2022 Reading Challenge

I aimed for a book a week this year and the way to do it is honestly to get into audiobooks as well as regular books so you can also ‘read' while you are walking and washing up which is ALL I seem to do these days.

A great loss this year when Hilary Mantel died, a reader myself and my Auntie Dee shared, thanks to Dee's insistence, so it hurts all the more.

Here are some 2022 highlights:

Best poetry: C+nto and othered poems by Joelle Taylor.
Salved a particular hurt I hadn't even put a name to. Summons up the dead and forgotten with such bravado and love. Deep and inventive. I cannot WAIT for her novel now.
Honorary mention: Alive at the end of the world by Saeed Jones.

Best biography: Francis Bacon in Your Blood by Michael Peppiatt.
Felt perpetually hungover reading this. As much a love letter to Soho and the fusty art bacchanalia that dwelled there as it is to the curmudgeonly genius that was Francis. Adore.
Honorary mention: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.

Most read author: Muriel Spark.
I just went for it with Mu this year, should’ve done it years ago. Only now realised what a huge influence she is on Fay Weldon. They’re all about morality. Nobody writes about that any more do they? The men and women all equally useless and ponderous. And so funny. God she was brilliant.

Best new fiction: At Certain Points We Touch by Lauren John Joseph.
Actual inventive queer fiction that touches nerves and won’t explain itself other than through a thorough explication of actual emotions. Made me pine for that run of sticky summers I spent in the gay triangle of East London. Where are they now, all the boys? Well some of them are dead. Read this NOW.
Honorary mention: Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib.

Best non fiction: Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin.
Perfect companion to LJJ’s novel in some ways, but also a global, historical and anecdotal letter of love and hate to the gay bar and a sad reflection on what our lives will belike when they vanish, which they will.
Honorary mention: Not All Roses by Dave Haslam.

Most disappointing: Here They Come With Their Make Up On: Suede, Coming Up . . . And More Tales From Beyond The Wild Frontiers by Jane Savidge
Imagine a press release that’s 150 words long written by the kind of person who uses words like ‘moniker’ and ’sophomore effort’. Boring reflections on a thrilling time. Ah well.

Best re-read: Close To The Knives by David Wojnarowicz.
I will probably be reading this the year I die. An even better writer than he was an artist and that’s saying something. His pin sharp takedown of the horror of American life will only gain volume as capitalism destroys democracy there. He would be horrified to know there is a still such a thing as an HIV / AIDS crisis. Saintly in his wisdom. RIP David.
Honorary mention: The Wilde Century by Alan Sinfield.

Should have read years ago: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.
I wish I had read this and Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird and A Confederacy of Dunces all in one year, maybe aged 17, and I would have started writing there and then. She is incredible.
Honorary mention: Man’s Search For meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.