Have Your Best Reads This Year Been Familiar or New-to-You Authors, Or A Mixture? (11/6/22)

[Marc]

For the reads you've enjoyed the most in 2022, have those mostly been new-to-you authors, authors you were already familiar with, or a mixture of the two?

[Stacia]

New to me.

That will almost always be the case because I usually seek new to me authors over rereads or delving deeply into one author's works.

[Kathleen]

Definitely a mix. Some favorite authors were solidified, but these two new-to-me authors are among those that stood out as favorites, and may eventually become new favorite authors:

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
and
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

[Nadine in California]

Kathleen wrote: "Definitely a mix. Some favorite authors were solidified, but these two new-to-me authors are among those that stood out as favorites, and may eventually become new favorite authors"


Sometimes a Great Notion brought back a flood of memories from my late teens, when I loved Kesey! In fact, my memory has gotten so twisted that I'm remembering them as written when I was a teen! I forgot the books were that old! You've inspired me to read one of his later books, Sailor Song written long after I stopped thinking of Kesey.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I only rated two books 5 stars this year although there might be a third. All three authors were new to me.

[Bill]

A mix for me. The oldies:

Bruce Benderson, Urban Gothic: The Complete Stories (uneven but with some impressive pieces]
Michael DeForge, Very Casual
Mariana Enriquez, Things We Lost in the Fire [reread with Literary Horror group]
Joel Lane, The Earth Wire and Other Stories [reread with Literary Horror group]

The new (yes, I'm embarrassed I haven't read any Renee Gladman up to a month ago):

Renee Gladman, Event Factory
Richard Butner, The Adventurists: And Other Stories
David Nutt, Summertime in the Emergency Room
Kathryn Harlan, Fruiting Bodies: Stories
R.E. Katz, And Then The Gray Heaven

Not sure if non-fiction counts, but all these are new:
Peter Staley, Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism
Jack Lowery, It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
Glenn Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic

[Nadine in California]

I am ending the year with a one-person Ursula Le Guin festival and I'm loving it!

[Whitney]

It has been a mix for me, as well.

Oldies but goodies
Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer
Darnielle, Devil House

Oldie but I've somehow never read him before
Levin, Rosemary's Baby

Read before, but only one book or a few short short stories
Machado, In the Dream House
Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland
DeMeester, Such a Pretty Smile

Completely new to me
Clark, Ring Shout
Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

[Alwynne]

Mine are a mix too, some new, some old, some re-reads.

Familiar authors/rereads included:

Sara Baume, Dorothy Tse, Minae Mizumura, Malinda Lo, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Camilla Grudova, Vasily Grossman, Elisa Shua Dusapin, Scholastique Mukasonga, Rosemary Manning's Green Smoke, Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams and Gwendolyn Brook's Maud Martha

New to me included:

Solo Dance Kitomi Li

C. E. McGill Our Hideous Progeny

Emmy Henning's Branded: A Diary

Unica Zurn's Dark Spring

Guadalupe Nettel's Still Born

Thuan's Chinatown

Emi Yagi Diary of a Void

God's Children are Little Broken Things: Stories Arinze Ifeakandu

Olivia Wenzel's 1000 Coils of Fear

Disorientation Elaine Hsieh Chou

[Kathleen]

Nadine in California wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Definitely a mix. Some favorite authors were solidified, but these two new-to-me authors are among those that stood out as favorites, and may eventually become new favorite authors..."

I'm hoping to read Sailor Song too, Nadine! I totally missed Kesey when I was young (except for his merry prankstering), so glad to hear you enjoyed him early.

And ending the year with Ursula Le Guin sounds like a great idea--now I'm inspired. :-)

[Hugh]

I have been rather sparing with 5* reviews this year - only 15 of them, two thirds of them authors I first read in 2022 (I could add James Robertson who I first read in December 2021).

10 new (to me) authors: Mona Arshi, Scholastique Mukasonga,Lulu Allison, Claudia Pineiro, Alistair MacLeod, Ruth Ozeki, Maddie Mortimer, Selby Wynn Schwartz, Audrey Magee and Paul Stainbridge. I might yet a couple more: Damian Lanigan and Geetanjali Shree

5 existing ones: James Robertson, Sara Baume, Colm Toibin, Andrew Miller and (a reread of a 5* book) Russell Hoban

[Marc]

Mostly new for me, as well.

New (to me): Yamada, Durand, Szabo, Baldwin, Dusapin, Piñiero, Sebree, Magee, Everett

Old: Robinson, Proust, Duras, Kirkman

[Bretnie]

My 5-star books this year are a pretty even split between authors I'd read before and new-to-me authors.

New-to-me included:
Adrian Tchaikovsky (thanks to this group!)
Michaiah Johnson
Gabrielle Zevin
Kim Fu
Audrey Magee
Cheri Dimaline

[Joy D]

I have given 5 stars to about ten percent of my books, so around 30 so far.

New to me: (two-thirds)
Vauhini Vara
Audrey Magee
Tsering Yangzom Lama
Daniel Mason
Shehan Karunatilaka
NoViolet Bulawayo
Nicholas Monsarrat
Tom Rachman
Candice Millard
Robert MacFarlane
Julian Sancton
Sebastian Faulks
Barbara Pym
Simon Callow
Catherine Chung
Yoko Tawada
Katie Kitamura
Howard Bahr
Antonio Muñoz Molina 
Valeria Luiselli

Those I've read before: (one-third)
Mary Doria Russell
Andy Weir
Tan Twan Eng
John Boyne
Ron Chernow
Colm Tóibín
Edwidge Danticat
Rohinton Mistry
Rick Atkinson
Alice Hoffman

[Vesna]

Mine are mixed this year, very happy to have discovered new authors while continuing to enjoy the old favorites.

Among the new ones, these were a special highlight for me:
Javier Marías
Georgi Gospodinov
Elisa Shua Dusapin
Audrey Magee
Percival Everett

Old favorites:
Thomas Bernhard
David Markson
Thomas Mann
Edith Wharton
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vladimir Nabokov

[Lark]

I'm starting to be less interested in first-time authors. (I don't love the term "debut" authors).

One of my favorite books this year was Adam Bede.

There were more books than usual that I loved that landed in the interstitial space between "commercial" and "literary," my favorites in this zone being We Spread by Iain Reid and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

I binged Joy Williams, who was new to me in Dec 2021. Wow. Maybe my favorite author of all time, for the time being.

[Nadine in California]

Lark wrote: "I'm starting to be less interested in first-time authors. (I don't love the term "debut" authors). ..."

Me too - the picture it conjures up for me are authors in gown, tiara and possibly beard, being presented at a debutante ball.

[Lesley]

Nadine in California wrote: "Lark wrote: "I'm starting to be less interested in first-time authors. (I don't love the term "debut" authors). ..."

Me too - the picture it conjures up for me are authors in gown, tiara and possi..."

And the attendant squeeeels... However, some of my favourite authors latest books that I could not get through either of my libraries, and bought them, were not worth it.