Book List: Books Read in 2022

BOOKS READ IN 2022

Every January, when I remember, I post a list here on the blog of the books I read the prior year. I keep track of the books I read on LibraryThing. 

Here's the list of the 111 books I read in 2022, in the order I read them.

Notes about my rating system are below the list.

• Murder at the Castle by M. B. Shaw (reviewed here) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Katherine by Anya Seton 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano 🌹🌹🌹

• The Bostonians by Henry James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Murder at the Mill by M. B. Shaw 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Atlantic High: A Celebration by William F. Buckley, Jr. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Dangling Man by Saul Bellow 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Island of Gold by Amy Maroney 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz 🌹🌹🌹

• The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris (reviewed here)🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Hope of Heaven by John O'Hara 🌹🌹🌹

• The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The House in Good Taste by Elsie De Wolfe 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot by Rebecca Rosenberg (reviewed here) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler 🌹🌹🌹

• The Falls by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol 72 (Winter 2021) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Family Business by S. J. Rozan (reviewed here) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• These Ruins are Inhabited by Muriel Beadle 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Essentially French: Homes With Classic French Style by Josephine Ryan 🌹🌹🌹

• Little Big Man by Thomas Berger 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble 🌹🌹🌹

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Rat Race by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• When She was Good by Philip Roth 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Hell of a Book by Jason Mott 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Trio by William Boyd 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Lucky by Marissa Staples 🌹🌹🌹

• The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Galileo's Daughter - A Historical Memoir Of Science, Faith, And Love by Dava Sobel 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Love is Blind by William Boyd 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law by Katherine Wilson 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Racing Through Paradise: A Pacific Passage by William F. Buckley, Jr. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Holy Orders by Benjamin Black 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Blue Moon by Lee Child 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Long Way Home by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Broken Harbor by Tana French 🌹🌹🌹

• The Counterlife by Philip Roth 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Annotated Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham 🌹🌹🌹🌹 (5 for the book, 3 for the annotations) 

• Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Mr. Majestyk by Elmore Leonard 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Masters by C. P. Snow 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 73 (Spring 2022) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Reservoir by David Duchovny (reviewed here) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 74 (Summer 2022) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 🌹🌹

• Windfall: The End of the Affair by William F. Buckley, Jr.  🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Beautiful Cassandra by Jane Austen 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Murder at Hazelmoor (aka The Sittaford Mystery) by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor 🌹🌹🌹

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City by David Lebovitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Literary Life by Larry McMurtry 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• What to Read and Why by Francine Prose 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by Kate Bolick 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The High Window by Raymond Chandler 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Black Cat by Martha Grimes 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Airframe by Michael Chrichton 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Death in a Tenured Position by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Did Ye Hear Mammy Died by Séamas O'Reilly  🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Call it Sleep by Henry Roth 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Intrusion of Jimmy by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Lists of Note: An Eclectic Collection Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher 🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY RATING SYSTEM

I switched to using roses for my rating system, since this is Rose City Reader. My rating system is my own and evolving. Whatever five stars might mean on amazon, goodreads, or Netflix, a five-rose rating probably doesn't mean that here. My system is a mix of how a book subjectively appeals to me, its technical merits, and whether I would recommend it to other people.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 Five roses for books I loved, or would recommend to anyone, or I think are worthy of classic "must read" status." Examples would be Lucky Jim (personal favorite), A Gentleman in Moscow (universal recommendation), and Great Expectations (must read).

🌹🌹🌹🌹 Four roses for books I really enjoyed and/or would recommend to people who enjoy that type of book. So I give a lot of four roses because I might really like a book, but it didn't knock my socks off. And while I'd recommend it to someone who likes that genre -- mystery, historical fiction, food writing, whatever -- I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who asked me for a "good book.".

🌹🌹🌹 Three roses for books I was lukewarm on or maybe was glad I read but wouldn't recommend.

🌹🌹 Two roses if I didn't like it. Lessons in Chemistry is an example, which proves how subjective my system is because lots of people loved that book. I found it cartoonish and intolerant. 

🌹 One rose if I really didn't like it. I don't know if I've ever rated a book this low. The Magus might be my only example and I read it before I started keeping my lists.

