The Top 10
It’s nearly the New Year and this mammoth of a project just catapulted itself onto my radar. Inspired by a Facebook post began by Dr. Howells and joined by Dr. Jamison, I decided to take a look at my 2022 Top 10 books…which led me to look at everything I have read in 2022. Admittedly, I do not keep up with it as well as I should. But now that I have gone through it all, I might as well share it here (and hope that I do a better job at keeping up with it throughout 2023!)
My read list hit 50(!) this year, and I will post them all here. While I started to lead off with my Top 10 and then list the others (not in any particular order), it made more sense in groups. So instead, I’ll list the Top 10 here, and then go through the other stuff. Here’s hoping this works like I think it will!
- The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana Headley
- Beowulf: A New Translation, by Maria Dahvana Headley
- Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward
- The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy
- Unwind, by Neal Shusterman
- Star of the Sea, by Joseph O’Connor
- The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, by Sebastian Barry
- My Reading Life, by Pat Conroy
- The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
- Interview with the Vampire, By Anne Rice
And, a couple of notes before I start:
- all the book links are affiliate
- some of the work have been discussed on my podcast (and some will be in upcoming episodes). You can find it here and subscribe to it on most podcast providers (i.e. Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube). Recent episodes are featured in the sidebar.
- My book club, Books with Bitches & Bourbon meets once a month. You can find us on Goodreads, on Zoom, or in person. We would love to have you.
- The podcast is booking guests for 2023. Topics are pretty much whatever we want them to be. If that’s something you’d like to do, let’s talk about it.
Alrighty, now that that is out of the way, let’s get on to the 2022 Wrap-Up
#1 The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana Headley
A modern, arguably feminist, retelling of the Beowulf epic,The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana Headley, was a gift from Dr. Carol Jamison’s Senior Seminar class. It went from a book I probably would have never heard of to a work that I have read FOUR times and ranks up there with some of the favorite novels I have ever read.
You can read the resulting paper here: The Supreme Shaper: The Weaving Narrative of the Beowulf Epic
The podcast episode is here: BBB The Mere Wife
Rating: Happily Read More Than Once
#2 Beowulf: A New Translation, by Maria Dahvana Headley
Like The Mere Wife, Headley’s Beowulf: A New Translation, is arguably a feminist work. However, instead of retelling the Beowulf epic, Headley translates it, using modern language and challenging the masculine interpretations of previous editions.
The podcast episode is here: BBB The Mere Wife
"Later, God sent Scyld a son, a wolf cub, further proof of manhood. Being God, He knew how the Spear-Danes had suffered, the misery they’d mangled through, leaderless, long years of loss, so the Life-lord, that Almighty Big Boss, birthed them an Earth-shaker. Beow’s name kissed legions of lips by the time he was half-grown, but his own father was still breathing. We all know a boy can’t daddy until his daddy’s dead. A smart son gives gifts to his father’s friends in peacetime. When war woos him, as war will, he’ll need those troops to follow the leader. Privilege is the way men prime power, the world over."
Rating: Would Read Again
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A New Verse Translation was the primary text in the Beowulf Senior Seminar. Held by most as the primary translation, Heaney delivers a poetic and engaging way to read an ancient text.
Rating: Would Read Again
Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton
One of the things about the Beowulf Senior Seminar class that I did not expect but now can’t imagine how one would do an undergrad class without was the additional texts used. The next few entries (like the preceding ones) fall in this category.
Michael Crichton takes historical figure Ibn Fadlan and fictionalizes his adventure in an effort to prove that Beowulf does not have to be boring. I think he succeeded. I would not call it academic, but its inclusion supported the academic discussion of canon, literature, and its ability to affect humanity.
Rating: Glad I Read It
#3 Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward
If Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward doesn’t break your heart in the most unique way, we need to talk because I can’t imagine how that works. Set in rural Mississippi, Ward uses a devastating hurricane to force the hidden broken pieces to the surface of a motherless family. This book is part of an upcoming literature class; I cannot wait to engage with it that way.
