Well over 200 books and stories

2022 on Goodreads

At the beginning of 2022 I set my 2022 reading challenge to 200 books. I don't really care about the reading challenge per se, but I do like to know how many books and stories I've read and the challenge is a convenient way to do that. I say "books and stories" because Goodreads doesn't distinguish full-length books from separately published stories. If you look at my 2022 Year in books, you will see immediately that my "books" range from 2 pages long (The Future of Work: Compulsory, by Martha Wells) to 1272 (The Ink Black Heart by JK Rowling's). Also, Goodreads refuses to count stories from certain sources, e.g. Patreon, which knocks my count off a little. Still 236 is a good estimate of the number of books and stories I read in 2022. The average length was 264 pages, so most of these were indeed books. It typically takes me one or two days to read a book. I review almost everything I read, usually the day after finishing.

So, what were the highlights for 2022? Well, first, I completed a project I had set myself of reading all Seanan McGuire's published fiction that I could locate. I summarized that here. McGuire is a very prolific author, and, like all prolific authors, her output is uneven. Still, she is, in my opinion, one of the very best Urban Fantasy authors writing today.

Also in 2022 I discovered new series Rivers of London, Murderbot, and Marissa Meyer's retellings Cinder and Gilded. These are all good, but I get the impression Ben Aaronovitch is now focusing more on graphic novels, not my favorite format, so I'm not sure how closely I'll continue to follow Rivers of London. Murderbot I will definitely continue with, and Meyer still has her Alice retellings I haven't yet looked at.

I started something new this year: I joined NetGalley in order to get advance reader copies (ARCs) of books before they come out. (Yes, I know you think everyone in the world knows what ARC stands for, but I passionately hate undefined TLAs.) I don't get a lot of these because my tiny blog is an utterly insignificant presence in the publishing world. Basically, a publisher that will give me an ARC will give one to anyone. But such exist: my mainstays are Simon and Schuster Canada (lots of kids and Young Adult, which I like), Dutton (some pretty good nonfiction, e.g. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe), and Orbit. Tor is out of reach for me, and probably will remain so unless I engage in follower farming. I only request ARC's for books that I actually want to read. That means I don't get many, only 22 in 2022.

Yet some of them have been very good. I think my favorite book of 2022 was Eight Strings, due to appear in March. By that I mean not just my favorite ARC, but my favorite of ALL the books I read in 2022.

My second favorite, and my favorite among books I read in 2022 that were published in or before 2022 (thus not including the still-unpublished Eight Strings) was another debut, Thistlefoot.

Goodreads review

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★★★★☆ The First Law of Quantum Communication

Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe Sean Carroll The First Law of Quantum Communication is that all explanations of Quantum Mechanics for general audiences are really, really bad*. Sean Carroll 's Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is very different from every previous pop quantum mechanics explanation I have ever read. The question before us is whether it is an exception to the First Law, or a uniquely creative new example. Where I'm coming from: I am a retired neuroscientist and mathematician. I am familiar with and comfortable with quantum mechanics. I have also, to my sorrow, read dozens of pop physics explanations of quantum mechanics, because every pop physics book begins with the same tiresome six chapters intended to bring the presumed ignorant reader up to speed on relativity and quantum mechanics. And they are almost uniformly TERRIBLE. They are terrible for multiple reasons, but most of these come down to a determination on the p

★★★☆☆ I skimmed the "sexy bits"

A Power Unbound Freya Marske I picked up Freya Marske 's Last Binding trilogy because it was nominated for a Best Series Hugo in 2024. It would not get my vote. I am not a big fan of romance, and am even less a fan of erotica. A Marvellous Light contains this acknowledgement And a special shout-out to my mother, who was the first person to tell me that she couldn’t put this book down, and who forgave me for making her read the sexy bits. There are indeed sexy bits in all three novels, and they are explicit and LONG. That was even more true in this, the final novel, because the erotica plays a part in the plot. One of the romantic partners, Alan Ross, is a writer of erotica (although he scorns such euphemism -- he just calls it "pornography"), and the other, Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, is one of his readers. I have nothing against erotica in principle, but it is just not what I'm looking for in my reading. I feel about it much the way I imagine Marske 's moth

★☆☆☆☆ There is such a thing as artistic merit...

The Prophet Khalil Gibran ...and this ain't it. The characters of Herman Wouk 's Inside, Outside have opinions about The Prophet “He’s so mature, so thoughtful, so wise, Izzy, and he gets all his philosophy from this one book.”... “What book, Bobbie?” “The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran,” she said. “It’s so deep, and he reads it aloud so beautifully.” I had never heard of The Prophet or Gibran, but said I would get hold of it. “Oh, do, Izzy. You’ll learn so much. You need that book... Next day I asked Peter Quat about Kahlil Gibran. Oh yes, he said, his doormat mistress had treasured The Prophet, and could reel off whole pages by heart. “What’s it all about?” “It’s utter horsepoop*,” Peter snapped... So I hunted up a copy and read it, and Peter was right on the mark. I first encountered The Prophet as a high-school student. We did a unit on poetry, and a few of Gibran 's effusions were presented as "Prose Poems". I immediately decided it was utter horsepoop. My