I use half roses if a book falls between categories. I can't explain what that half rose might mean, it's just a feeling.

Here is a link to the star rating system I used for years. I include it because the stars I used in years past meant something different than these roses, so if you look at my lists from past years, the ratings won't mean quite the same thing.

Erica Jong's Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women -- LIST

Erica Jong's Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women

At the turn of the Millennium, there was a flurry of "Top 100" book lists. The Modern Library’s list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, started the craze (and led to this blog). Erica Jong wrote an article for The Nation criticizing the Modern Library’s list for including relatively few books by women.

She titled her article "I've Got a Little List" and included her own list of the Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women. Jong explained that she had compiled the list from votes cast by those “250 or so distinguished women writers and critics” and “about thirty male novelists, critics and poets” whom she solicited directly, as well as participants in “the rather lively writers’ forum” on Jong’s website. The list is in order of the number of votes received. 

Jong's method for creating the list was not scientific. But the results provide excellent reading. 

Here is Jong's list. I've noted if I've read a book, if it's on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library. 

See any favorites?

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice ON OVERDRIVE

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf FINISHED

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf FINISHED

The Waves by Virginia Woolf TBR SHELF

Orlando by Virginia Woolf FINISHED

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes TBR SHELF

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton FINISHED

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton FINISHED

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton FINISHED

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall ON OVERDRIVE

Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer TBR SHELF

The Dollmaker by Harriette Simpson Arnow

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood FINISHED

My Ántonia by Willa Cather FINISHED

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (reviewed here) FINISHED

Fanny by Erica Jong 

Obasan by Joy Kogawa FINISHED

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing FINISHED

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing TBR SHELF

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee FINISHED

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy ON OVERDRIVE

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

Her First American by Lore Segal FINISHED

The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED

The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley FINISHED

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark FINISHED

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark FINISHED

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison FINISHED

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (reviewed here) FINISHED

Anya by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer TBR SHELF

Trust by Cynthia Ozick TBR SHELF

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan FINISHED

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan FINISHED

Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie TBR SHELF

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston FINISHED

A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion TBR SHELF

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion (reviewed here) FINISHED

The Group by Mary McCarthy FINISHED

The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy FINISHED

The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley TBR SHELF

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath FINISHED

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers FINISHED
 
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen FINISHED

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor FINISHED

Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson TBR SHELF

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison FINISHED

Beloved by Toni Morrison FINISHED

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (reviewed here) FINISHED

Mr. Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner TBR SHELF

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter FINISHED

Progress of Stories by Laura Riding

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Booker winner) FINISHED

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald FINISHED

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende FINISHED

Possession by A.S. Byatt FINISHED

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker TBR SHELF

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown ON OVERDRIVE

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner FINISHED

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter TBR SHELF

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (reviewed here) FINISHED

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn DNF

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (reviewed here) FINISHED

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym FINISHED

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko TBR SHELF
 
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler FINISHED

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler FINISHED

Things Invisible to See by Nancy Willard (reviewed here) FINISHED

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson FINISHED

Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz TBR SHELF

Civil Wars by Rosellen Brown TBR SHELF

Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr TBR SHELF

The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford TBR SHELF

Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx FINISHED

The Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein 

The Children of Men by P.D. James FINISHED

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi FINISHED

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon FINISHED

Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield TBR SHELF

Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis TBR SHELF

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich TBR SHELF

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin DNF 

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien TBR SHELF

Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble TBR SHELF

The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble FINISHED

The Locusts Have No King by Dawn Powell

The Women's Room by Marilyn French

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty FINISHED

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid TBR SHELF

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen TBR SHELF

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein FINISHED

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch FINISHED

Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai TBR SHELF

The Drowning Season by Alice Hoffman FINISHED

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend ON OVERDRIVE

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer TBR SHELF


NOTE

Updated July 3, 2025.

This is a repost of a list I first posted in 2009. So far, I've read 57 of the 100 and gave up on two others, so I have 41 to go. Of those that I read because they were on this list, my favorites are Play It as It Lays, Things Invisible to See, and The Children of Men. 