Rating: Need to Read Again
The upcoming class mentioned is Dr. Caren Town’s Studies in Fiction. The syllabus boasts an intimidating 9(!) novels over the course of the semester. To make that manageable for me, I have started the reading list during the winter break. God Bless Dr. Town for opening the course and posting the syllabus. Here is what I have gotten through so far:
#4 The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy has long been one of my favorite authors and The Lords of Discipline is one of my favorites from him. I actually own an original copy of the first offering, The Boo. The Lords of Discipline has one of my favorite passages of prose ever written:
“I will speak from memory — my memory — a memory that is all refracting light slanting through prisms and dreams, a shifting, troubled riot of electrons charged with pain and wonder. My memory often seems like a city of exiled poets afire with the astonishment of language, each believing in the integrity of his own witness, each with a separate version of culture and history, and the divine essential fire that is poetry itself…Yet the laws of recall are subject to distortion and alienation. Memory is a trick, and I have lied so often to myself about my own role and the role of others that I am not sure I can recognize the truth about those days. But I have come to believe in the unconscious integrity of lies. I want to record even them, every one of them. Somewhere in the immensity of the lie the truth gleams like the pure, light – glazed bones of an extinct angel...I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth.”
Rating: Happily Read More Than Once
#5 Unwind, by Neal Shusterman
If we have ever discussed reading preferences at length, you probably already know how I feel about the YA genre. I understand why it is and I appreciate it for what it is – it just isn’t for me. However, I understand the need to fill in my space areas in my literature studies. When a YA class by Dr. Town showed up, I took it; I knew her to be a great professor and an excellent curator.
Shusterman’s Unwind had popped up on my radar before, but it never made it to the top of my TBR. Dr. Town’s syllabus put it there, and I could not be more grateful. Dystopian and disturbing, I actually cried and had to put the book down at chapter 61, emotionally unable to turn another page. When I finished, I had to read the rest of the series (UnDivided is on deck for 2023).
Rating: Happily Read More Than Once
Other books I read in that class are (in the order I would recommend them):
#6 Star of the Sea, by Joseph O’Connor
I have yet to be able to count the number of ways in which my life was enriched by my three-week summer study abroad in Wexford, Ireland. My discovery of Irish Literature is definitely somewhere around the top of the list. Being able to read novels while sitting in the place where they were written, and finding nuance that has always been missed because understanding of history, culture, and space is…well, the words escape me. But they don’t escape O’Connor.
Star of the Sea takes the potato famine of the 19th century and makes it personal. More than a broad sweeping travesty, O’Connor puts faces to the destruction and heart into the history.
The podcast episode can be found here: Review of Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor and Connemara Single Malt Irish Whiskey
Rating: Would Read Again
#7 The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, by Sebastian Barry
Looking to discover other Irish works, I came across Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture. This award-winning novel has all the intrigue that a historical fiction with a female protagonist could want. Before I could read it, however, I had to read the first offering in the series, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty. Once again, my need to start from the beginning proved to be a winning strategy.
The novels can be read standalone. However, even though you won’t know it, there is a loss. I understand why The Secret Scripture is so popular, but Eneas’ honest want of peace, love, and normal and Barry’s simple elegance in telling it made this one my favorite of the two.
Rating: Would Read Again
Other Irish works I read in 2022, each one wonderful and different in its own binding:
#8 My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
This is one I pick up every couple of years or so to remind myself why good writers read and how good readers approach a work. Made up of individual essays woven together, Conroy walks us through what it looks like when we let words well used move us.
“The most powerful words in English are ‘tell me a story,’ words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.”
Rating: Happily Read More Than Once
#9 The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
As my children get older (yes, my YA aversion is that strong), hearing, “Mom will you read this book with me?” is becoming one of my greatest joys. This one did not disappoint. Like a few others on my list, Miller’s Song of Achilles has been on my TBR list for quite some time. My daughter Rue’s recommendation moved it to the top of my list.
From ancient epics, Miller plucks out Achilles and Patroclus and crafts a story of honor, courage, love, and heartbreak. What makes Miller’s offering special is she neither tries too hard for grandeur nor lies lazy with low-hanging fruit – both possible with this intriguing plot line. Instead, she accomplishes an honest portrayal of the human condition in the face of cultural complexities and divine manipulation.
Rating: Would Read Again
#10 Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
Anne Rice is my favorite author and she has been since I was 18 years old. It was that summer in 1994 that my mother bought me Tale of the Body Thief and I instantly fell in love with Lestat de Lioncourt. Many fictional characters since have tried to woo the top place in my affections and have failed.
Transparently, Interview is not my favorite Rice novel or even of the Vampire Chronicles; those honors go to Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Memonch the Devil, respectively. However, inspired by AMC’s new series in which Rolin Jones has taken the Vampire Chronicles and beautifully reimagined the work, I picked it up again. Rice just never disappoints me.
Podcast episodes start here: Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, Episode 1
Rating: Happily Read More Than Once
…And The Rest
I thought about putting these I some type of order and that proved exhausting. Each of these books have something for somebody and there isn’t one on the list that I DNF’d. Instead, I decided to put them in alphabetical order.
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