Looking Back And Looking Forward

 

It's the last day of 2022 and tomorrow we'll be starting a brand new year.  It's a good time to look back at my reading for the past year and set some goals for 2023.  This year was one of additions.  Our newest grandchild was born in June and she is a joy to behold.  Kylan Ella brings happiness and excitement to all her family.  We also added a new pet to the mix.  Lily Bean is a tawny cat who rules the roost and loves to attack toes under covers, run through the house at cyclone speed and climb to the crows nest of her climbing stand.

In 2022, I read 235 books, two of them rereads.  That's 84,626 pages. I've been working on two goals.  One is reading more of my own books and moving them out the door after I've read them or, reading and streeting.  The other is catching up on books in my Netgalley queue.   Of the books I read this year, my favorites in no particular order were:

1. Geographies Of The Heart by Caitlin Hamilton Summie
2. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
3. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
4. Knife Of Dreams by Robert Jordan
5. The Death Of Santini by Pat Conroy
6. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
7. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
8. My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
9. The Pariah by Anthony Ryan
10. Jackie & Me by Louis Bayard
11. The Appeal by Janice Hallett
12. Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
13. Strange Angels by Jonis Agee
14. Tower Of Midnight by Jordan/Sanderson
15. Unmasked by Paul Holes
16. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
17. Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving
18. This Is How It Always Is by Lauren Frankel
19. The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
20. A Memory Of Light by Jordan/Sanderson
21. The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna

As far as my goals for 2022, I've done pretty well.  My main goal was that of reading from my shelves and I've done that.  I finished the Wheel Of Time series and I read most of the Karin Slaughter series except the stand alones.  I've continued to read anthologies and I read fifteen nonfiction books.  My goals for 2023 are:

1. Read 150 books.
2. Read The Magic Mountain and Crime And Punishment for my classic reads.
3. Read all my Stephen Donaldson books
4. Read the Robert Jackson Bennett Foundryside series
5. Read a Joe Abercrombie series
6. Read the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series
7. Continue reading from my shelves and downsizing my physical collection

Happy Reading!