National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award Winners -- BOOK LIST

The National Book Critics Circle presents annual awards for books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism. The NBCC Awards started in 1975.

I confess I bear a grudge against the NBCC fiction Award for inflicting some of my least favorite novels on me, including Being Dead, All the Pretty Horses, and Song of Solomon. On the other hand, I only read Americanah and Motherless Brooklyn because they are on list and I love both of them.

I decided to not keep updating the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

This is the list of the NBCC fiction Award winners through 2021, with notes about whether I've finished the book or not. So far, I've read 33 of the winners. I've also noted it a book is on my TBR shelf or available as an audiobook from my library. Those notes help me keep track. 

2021 The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers ON OVERDRIVE

2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell FINISHED

2019 Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat ON OVERDRIVE

2018 Milkman by Anna Burns FINISHED

2017 Improvement by Joan Silber ON OVERDRIVE

2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich FINISHED

2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty FINISHED

2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson FINISHED

2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie FINISHED

2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain FINISHED

2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan FINISHED

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here) FINISHED

2008 2666 by Robert Bolano TBR SHELF

2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz FINISHED

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai FINISHED

2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow ON OVERDRIVE

2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here) FINISHED

2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones FINISHED

2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan FINISHED

2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald FINISHED

2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace FINISHED

1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem FINISHED

1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro TBR SHELF

1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald FINISHED

1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault TBR SHELF

1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin FINISHED

1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines TBR SHELF

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (reviewed here) FINISHED

1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike FINISHED

1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow FINISHED

1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee TBR SHELF

1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth FINISHED

1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price FINISHED

1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler FINISHED

1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich TBR SHELF

1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin TBR SHELF

1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard TBR SHELF

1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan FINISHED

1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here) FINISHED

1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison FINISHED

1976 October Light by John C Gardner TBR SHELF

1975 Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow FINISHED

NOTES

Updated March 20, 2024. This is a refresh of the list I first posted in 2012. 

TBR 22 in '22 and Mt. TBR Challenges -- My Sign Up Post

 

THE TBR 22 IN '22 CHALLENGE

This is my sign up post for the TBR 22 in '22 Challenge. The simple idea is to read 22 books off your TBR shelves between January 1 and December 31, 2022. If you want to join me (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page here to sign up. 

You do not have to pick all your TBR 22 in '22 books ahead of time. I like to, so I do. You can. Or you can pick some now and some as you go. You can pick them all at whim. Or you can pick now and then change your mind. The only real rule is that you read books that you already owned before January 1, 2022. 

MY TBR 22 IN '22 BOOKS

I like to pick my books ahead of time and keep them stacked by my bedside to motivate me through the year. Two or three are those I've only recently acquired and I want to read before they disappear on my shelves. The rest are those that have been on my shelves for so long I want to read them so I can stop looking at them! Several of these are on my Classics Club list for the same reason.

In alphabetical order by author name, not as shown in the picture above. I may read them in this order because I have no other plan, although that would mean four Roth books and three Buckley books back to back, so probably not:

• These Ruins are Inhabited by Margaret Beadle, a memoir by an American living in England in the 1950s

• Dangling Man by Saul Bellow, on my Classics Club list

• Atlantic High by William F. Buckley, Jr., the second of his four sailing memoirs. I read the first one last year and planned to read them all but didn't get to them. 2022 will be the year I finally do. 

• Racing through Paradise by William F. Buckley, Jr., the third of the four

• Windfall by William F. Buckley, Jr., the last one

• The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakow, on my Classics Club list

• The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble, on my Classics Club list

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award

• Rat Race by Dick Francis, on my Classics Club list

• Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon

• French Women Don't get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

• The Wall by John Hersey, on my Classics Club list

• The Bostonians by Henry James, on my Classics Club list

• A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin

• When She was Good by Philip Roth, on my Classics Club list

• Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth

• The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

• The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth

• The Masters by C. P. Snow is the fourth book in his Strangers and Brothers series, which I started years ago and want to finish. This one is on my Classics Club list because it won the James Tait Black Prize in 1954.

