From the moment I learned to decipher the words on the pages of books, I’ve been a voracious reader. I read everything I could get my hands on including the newspaper, my mother’s magazines, the backs of cereal boxes, and books with themes that were far too adult that I found at my grandmother’s house.

I still read voraciously. For all the years of graduate school and my teaching career, my “fun reading” was limited because of the time I devoted to reading for teaching and research, but I always had a novel in progress on my nightstand. I devoted some of my disposable income to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and wherever I’ve lived, a public library card was one of my first acquisitions. Before the days of the internet, I haunted used bookstores in search of inexpensive treasures. Nowadays online magazines and newsletters round out my reading. One of the great gifts that came with retiring from college teaching is that I have more time to read. I also have more freedom to read whatever interests me.

In my early adult years, I kept an ongoing record of the books I read. I recorded the list in a blank book, and I ran across that book when I was packing for our move last March. I remembered that I liked to pull out the list at the end of each year and review it, reflecting on what the list said about my evolving interests, the shape of my year, and my general state of mind.

Somewhere along the way I fell out of the habit of keeping the list, and I forgot my yearly practice of reviewing my year in reading. After someone introduced me to Goodreads, the social media platform for readers, I began to record my reading there, but somehow I never transferred the annual review to cyberspace.

Finding my old reading records reminded me of the practice, so I used my Goodreads account to reconstruct my 2022 book list, and I thought I’d share it with you, dear readers. (I won’t bore you with the list of magazines, newspapers, and online publications I’ve read. (The Washington Post sent me a “newsprint” to profile my reading of that publication this year, noting that I had read the equivalent of a 9,638 page book. Before you get impressed, I should note that figure is misleading for two reasons. First, I share the subscription with my husband, and he undoubtedly read half the 3,575 articles that we clicked on. And second, it does not reflect the fact that I often skim the first two or three paragraphs of a news story to get the gist of the report rather than reading the full article.)

If you’re interested in my exercise in navel-gazing, I’ve put the full list is at the bottom of this post, roughly in reverse chronological order. The list includes all the audio books that I listened to on my walks and road trips. I’m struck by the fact that I read so much non-fiction this year. I prefer fiction where I can escape into the worlds of others and where I’m also confronted with truth delivered in more nuanced form. I’m also struck by how little poetry I read this year—something I’ll need to correct in 2023.

I’ll highlight 12 of my favorites from this year:

Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts by J. Drew Lanham

A lyrical, luminous love song to birds, to the natural world, and to life in all its precarious beauty.

Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up by Jerry Colonna

This is not your typical leadership book. It’s more memoir than how-to manual. In fact, this book is for anyone seeking to live a whole and authentic life. This one was a re-read for me, and I found it just as helpful this time around.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

I don’t usually like coming-of-age stories or child protagonists, but this gripping novel set in 1960s small-town Minnesota was profoundly moving.

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke

Part memoir, part deeply researched exploration of chronic illness, this book gave me new awareness of my own blind spots about the chronically ill people in my life and the inadequacy of health care system in helping them.

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

I never cease to be amazed by how Elizabeth Strout can pack so much wisdom and insight into her tales about people living quiet and ordinary lives. This is the only “pandemic novel” I’ve finished.

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte

This was an enormously important read for me this year. Whyte explores the deepest meanings of common words like anger, courage, despair, disappointment, forgiveness, joy, loneliness, regret, silence, and withdrawal. I read this one slowly, a word or two at a time to digest and savor. While I did not agree with the meanings he read into every single word, I found so much helpful wisdom and insight here that I have returned to it again and again, and I have shared bits with others.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

A powerful and enlightening novel. I learned a great deal from the wisdom of this book, most notably the distinction between something that’s secret and something that’s private.

What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

I rarely say this, but everyone should read this book. Everyone. You may not be a trauma survivor, but someone you know is, and this book is important for understanding how trauma marks us and how we can heal. I listened to the audiobook version of this and was so moved that I bought a print copy so that I can refer to it again and again.

Foster by Claire Keegan

A perfectly lovely story with such deftly crafted language that you’ll stop again and again to marvel at a passage that exactly captures a scene or a feeling. Here’s an example: “It is something I am used to, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to spit, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.”

A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny

Three Pines is my favorite imagined world, and I want Armand Gamache to be in charge of safeguarding whatever world I live in. A new Louise Penny novel is always a delight.

