History and science fiction took centre stage this time. This is my list of 45 books read and rated in 2022.
(* Indicates it has been read before.)
Five stars
The Travels, Marco Polo, c. 1300
The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth, c. 1136
The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, Robert Kirk, 1691-92
All About Me!, Mel Brooks, 2021
King Harald’s Saga, Snorri Sturluson, c. 1230
Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, Christopher Marlowe, 1587-92
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard, 1966*
The Storyteller, Dave Grohl, 2021
Candide, Voltaire, 1759
Measure for Measure, Shakespeare, c. 1603
Windswept & Interesting, Billy Connolly, 2021
Shah of Shahs, Ryszard Kapuściński, 1985
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration, Various, 2020
Four stars
The Ark Sakura, Kōbō Abe, 1984
The Spanish Invasion of Mexico 1519–1521, Charles M. Robinson III, 2004
Russia’s Wars in Chechnya 1994–2009, Mark Galeotti, 2014
The Hair-Carpet Weavers, Andreas Eschbach, 1995
The Texas War of Independence 1835-36, Alan C. Huffines, 2005
The Blizzard, Vladimir Sorokin, 2010
Classical Literature, Richard Jenkyns, 2015
The Railway Children, E. Nesbit, 1906*
Make Room! Make Room!, Harry Harrison, 1966
The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction, John Guy, 2013
Driftglass, Samuel R. Delany, 1971
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1857
Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction, Ian Shaw, 2021
Warm Worlds and Otherwise, James Tiptree Jr (Alice B. Sheldon), 1975
Guadalcanal 1942, Joseph N. Mueller, 1992
The Cyberiad, Stanislaw Lem, 1965
The Punic Wars 264-146 BC, Nigel Bagnall, 2002
Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Kate Gilliver, 2002
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes, 1966
And Away…, Bob Mortimer, 2021
Caesar’s Civil War, Adrian Goldsworthy, 2002
The Amazing Spider-Man, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, 2022
The Rise of Imperial Rome AD 14-193, Duncan B. Campbell, 2013
Rome at War AD 293-696, Michael Whitby, 2002
Robot, Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg, 1973
Three stars
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson, 1992
The Runes of the Earth, Stephen Donaldson, 2005
Fatal Revenant, Stephen Donaldson, 2007
Against All Things Ending, Stephen Donaldson, 2010
The Last Dark, Stephen Donaldson, 2013
Billy Summers, Stephen King, 2021
Two stars
N/A
One star
N/A
Previous years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.
