care of the baby, I needed to be watching the toddler.  And when the wife was watching the toddler, I needed to be taking care of the baby.  And between the two of them, the wife and I had very little free time this past year.  And we were constantly tired. 
In addition to taking care of the children, I've had some very busy weeks at work this past year. 

from August, I started a new job (while staying on part time at the old job) and then was juggling working overtime with taking care of the toddler at home.  I've never been so busy in my life as I've been these past few months, and it was hard to find time to read.

Ah, how naive 2020 me was!  I had no idea how much busier it could get.  2022 is definitely the new winner for "the busiest I've ever been!"

I managed to read in small bits and pieces, mostly during small breaks at work.  A couple pages while waiting in line at the grocery store, 10 pages while eating lunch, et cetera.
And in light of all that, I'm relatively happy with my book total this year.  If you look at my yearly totals, 23 books is actually about average for me.  Not bad during a year in which I've been so busy.
...and yet...and yet, I could have read more.  I should have read more.  As happens to me every year, I wasted so much time on the Internet this past year--constantly checking Twitter or Facebook.  Watching junk on Youtube.  Compulsively checking my email inbox, etc.
Since I don't have a lot of chunks of free time to myself these days, most of this time wasting on the Internet is in small doses throughout the day.  (5 minutes on Twitter here, 10 minutes on Facebook here).  But at the end of the day, it adds up to a lot of time.  And if I could have mustered the self-control to direct this time to my reading list, I could have knocked out more books.
My goal for this next year is to get my digital addiction under control, and to read more books.  
(I've been saying this for years now, and yet every year I end up back at the same place.  Self control is really difficult, isn't it?  But I'm going to continue trying.)

Anyway, on to the book list.
Within the 23 books, I like to think I did a good job of mixing up high-brow classics and low-brow.
I got some flack at work when I was seen carrying around a copy of Animorphs.  "I thought this guy was an intellectual!" one of my co-workers said.  "What's he doing reading Animorphs?"  (I still don't think I've entirely heard the end of it.  Every time I try to talk about books now, my co-workers just make some sort of sarcastic remark about Animorphs.)
But, I still take to heart the advice I got years ago from Stephen King in On Writing: no book is a waste of your time.  You're developing your literary abilities in some way with every book you read.
Plus, since I've gotten involved in Booktube, I've noticed that the people who really read a lot tend to read omnivorously.  They'll work through a junk paperback one week, and a classic of Western literature the next week.  And this is the kind of reader I'd like to develop into myself.  So, yes, I did read - plenty - of - junk - this - year.  But I also - read - a - few - classic - books.  I like to think it balances out.  I hope to continue to balance junk with the classics next year as well.

I also started reading and reviewing comic books this year.  For similar reasons.  
Once again, blame Booktube.  I know several years ago I swore I was done wasting my time on silly comic books, but over the past couple years I've noticed that many of the booktubers who read the most prolifically also love to read comic books.  (Steve Donoghue and Michael K. Vaughan are the preeminent examples of this, but there are several booktubers who fit this bill.)  I've realized that people who love to read love to read everything, and don't hold any genre as beneath them.  And, since I desire to become one of these people myself, I shouldn't consider myself too good for comic books.
Although it is true that a lot of the magic is lost once you reach maturity.  (On more than one occasion, I found myself evaluating the comic book through the prism of how much I would have loved it if I were 10 years old again.)  But you can still have some fun reading the comic book and discussing it.
I've decided to make the comic book reviews video only.  (I don't have time to write up written reviews of every comic book I read.  Besides which, it's always difficult to describe a comic book without being able to show it.) 
I also have mixed feelings about integrating comic books into my list of books read for the year.  Although this gets into the complicated question of "What is reading, really?"  (I mean, in years past, I used to incorporate a lot of audiobooks into my reading list.  Is that reading?)
Some of these comic books actually involved a lot of reading.  Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume, for example, was a real door-stopper at over 1,300 pages long.  It took me several weeks to get through.
Also, both  Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1: The Coming of the Avengers and Flash Gordon Dailies: Austin Briggs: Radium Mines Of Electra were really text heavy, and were slow going because they involved reading so many words.
...and yet, despite some of these comic books involving a large number of words, none of them felt like reading in the way that The Histories by Herodotus felt like reading.  I mean, the cognitive effort of reading Herodotus just can't compare with the cognitive effort required to read Bone.  I'm not exactly sure why they feel so different, but my best guess is that the pictures in a comic book do so much of the visualization work for you.  Your brain doesn't have to work nearly as hard to decipher the text, because the pictures are pretty much carrying the story.
So do comic books count as reading?  I don't know.  For the purposes of this year end reading list, I'm counting comic books separately.  For my total book list, I've integrated them.  Life is all about compromises.  
(And then there are borderline books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid which are hard to classify.  Is it a book with lots of pictures?  Or is it a comic with lots of text?  The more I think about it, the more I think it's probably a comic book.  But I've counted it as a book for my review project.)

