Favorite books I read in 2022 - Morganton News Herald
I started 60 books last year and finished 58 of them. I confess to enjoying lots of mysteries and science fiction, yet thanks to book club picks, a birthday gift from my husband and recommendations by friends, I did find several literary selections.
In addition to 10 favorites, I'll mention two authors offering light, entertaining reads. First, prolific author Stuart Kaminsky (1934-2009) who wrote, among other series, 16 mysteries starring Porfiry Rostnikov, a wise, barrel-chested Moscow detective with a bum leg. The setting spans the late 1980s through the early 2000s capturing the transition from USSR to Russian Federation. Kaminsky won an Edgar Award for the fifth in this series, "A Cold Red Sunrise," set in Siberia.
Second, Martha Wells, whose first four books in her "Murderbot Diaries" series were published in 2017-18. A security android, part robot and part human, confronts her demons, that is, the unwelcome aspect of having emotions. In the first book, "All Systems Red," she assists scientists on a distant planet targeted by ruthless thieves.
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Here are my 10 favorites:
10) 'Oscar Wilde and A Game Called Murder' by Gyles Brandreth, 2008
Brandreth employs not only Wilde, but several historical figures as characters and has researched his subject and setting to the nth degree. Reading this book was like spending time with the famous Oscar Wilde. Brandreth doesn't hit one wrong note in his portrayal of the witty literary genius. In this story, Wilde asks his friends to dinner, where they play a game of, by secret ballot, naming someone they want to murder. Clever answers like Father Time and Eros were mixed with real names, including Oscar himself and his wife, Constance. That night, the real murders begin.
9) 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Agatha Christie, 1926
Called Christie's masterpiece, the story is told by an acquaintance of murdered country estate owner, Roger Ackroyd. Luckily, the victim was a friend of detective Hercule Poirot, who solves the case. I enjoyed how Christie manages her plot, with just the right amount of information and character development leading to a stunning ending.
8) 'The Girl With the Louding Voice' by Abi Dare, 2020
Adunni is a 14-year-old Nigerian girl from the tribal country who winds up as a slave housekeeper in modern-day Lagos to wealthy and abusive Big Madam and Big Daddy. Everything is beautifully written from the point of view of this naive girl with a heart of gold in her own dialect version of English, which gets clearer as the story progresses.
7) 'George' by Alex Gino, 2015 (now published as 'Melissa')
This children's novel has been on my shelf for a while. We have it because our niece, Ellen Duda, who worked for Scholastic at the time, illustrated the cover. I was finally inspired to read it after our lieutenant governor wanted it banned. The story follows a transgender youth in the fourth grade who wants a female role in a school play. George, age 10, knows who she is, no confusion. Feminine pronouns are used for her throughout. It's everyone else who's confused and can't imagine George as Charlotte the spider from "Charlotte's Web." The story doesn't avoid specifics, occasionally mentioning "what's between her legs." The book seemed a truthful and compassionate way to introduce the transgender subject to middle-grade readers (ages 9-12.)
6) 'The Ink Black Heart' by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling), 2022
Intriguing and very contemporary mystery with long passages of online messaging and several conversations going on at once on the page. (Highly recommend not reading it via ebook.) Loads of quirky characters in this fifth novel in the series, and as always with the Cormoran Strike-Robin Ellacott books, a real page-turner.
5) 'Piece of My Heart' by Dave Darden, 1971
At the beginning, I felt a sense of dread that I'd never be able to get through this book. The elaborately wrought prose with literary and classical references, endless metaphors, similes and philosophical analysis of Janis Joplin's music proved less than engaging. Darden, a Rolling Stone reporter, made up for the overdone parts with his exquisite and masterful relating of scenes of her life. I felt I was in the room, and many times the bars, with her. So sad that she died of an overdose in 1970 at age 27. Dalton emphasized that Joplin was one of the few women hard rockers of the time, blazing, I imagine, a sometimes difficult trail.
4) 'Upgrade' by Blake Crouch, 2022
An NPR Science Friday book club pick. Set in the near future, the story follows Logan Ramsay, who works for a government agency that enforces new laws banning any type of gene modification. He's attacked and suffers from a gene modification himself. I had worried this would turn into a comic book superhero story as Logan starts getting stronger and smarter, but happily, no.
3) 'The Word is Murder' by Anthony Horowitz, 2018
First fun-loving entry in a series mixing real people, including the author himself, with fiction. Wouldn't it be funny if the only reason Horowitz crafted this novel was to write the absolutely priceless scene with film directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson?
2) 'Persepolis Rising' by James S. A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), 2017
"The Expanse" TV shows based on the first six books of the nine-book science fiction series has ended, so I was driven to the final three books to find out what happens. This richly layered tale involves Earthers, Martian colonies, miners of the Asteroid Belt and mysterious alien artifacts. Final books in the series are "Tiamet's Wrath" and "Leviathan Falls."
1) 'Demon Copperhead' by Barbara Kingsolver, 2022
Inspired by Dickens' "David Copperfield," the author weaves a story of poverty, substance abuse and life in Appalachia from the point of view of a young boy with a faultless, unforgettable voice. I almost stopped reading because of the wrenching sadness of the first 200 pages. Glad I didn't.
Happy reading in 2023!
Gwen Veazey is a member of the Morganton Writers Group.
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