• If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler, on my Classics Club list

• God Save the Mark by Donald Westlake, which won the Edgar Award and is on my Classics Club list

• Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, a campus novel on my Classics Club list

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

This TBR 22 in '22 Challenge dovetails nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge that Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. Like I did in 2021, I am signing up for the "Mt. Kilimanjaro" Level in 2022 to read a total of 60 books off my TBR shelves. That means 38 books in addition to those listed above. 

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

I will list my Mt. TBR books here as I read them. 

NOTES

Update as of December 14, 2022: I completed the TBR 22 in '22 Challenge in November. As of mid-December, I've read 65 books total off my TBR shelves, so climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and completed the Mt. TBR Challenge. I'll do an official wrap up post as soon as I get time. 

September Wrap Up -- My September Books

SEPTEMBER WRAP UP

I finally launched my own Zazzle store. Crazy, right? It’s not like my law practice gives me a lot of down time! But I need a creative outlet. I have a couple of product lines so far, but my favorite is a collection of gifts and stationery with images of old books from my own library. The mug in the picture above is an example. If you want to see more, find me on the Zazzle website at RoseCityEphemera. I’m excited about it!

When I wasn't playing with Zazzle, I managed to read ten books last month. They are listed below in the order I read them, not in the order they are stacked up in the picture.

MY SEPTEMBER BOOKS

The Choir by Joanna Trollope, cozy and wonderful. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose, which is not in the picture because I read the audiobook. This is an excellent book and a highlight of the month for me. Pluckrose is one of the three scholars, along with James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, who submitted bogus "grievance studies" papers to peer reviewed journals and got many of them accepted and even published. It's worth looking up because the papers they got published are hilarious. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Uncommon Clay by Margaret Maron was a pretty decent mystery set in North Carolina. I read it with my ears so it isn't in the picture. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

An Alphabet for Gourmets by M. F. K. Fisher. This is a wonderful book of idiosyncratic food writing. It wandered off before I took the picture. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross, another highlight of the month. This one was lurking on my TBR shelf for a long time and I'm glad I finally read it. It is historical fiction at its best. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler. I'm an Anne Tyler completist, but I found this one disappointingly pointless. 🌹🌹🌹

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor, occasional nonfiction. This was admittedly a little repetitive, but still excellent. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

A Changed Man by Francine Prose, slightly subversive, a little edgy, and I loved it. It's the second of her books I've read and she's becoming a favorite. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Split Images by Elmore Leonard, which was typical Leonard but still good. 🌹🌹🌹1/2

Slightly Foxed, Vol. 70, the recent summer edition, which I count so I can keep track of which ones I read. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY FAVORITE COVER OF THE MONTH

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winners -- BOOK LIST

THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (formerly called the Prize for the Novel) has been awarded since 1918 for distinguished works of fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.

The prize is named after its founder, legendary American publisher Joseph Pulitzer. No prize was awarded in several years, most recently in 2012. The prize is currently $15,000.

This is one of my favorite books lists, but I am not going to update the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

So far, I've read 68 of the winners. The list of the winners through 2021 is below, with notes about whether I've read it, it is currently on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.

The Prize winners since 1918 are:

2021: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich ON OVERDRIVE

2020: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

 
2019: The Overstory by Richard Powers FINISHED

2018: Less by Andrew Sean Greer FINISHED

2017: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen FINISHED

2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer FINISHED

2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt FINISHED

2013: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson FINISHED

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan FINISHED

2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding (reviewed here) FINISHED

2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (reviewed here) FINISHED

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz FINISHED

2007: The Road by Cormack McCarthy

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed here) FINISHED

2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here) FINISHED

2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones FINISHED

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides  FINISHED

2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (reviewed here) FINISHED

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon FINISHED

2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri FINISHED

1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham FINISHED

1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth FINISHED

1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (reviewed here) FINISHED

1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford FINISHED

1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx FINISHED

1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler TBR SHELF

1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike FINISHED

1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos FINISHED

1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (reviewed here) FINISHED

1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison FINISHED

1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (short review here) FINISHED