★★★★★ A little more conventional than Inkheart

Inkspell Cornelia Funke, Brendan Fraser (narrator) I joined audible.com and began listening to audiobooks in 2004. Among the first were Cornelia Funke 's Inkworld trilogy. They were very good -- good books, but also very well read. And since the series is about the magic of reading aloud, this is appropriate. Recently, however, I learned that Inkworld is no longer a trilogy. A fourth novel, Die Farbe der Rache ( The Color/Ink/Dye of Revenge -- the German title is a pun that doesn't translate) has recently been published. Wanting to read it, I decided I would first go back and re-listen to the first three books. Inkspell is, in my opinion, both better than Inkheart and not quite as good. It is better in that the Inkspell narrator, Brendan Fraser , is in my opinion more versatile than Inkheart narrator Lynn Redgrave . Don't get me wrong: Redgrave is very good -- I would have no criticism of her, had I not heard Fraser 's narration. On listening to Ink

★★★☆☆ A LOT of novel

Myriad Joshua David Bellin Once when I was a postdoc at MIT, I heard physicist Alan Guth speak in the Physics Colloquium. Guth was known for having invented the idea of Cosmic Inflation , that the universe exploded in size just BEFORE the Big Bang, setting the initial conditions for the Big Bang. (Versions of this idea are now mainstream physics.) In his Colloquium, he discussed the possibility that inflation could start anytime, anywhere, from quantum fluctuations. This, he showed us, would lead to the creation of a new universe. He then asked how we might see this. And he showed us that since the new universe would be entirely unattached to the one in which it began, there would be no observable consequence in the universe in which it originated. I was bemused. It felt to me as if he had walked down to the front of the room, pulled his hand out of his pocket and there unfolded an entire new universe. He then folded the new universe back up in his hand and put it back in his pock

★★★☆☆ Not this

Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson For me the essential experience of poetry is the “Yes, THAT!” moment, when you read a verse, and you know EXACTLY what it means. A moment was captured, a feeling, a thought. Now, I do not claim that this is the only way to experience poetry, or the right way, or the best way. It is only my way. This works if the mind of the poet and the mind of the reader meet. That makes the experience of poetry very personal. And, I am sorry to say, Emily Dickinson ’s mind and mine didn’t often meet. It was not a complete loss. For instance, this landed The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth,— The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity. But it was one of perhaps three poems in this collection that did. Even the famous “Because I could not stop for Death” didn’t do much for me. Part of the problem for me was that Dickinson

★★★☆☆ Velveteen vs ALL THE BOOKS!

Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots Seanan McGuire When I picked up Laughter at the Academy , I thought that my project of reading everything Seanan McGuire has published was about to come to its end. Alas, the introduction of Laughter at the Academy mentioned McGuire 's Velveteen stories, which I had never heard of. What are they? Well, here's the description from McGuire's website , The Velveteen stories began in 2008 as an open-ended series about a superhero universe where cosmic powers not only came with great responsibility, they came with great legislation, merchandising, and focus group oversight. Many young heroes were effectively "adopted" by a corporate entity known as The Super Patriots, Inc., which promised to teach them how to best control their amazing gifts. Some of those junior heroes wanted out. Few of them got it. Velma "Velveteen" Martinez was one of the young heroes "adopted" by The Super Patriots, Inc. Sweet, smar

★★★☆☆ This what it feels like to do science

The Bone Wars Erin Evan Erin Evan is a gifted story-teller, but an inexperienced novelist. In The Bone Wars she has written a good book. It could be better, and I am confident that her future books will be. The Bone Wars is principally about four paleontologists, grad student Sarah Connell, her PhD advisor Sean Oliphant, her mentor Derek Farnsworth, and teenage intern Molly Wilder. The story is told in the first person by these four characters, but Molly is the central character. The first thing I loved about The Bone Wars was its feeling of authenticity. Evan is herself a fossil-hunter. Even if no one told you this, you would recognize it. I was captivated by Molly's account of a long day spent lying on her side, working patiently to free a fossil femur from the rock in which it is embedded. If you have ever done research, you will recognize the peculiar combination of tedium and excitement that accompanies most research. I would have called it indescribable, had not Evan

★★★★★ Finding a home

The Blue Sword Robin McKinley When I was growing up my father's job kept my family moving. Mom and Dad eventually settled down, but just when they did I became an itinerant academic, moving to study and work at various research institutions. I was a 27 year old grad student at Stanford when I first read The Blue Sword and the longest I had ever lived in one place was six years. (Understand, I am not complaining -- I was and am a Happy Nomad.) There's a peculiar type of homesickness experienced by rootless people. One usually thinks of homesickness as being away from and missing a very specific place -- the place one calls home. But I had no place to call home. And yet I sometimes felt homesick -- I felt the lack of a home -- all the more because there was no home where I longed to be. In the first few chapters of The Blue Sword I immediately recognized this feeling of rootless homesickness in Angharad (Harry) Crewe, the hero of the book. As the book begins Harry has just co

★★★☆☆ Good on the facts, relentlessly infuriating interpretation

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman James Gleick I read James Gleick 's Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman not long after it came out in 1993. I read it because of my interest in Feynman , but I went into it with some trepidation, because I had read Gleick 's Chaos: Making a New Science , and I did NOT like it. Here is what I think of Gleick : he's a writer who thinks he's smarter than his readers. He is not content to give you just the facts and allow you to draw your own conclusions -- he wants to have INSIGHTS, which he insists on pressing on you in such a way as to cause you to marvel at his, Gleick 's, brilliance. But I will say this for him -- he's a thorough researcher. If you want the facts about something and can ignore Gleick 's insights, you may benefit from reading him. I learned things about Feynman that I didn't know before reading Genius . Gleick 's deep insight about Feynman is that he worked to

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