With all those disclaimers out of the way, let's see what I can do with this list:

Best Fiction
I suppose I have to give this to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Part of me is reluctant to do this, because there were parts of this trilogy that I found a real slog to read through.  But it is considered the greatest fantasy series of the 20th century.  (Certainly it's unarguably the most influential.)  So I kind of have to give it the top slot, don't I?
And despite the fact that there was a lot of boring stuff in these books, there was also a lot of really interesting stuff.  And no doubt I would have been much more impressed by these books if I hadn't already known the story so well (from both the Peter Jackson movies and the Rankin Bass movies) before I even started.
Runner up is Tarzan, which is a lot of fun as a cheesy adventure story (if you overlook all the politically incorrect stuff.) 

Worst Fiction
A lot of the Oz books were pretty terrible.  But The Magic of Oz is probably the worst one.

Best Nonfiction
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is incredibly short, but also incredibly impactful.
Runner up is The Histories by Herodotus, which could at times be a slog to get through, but also had so many fascinating little stories contained within it.

Best Reread
The Iliad .  It's hard to know exactly how to feel about The Iliad (and in my review, I spent considerable words trying to sort out all my mixed feelings).  But there's no denying there's just so much fascinating and intense stuff in that book.  The reader may be shocked, appalled, repelled, but never bored.

Best Comic Book
Because my comic book list this year come from such diverse genres, it's really hard to compare them.  I mean, how do you rank a Donald Duck book against The Death of Superman?  And yet, if I were to try to choose which one left me with the biggest impression, I guess it would be Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume.  For all it's faults, a very impressive undertaking.

Note:
I'm exempting Genesis and Exodus from consideration in my best and worst list, for the same reason I opted not to give them a star rating.  As I said in my review of Genesis:
Even though these ratings are meant to convey my subjective reading experience (and are not meant to be taken as an objective pronouncement on the book), I still feel like it's going to be courting controversy to rate books that some people consider to be holy scripture.  No ratings for the duration of this project.
...speaking of The Bible... after getting a couple books in, I've stalled out this year on Leviticus.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  The primary reason is that in March, we returned to face to face teaching (after close to a year of teaching from home because of the Covid lockdowns).  During the Covid lockdowns, I had gotten into the habit of reading from several bulky books at once.  But after returning to work, I found it impractical to carry a whole library in my backpack, and big bulky books like the Bible were left at home.  (And as I've mentioned above, this is a year in which most of my reading got done at work.)  
That, plus Leviticus is one of the most boring books in The Bible, so that probably didn't help my motivation to keep with it either.
But all that being said, I'm not ready to give up on my reading-the-Bible project yet.  I'll get around to reading Leviticus eventually.  There's no hurry with this project.

Video version of this post: 



Playlist for 2022 book reviews HERE: 


