Books Read 2022

 And it's the old favourite, of the books I got through in the year. I think this is the full list, though I do have the feeling that there may be one or two missing, as I lost one of the two places I keep track of what I've read >ironic mutter - frikkin tech<.

    I didn't read everything I wanted to read - I bought one book written by the daughter of one of my school teachers, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet and I still haven't read a massive one I bought two years ago, though I did buy it mostly for the pictures in it, but I do want to read it at some stage.

So here is this year's list, with plays in italics and re-reads with asterisks:

 1. The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville - Giles Milton  (5-27/1)*

 2. The Complete Book of Heroic Australian Women - Susanna de Vries  ( ?? - 5/4)

 

This is an amazing book - as always when you learn history there is just so much of it, only bits that have a large importance to many, are what is generally chosen so that cultural knowledge can be taught and understood. These stories are of women who may at first glance, be considered bystanders, but are outstanding in what they've done.

 3. The Illustrated Etymologicon: A circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language - Mark Forsyth   (26/4 -27/5)

 

An interesting enough book, with his connections from one entry to the next often amusing, however whilst I'm sure Forsyth did some research for his weekly newspaper column (which this book is a conglomeration of), some of the supposed origins of words/phrases that he puts forward as the official answer, I found rather dubious. You just have to look at the question which was floating around recently due to the yearly boat race on at this time of year (why are ships considered female), for which there are several suppositions, but no definitive answer, to see that there are many possibilities which will never be known the answer to.

  4. Secret Bridesmaid Business - Elizabeth Coleman  (25-27/7)

  5. Fallen Into The Pit - Ellis Peters  (??/9 - ????)

 

And that feeling I mentioned above proved. I picked this one up at the annual Vice Chancellor's Book Fair, as I like her Cadfael series, but it didn't read how I expected it - both through the character that is the narrator, the story itself and her writing style. It was good - whilst I picked some aspects, I didn't pick the culprit, but I don't think I'll get another in the series if they turn up.

 

 6. April in Paris, 1921 - Tessa Lunney  (24/10 - 10/11)

 7. Get Off My Lawn! - Anne Ceguerra   (11-15/11)

 

A self published novel being sold by the author at a local artist's market. Not how I thought it would end, but still a nice little book.

 

 8.  Instruction Pour Dancer: An Annonymous Manuscript - Editors Angene Feves, Ann Lizbeth     Langston, Uwe W Schottermüller and Eugene Roucher (22/11 - )*

 9. Historical Dances  12th to 19th century - Melusine Wood  (16/12 -  )*

Reading these two together, as am trying to properly transcribe the dances in #8 to then reconstruct them (although kind of pointless really as there isn't any music for them) and using #9 to help with French dance words that Google has no idea about. Still working hard on this (or should it be hardly?)

10. The Enigma of Room 622 - Joël Dicker  (26-30/12)

And there we go. Twenty-twenty two done and dusted. Another of the books I was wanting to read was one that has been made into a film, as the trailer didn't seem to fit my memory of the book, although I have recently seen a little clip proclaiming how close it is to the novel, staying word for word (almost). And whilst it does (and that first lot of brackets was theirs), there are also several lines left out between lines used, so it will be interesting to see how the film goes. I hope you've read to your satisfaction and if not, that next year goes a bit better that way.