1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry FINISHED

1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie FINISHED

1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED

1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole FINISHED

1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer ON OVERDRIVE

1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here) FINISHED

1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson TBR SHELF

1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (reviewed here) FINISHED

1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ON OVERDRIVE

1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty TBR SHELF

1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner FINISHED

1970: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday FINISHED

1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron FINISHED

1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (reviewed here) FINISHED

1966: Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau FINISHED

1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner TBR SHELF

1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor

1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee FINISHED

1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (reviewed here) FINISHED

1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor FINISHED

1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee FINISHED

1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable by William Faulkner

1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED

1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk ON OVERDRIVE

1951: The Town by Conrad Richter 

1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens FINISHED

1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener FINISHED

1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (reviewed here) FINISHED

1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (reviewed here) FINISHED

1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin TBR SHELF

1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair FINISHED

1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck FINISHED

1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand FINISHED

1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis TBR SHELF

1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson FINISHED

1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller

1933: The Store by T. S. Stribling TBR SHELF

1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck FINISHED

1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes TBR SHELF

1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge TBR SHELF

1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder FINISHED

1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield FINISHED

1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis FINISHED

1925: So Big by Edna Ferber FINISHED

1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson

1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather FINISHED

1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (reviewed here) FINISHED

1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton FINISHED

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington FINISHED

1918: His Family by Ernest Poole


NOTE

Updated July 3, 2025. 

OTHERS READING THE PULITZER WINNERS

If you are working on reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners and want to list your blog or related link here, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Abi at 4 the Love of Books is hosting in May. Please visit her fun, inspirational blog.

I got a nice stack of books last week, mostly because I stopped by my favorite Second Glance Books where Rachelle had some set aside for me. 

I also got a copy of an interesting book when I went to hear the author/editor speak.  If you would have told me that I could sit and listen to a two-hour lecture on the history of, and predictions for, the modern welfare states of Europe and America,  I would have scoffed.  But Tom Palmer was a riveting speaker.  I am looking forward to reading his book:



After the Welfare State, edited by Tom G. Palmer, featuring essays by himself, David Beito, Piercamillo Falasca (Italian),  David Green(English),  Aristides Hatzis (Greek), Johan Norberg (Swedish),  and Michael Tanner.  I like the international perspectives.

My books from Second Glance are:



Death of a Cozy Writer by G. M. Malliet.  I also have her book, Wicked Autumn, on my TBR shelf.



The Japanese Cat at Home by Nobuo Honda, because it is too adorable!



Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler




Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, which is on the College Board's Top 101 list.



McTeague by Frank Norris



Promised Land by Robert B. Parker, which won the Edgar Award.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

UPDATE: Kathy from BermudaOnion's Weblog stepped up to the plate to host in November. The link for today is here.

I found a couple of books by favorite authors at a library sale that have me wishing I could hole up for a rainy November week before the holiday rush and just read and relax. What a fantasy!



Glory by Vladimir Nabokov

 

Destinations: Essays from Rolling Stone by Jan Morris

 

Leaving Home by Anita Brookner

 

Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler

Review of the Day: Breathing Lessons

I could have guessed before starting Breathing Lessons that the book would involve an ordinary family in Baltimore facing problems in an awkward but genuine way and somehow bumbling through to a moderately happy and definitely realistic end. That description fits every Anne Tyler book I’ve read and it fits this one too.

Unfortunately, this book sticks close to the basic theme without the variations that made the others I’ve read more interesting. For instance, Digging to America applies the basic theme to immigrant families; The Amateur Marriage takes the story further, to a post-divorce phase; The Accidental Tourist takes the show on the road to Paris; and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant turns it around to the children’s perspective.

In contrast, Breathing Lessons is the basic story. It takes place in one day, when Ira and Maggie Moran drive to a funeral and, on the way back, stop to visit their granddaughter in Maggie’s attempt to reconcile their son and former daughter-in-law. In describing the events of the day, Tyler tells the story of the Morans’ courtship, marriage, and children’s lives. She does it with her typical and impressive authenticity.

My only problem was that Tyler’s authenticity seemed too typical. Stripped of the variations that livened up the other books, Breathing Lessons lacked a hook to grab my attention. If this had been the first Anne Tyler book I ever read, I would have loved it. But having read four others already, I felt like I was covering old territory with this one.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons.  It was my Pulitzer choice for the 2011 Battle of the Prizes, American Version challenge.