December 31, 2022

These are the books I read during 2022. I learned from some of them, enjoyed many, and struggled through some (DNF = ‘did not finish’). The two standout books from this year were O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker and Spike Milligan’s Small Dreams of A Scorpion. Both are books I will keep returning to.

January

  1. Black Gold by Jeremy Paxman
  2. Letters of Note by Shaun Usher [Audio]
  3. Busman’s Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers
  4. Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England by Richard Beard

February

  1. Orcadians: Seven Impromptus by George Mackay Brown
  2. Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943 by Max Hastings
  3. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré
  4. Gerd A. Müller: The Designer Who Got Forgotten by Lucia Hornfischet
  5. For the Safety of All: A Story of Scotland’s Lighthouses by Donald S. Murray
  6. Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Absolutely Everything by Jordan Ellenberg
  7. Small Dreams of a Scorpion by Spike Milligan

March

  1. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
  2. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
  3. On Reading by Steve McCurry
  4. Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain by Amy Jeffs

April

  1. Modern Buildings in Britain: Gazetteer by Owen Hatherley
  2. The Odyssey by Homer (translated by Emily Wilson) [Audio]
  3. The Photograph That Changed My Life by Zelda Cheatle
  4. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers
  5. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
  6. Quantum Computing: How It works, and Why It could change the World by Amit Katwala
  7. Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart
  8. Walk me to the corner by Anneli Furmark

May

  1. Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson
  2. Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
  3. Foot Notes: Black & White Thinking by Guy Kennaway and Hussein Sharif
  4. O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
  5. Brave New World: A Graphic Novel by Fred Fordham
  6. The Star Drive: The True story of a Genius, an Engine and Our Future by Phillip Hills

June

  1. Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain by Matthew Green
  2. One two three four: The Beatles in time by Craig Brown
  3. The Founder’s Tale by Pip Hills

July

  1. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
  2. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
  3. Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh
  4. Spies in Canaan by David Park
  5. Snow by John Banville
  6. Before the coffee gets cold: Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  7. Work Clean: Life Changing Power by Dan Charnas

August

  1. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkman
  2. Vivian Maier by Anne Morin
  3. Who Ate the First Oyster by Cody Cassidy
  4. Doctor Who: Davros by Lance Parkin [Audio]
  5. After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul by Tripp Mickle [Audio]
  6. The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
  7. Apollo Remastered by Andy Saunders
  8. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson [DNF]

September

  1. Nomad Century] by Gaia Vince
  2. Jony Ive by Leander Kahney [Audio]
  3. Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie
  4. The Attenbury Emerelds by Jill Paton Walsh [Audio]
  5. Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

October

  1. Turn The Ship Around by L. David Marquet [Audio]
  2. Art Deco Britain: Buildings of The Interwar Years by Elain Harwood
  3. Brutalist Britain: Buildings of The 1950s and 1970s by Elain Harwood
  4. Colditz: Prisoners of The Castle by Ben Macintyre
  5. There Is Nothing For You Here by Fiona Hill [Audio]

November

  1. The Fell by Sarah Moss
  2. O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
  3. Not Knowing by Steven D’Souza & Diana Renner [DNF]
  4. We Spread by Iain Reid
  5. Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre [Audio]
  6. The Glorious Life of the Oak by John Lewis-Stempel
  7. Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber by Sean O’Driscoll

December

  1. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
  2. Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor
  3. The Book of Ichigo Ichie by Francesc Miralles



Previous post 52(ish) things I learned in 2022 Inspired by Tom Whitwell’s list of 52 things he learned in 2020. Everything listed here must include some sort of citation or link to a reference Next post Less For the last couple of years I have been trying to focus on the idea of ‘less’ as a goal. Maybe 2023 could be the year I get close by thinking about