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

I like Ann Patchett’s novels, but I really really LOVE her essays.

In Love by Amy Bloom

Beautiful, searingly honest, and devastating.

The Full List for 2022

Non-fiction

· Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

· Sherrill Knezel in collaboration with Parker J. Palmer

· Heart Speak: A Visual Interpretation of Let Your Life Speak

· The Green Book of South Carolina

· David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

· Stanley Tucci, Taste: My Life Through Food

· Susan Jonusas, Hell's Half-Acre : The Untold Story of the Benders, America's First Serial Killer Family

· Ron Howard and Clint Howard, The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family

· Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

· Jerry Colonna, Reboot, Leadership and the Art of Growing Up

· Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading

· Sarah Ruhl, Smile: The Story of a Face

· Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing

· Chris L. Johnson, The Leadership Pause

· Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife

· Justine Cowan, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames

· Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

· Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

· Daniel H. Pink, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward

· Jim Loehr, The Power of Story : Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and in Life

· Sonia Purnell, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

· Katherine Sharp Landeck, The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II

· Kerri ni Dochartaigh, Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home

· Sara M. Broom, The Yellow House

· Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change

· Madeleine L’Engle, Two-Part Invention, The Story of a Marriage

· Nell McShane Wulfhart, The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet

· Nell Irvin Painter, Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over

· Christine G. Wagner, The Power of Natural Mentoring: Shaping the Future for Women and Girls

· Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth

· Meg Bowles, et al, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

· Frank Bruni, The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found

· Bill Eddy, Biff: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns

· Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

· Kate Bowler, No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear

· Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

· Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

· Roger Rosenblatt, Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life

· Juliana Margulies, Sunshine Girl: An Unexpected Life

· James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

· Kindra Hall, Choose Your Story, Change Your Life: Silence Your Inner Critic and Rewrite Your Life from the Inside Out

· Ross Douthat, The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery

· John Lane, Still Upright and Headed Downstream: Collected River Writing

· Amy Bloom, In Love

· James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

· Pema Chödrön, Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World

Poetry

· Marlanda Dekine, Thresh and Hold

· Billy Collins, Musical Tables

· Maggie Smith, Good Bones

· Naomi Shihab Nye, Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose

· J. Drew Lanham, Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts

· Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind

· Ashley M. Jones, Reparations Now

Fiction

· Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey

· Louise Penny, A World of Curiosities

· Claire Keegan, Foster

· Dani Shapiro, Signal Fires

· Larry Watson, Montana 1948

· Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea

· Kent William Krueger, Ordinary Grace

· Margaret Scutt, Sixpenny Holding

· Mark Pryor, Die Around Sundown

· M.L. Longworth, Murder in the Rue Dumas

· Geraldine Brooks, Horse

· Sarah Stewart Taylor, The Drowning Sea

· Tess Gerritsen, Listen to Me

· Stewart O’Nan, Ocean State

· Megan Miranda, The Last To Vanish

· Martin Walker, To Kill a Troubadour

· Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

· Howard Frank Mosher, The Fall of the Year

· Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway

· Tony HIllerman, Hunting Badger

· Tess Gerritsen, The Bone Garden

· Eva Jurcyk, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

· Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

· Robert B. Parker, Silent Night

· Barbara Neely, Blanche Passes Go

· William Kent Krueger, Lightning Strike

· Amy Franklin-Willis, The Lost Saints of Tennessee

· Phaedra Patrick, Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone

· M.L. Longworth, Death at Chateau Bremont

· Anne Tyler, French Braid

· Jacqueline Winspear, A Sunlit Weapon

· Maggie Shipstead, Great Circle

· Merryn Allingham, Murder on the Pier

· Maeve Binchy, Tara Road

· Maeve Binchy, A Week in Winter

· Wiley Cash, When Ghosts Come Home

· Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

· Deborah Crombie, A Bitter Feast

· Deborah Crombie, To Dwell in Darkness

· Jennifer Finny Boylan, Long Black Veil

· N.C. Lewis, Spoken Bones

· Deborah Crombie, A Share in Death

· Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

· Herman Wouk, The Winds of War

· Deborah Crombie, The Sound of Broken Glass

· Deborah Crombie, Leave the Grave Green

· Sara Henry, A Cold and Lonely Place

· Louisa May Alcott, A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories

· Ann Patchett, These Precious Days