Hello friends, happy new year! How have you been?
First cab off the rank is my usual reading highlights post. It amused me how many “best books I read in 2022” articles and posts I started seeing appear in the lead up to Christmas because I nearly always end up reading one of my favourite books of the year between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
2022 was no exception! It turned out my favourite book of the year was waiting wrapped under the Christmas tree, which I read in a handful of sittings on Boxing Day afternoon. It was one of the most transcendent and important reading experiences of my year.
My favourite book of the year
Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here (2022) by Heather Rose
Long time readers of my ramblings will know that I would buy a book about paint drying if Heather Rose wrote it - I have never been disappointed by her writing and this long-awaited memoir was no exception. I had no idea how autobiographical her first novel, White Heart, actually was.
Reading Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here was a joy - I had forgotten that delicious, expansive feeling of finishing an entire book in a mere handful of sittings over a day or, in my case, one afternoon! It was glorious. Moving, insightful, tender, inspiring. In many ways, it was the perfect book to end 2022 - a very strange and at times incredibly painful year. Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here is about all the interwoven threads of our lives, how an idyllic childhood can be shattered in moments, and where the search for meaning, love, connection and wholeness can take you. How even suffering, unimaginable grief, might have a deeper meaning and push us in the direction our lives were always intended for:
Every human life is perfect in its own way. We cannot understand that, because it seems like there is so much suffering. But maybe every life is perfect for we need to know and learn and see and understand. Even when we don't understand, even when the suffering seems unfathomable, does some part of us understand? Could that really be true, I wondered?
Nothing bad ever happens here...
My body was shaking violently now. I held onto the rock beneath me as if I was clinging to life itself. Maybe I was. I clung to this life, my life, with all its imperfections and mistakes, with all its joy. I didn't want to go anywhere.
The key message for me was that choosing joy is an act of courage, especially in the face of trauma, grief and endless knocks to one’s spirit. Joy and pain can co-exist, as can light and dark, as can mystery and knowledge. This book has encouraged me, going into 2023, to seek joy as much as possible, to deliberately cultivate it. It was also a timely reminder, as I’m staring down the last 18 months of my PhD, that the work I am doing, that I’ve been called to do, will take everything I have.
I loved it.
And now, for the honourable mentions:
A fabulous collection of inter-connected short stories that read more like a novel, and set in Tassie
Smokehouse (2021) by Melissa Manning
Two excellent books on the craft of writing, especially within the Australian context
The Writer Laid Bare (2022) by Lee Kofman
Reading Like an Australian Writer (2021) edited by Belinda Castles
Two books that cemented my decision to continue my social media hiatus for the foreseeable future
Break the Internet: In Pursuit of Influence (2022) by Olivia Yallop
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention (2022) by Johann Hari
A moving and evocative poetry collection that I adored and savoured
Ledger (2021) by Jane Hirshfield
A stunning, no-detail-spared biography that expanded my world considerably
My Tongue is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood (2022) by Ann-Marie Priest - see my review for TEXT here
A book that reignited my passion for and interest in a writer who has influenced and intrigued me for decades
Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton (2022) by Gail Crowther
A book I read out of sheer curiosity that was astonishing, daring and brilliant
Nightbitch (2021) by Rachel Yoder
A book of essays that was so clever, inventive and insightful it made me want to rewrite everything I’ve ever published
Blueberries (2020) by Ellena Savage
Cookbooks I did not just devour the words of but actually cooked a lot from
One Pot: Three Ways (2021) by Rachel Ama
Unbelievably Vegan (2022) by Charity Morgan
Tenderheart (2022) by Hetty Lui McKinnon
A cookbook I have not yet cooked from but that was so beautifully written I read it twice
The Year of Miracles (2022) by Ella Risbridger
So there you have it, another year’s reading done and dusted. I’ve been writing about my favourite books for ten years now! Here are my favourites from 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013
What were your favourites from last year? Do tell me!
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