Just for completeness, here are all the books I read in 2022. With gradings to boot. Some of which have been challenged by those with whom I’ve shared this list. I try to judge each book on its own merits unrelated to others – as has been pointed out, comparisons are not really possible because one is not comparing apples with apples. Nevertheless I think I’m sometimes corrupted in this endeavour, thinking I can’t give this book a higher grade than this one. It concentrates the mind dong this – so I will keep it up despite the imperfect method. They are in blocks that indicate those I read around the same time and which I included together in my blogs about same.
______________
Lady’s Maid, Margaret Forster**
Precious Lives, Margaret Forster
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman ***
The Man Who Died Twice, Richard Osman **
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Lea Ypi *****
Arrow In The Blue, Arthur Koestler *****
———————-
Leaping Into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears, Bernadette Brennan **
1964-2016 (52). Which took me back to Mears writing which I have not graded – some of it is very challenging.
Calm Abiding And The Monk From Sarnath, Heat 10, 1998
Bird O Circle, Heat 11 1998
In The Heart of the Sky, Heat 15. 1999-2000
Alive In Ant and Bee, Heat 13. New Series. 2007
The Grass Sister
———
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor (not graded because I couldn’t remember a thing about it – except that I liked it)
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather ****
————
My Life With Wagner, Christian Thielemann **** (regraded up after I saw him conduct in Berlin)
Maigret and the Dead Girl, Georges Simenon ****
At The Two Penny Bar “ “
(Georgette Heyer x 6 (read during Covid)) *****
Cold Enough For Snow, Jessica Au *
The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley *
———-
Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir, Marina Warner **
The Small Hand, Susan Hill *
A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux ***
Exit, Belinda Bauer **
The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen ****
The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen ****
The Shadowy Third, Julia Parry (un-remembered)
1922: Scenes From a Turbulent Year, Nick Rennison *
Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet *
The French Braid, Anne Tyler *
The Inseparables, Simone de Beauvoir * (she was right not to publish it)
Georgés Simenon re-read – Maigret Sets A Trap, Night At The Crossroads ****
————-
Bedtime Story, Chloe Hooper (Life stripped to its essentials – Michael McGurr) ***
The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper ****
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, Agatha Christie *
Ever, Dirk: The Dirk Bogarde Letters, Ed. John Coldstream ****
Fresh Water For Flowers, Valérie Perrin ***
The Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen ****
This is Happiness, Niall Williams ****
——————-
Still Life, Sarah Winman **
Cairo, Chris Womersley *
The Diplomat, “ “
We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland, Finton O’Toole *****
Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment, James R Gaines *****
Frederick The Great King of Prussia, Tim Blanning *****
————————
Jena 1800: The Republic of Free Spirits, Peter Neumann *****
Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self, Andrea Wulf *****
The Undercurrents, Kirsty Bell *****
Faust’s Republic: A History of Berlin, Alexandra Richie, *****
——————
The Lovers, Paolo Cognetti *
The Phoenix Land , Miklós Bánffy *
The Kindness of Strangers, Salka Viertel***
The Sun and Her Stars, Donna Rifkind *
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather *****
The Countess From Kirribillie, Joyce Morgan ***
————-
Stephanie’s Journal, Stephanie Alexander **
Goodbye to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood *
The Birds, Daphne du Maurier *
Portrait of a Marriage, Nigel Nicholson*
The Sea Change, Elizabeth Jane Howard *****
————-
Three, Valerie Perrin*
The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, Matthew Hollis *****
The Hyacinth Girl, Lyndal Gordon ****
The Bullet That Missed, Richard Osman *
Instructions For A Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell *
Exiles, Jane Harper **
Bulldozed, Niki Savva*
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson ***
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L Sayers *****
The Green Fool, Patrick Kavanagh *****
Beauty Before Comfort, Allison Glock ***
Leave a Reply