See also my Weekly Reading Vlogs for this year:
January 2, 2022 Herodotus p.380-392, The Patchwork Girl of Oz p.664-728, The Two Towers p.652-682, Genesis 1-19 (128 pages)
January 9, 2022 Herodotus p.392-408, The Patchwork Girl of Oz p.728-745, Little Wizard Stories of Oz p.749-750, The Two Towers p.682-738, Genesis 19-41, The Grammar Book p.256-258 (117 pages)
January 16, 2022 Herodotus p.408-412, Little Wizard Stories of Oz p.750-773, The Two Towers p.738-790, Genesis 41-50, Exodus 1-4, The Grammar Book p.258-266 (104 pages)
January 23, 2022 Herodotus p.412-416, Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum p.776-788, The Two Towers p.790-828, Exodus 4-12, The Grammar Book p.266-268 (64 pages)
January 30, 2022 Herodotus p.416-424, Tik-Tok of Oz p.788-880, The Two Towers p.828-876, Exodus 12-21, The Grammar Book p.268-276 (166 pages)
February 6, 2022 Herodotus p.424-426, Tik-Tok of Oz, The Scarecrow of Oz p.888-896, The Two Towers p.876-960, Exodus 21-29, The Grammar Book p.276-278 (110 pages)
February 13, 2022 Herodotus p.426-428, The Scarecrow of Oz p.896-980, The Two Towers p.960-971, The Return of the King p.977-1106, Exodus 29-30, The Grammar Book p.278-280 (230 pages)
February 20, 2022 Herodotus p.428-450, The Scarecrow of Oz p.980-988, Rinkitink of Oz p.990-1012, The Return of the King p.1106-1148, Exodus 30-32, The Grammar Book p.280-290 (116 pages)
February 27, 2022 Herodotus p.450-452, Rinkitink in Oz p.1012-1062, The Return of the King p.1148-1268, Exodus 32-35, The Grammar Book p.290-302 (188 pages)
March 6, 2022 Herodotus p.452-470, Rinkitink in Oz p.1062-1098, The Lost Princess of Oz p.1100-1112, The Return of the King p.1268-1352, Exodus 35-37, The Grammar Book p.302-304 (154 pages)
March 13, 2022 Herodotus p.470-472, The Lost Princess of Oz p.1112-1136, The Return of the King p.1352-1370, Exodus 37-39, The Grammar Book p.304-306 (58 pages)
March 20, 2022 Herodotus p.472-480, The Lost Princess of Oz p.1136-1204, The Tin Woodman of Oz p.1206-1208, The Return of the King p.1370-1394, Exodus 39-40, The Grammar Book p.306-308 (105 pages)
March 27, 2022 Herodotus p.480-482, The Tin Woodman of Oz p.1208-1250, The Return of the King p.1394-1420, The Grammar Book p.308-310, Tieng Viet 123 p.10-11 (76 pages)
April 3, 2022 Herodotus p.482-484, The Tin Woodman of Oz by p.1250-1305, The Return of the King p.1420-1438, Leviticus 1-3, The Grammar Book p.310-312, Tieng Viet 123 p.12 (80 pages)
April 10, 2022 Herodotus p.484-486, The Return of the King p.1438-1480, Leviticus 3-5, The Grammar Book p.312-314, Tieng Viet 123 p.13 (49 pages)
April 17, 2022 Herodotus p.486-494, The Return of the King p.1480-1498, p.977-988, The Magic of Oz p.1308-1322, Tieng Viet 123 p.14 (52 pages)
April 24, 2022 Herodotus p.494-538, The Return of the King p.988-992, The Magic of Oz p.1322-1336, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass i-ix (71 pages)
May 1, 2022 The Little Prince, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass p.1-50 (145 pages)
May 8, 2022 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass p.50-122, The Magic of Oz p.1336-1396 (132 pages)
May 15, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.1-26 (26 pages) 
May 22, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.26-44 (18 pages)
May 29, 2022 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass i-ix, p.1-6 (14 pages)
June 5, 2022 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass p.6-16 (10 pages)
June 12, 2022 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass p.16-44 (28 pages)
June 19, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.44-78 (34 pages) 
June 26, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.78-124 (46 pages)
July 3, 2022 The Iliad p.1-260 (260 pages)
July 10, 2022 The Iliad p.260-318, The Wayfarer Redemption p.124-154, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.1-40, Glinda of Oz p.1399-1402 (131 pages)
July 17, 2022 The Iliad p.318-382, The Wayfarer Redemption p.154-186, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.40-62, Glinda of Oz p.1402-1404 (120 pages)
July 24, 2022 The Iliad p.382-414, The Wayfarer Redemption p.186-212, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.62-78, Glinda of Oz p.1404-1444, Leviticus 5-8, The Grammar Book p.314-316, Herodotus p.538-548 (130 pages)
July 31, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.212-234, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.78-96, Glinda of Oz p.1444-1450, Leviticus 8-13, The Grammar Book p.316-318, Herodotus p.548-550 (56 pages)
August 7, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.234-270, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.96-100 (40 pages)
August 14, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.270-320, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.100-106 (56 pages)
August 21, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.320-382, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language p.106-108 (64 pages)
August 28, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.382-392, Animorphs 1: The Invasion p.1-176, Diary of a Wimpy Kid p.1-217 (403 pages)
September 4, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.392-402, Animorphs 1: The Invasion p.176-184, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days p.1-216 (234 pages)
September 11, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.402-454 (52 pages)
September 18, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.454-488 (34 pages)
September 25, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.488-528 (40 pages)
October 2, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.528-564 (36 pages)
October 9, 2022 The Wayfarer Redemption p.564-613, Glinda of Oz p.1450-1468, Tarzan of the Apes p.1-20 (87 pages)
October 16, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1468-1474, Tarzan of the Apes p.20-102 (88 pages)
October 23, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1474-1486, Tarzan of the Apes p.102-116, The Invisible Man p.1-207, Herodotus p.550-578 (261 pages)
October 30, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.116-162, Herodotus p.578-614 (82 pages)
November 6, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.162-170, Herodotus p.614-639 (33 pages)
November 13, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.170-224, The Peloponnesian War p.1-96 (150 pages)
November 20, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.96-162, The Odyssey p.1-116 (182 pages)
November 27, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.162-172, The Odyssey p.116-168 (62 pages)
December 4, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.172-224, The Odyssey p.168-192 (76 pages)
December 11, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.224-292 (68 pages)
December 18, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.292-352, The Odyssey p.192-204 (72 pages)
December 23, 2022 The Peloponnesian War p.352-396, The Odyssey p.204-212 (52 pages)

Weekly Page Count Average: 99 pages
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