Books - It's the end of 2022 and I consumed 100 books this year

2022 is my good 'book-consumption' year.

I read & listened to 100 books. Before you start judging whether my ‘greedy’ consumption this year is good or not (as people looove to mention quality over quantity every time I mentioned how many books I finished each year). 

In 2022 :

1. I didn’t socialize, so I had extra time (same as all the years before, lol)
2. I didn’t binge-watch movies & series as much this year, so I had the extra time
3. I borrowed a lot of books from my friends, so I had the pressure to read instead of keeping other people’s books for long
4. I tried to make it my habit to read every night (I’ll be sitting on my bed by 8 pm, trying to read, no longer in front of my computer after a long day of work)
5. I listen to an audiobook during cooking and sometimes while working
6. 1 year = 365 days, so roughly 1 book around every 3 days, which is fairly manageable.

If you are an avid reader, you will understand how hard it is to find a ‘GREAT’ fiction that you will want to reread over and over again, if you are lucky you might find 1 in every 30 books, so in order to find more great books that suit your exact taste, you had to read a lot, there is no other way. People can recommend books, but good for them doesn’t usually be good for you. Was it a high-quality reading/listening experience? - Not all, of course. But among those 100 books, I found at least 15 books that I might reread for a slower reading experience, but many of them that I won’t want to reread - ever.

Back in 2018, I read 114 books, so this isn't my first time. But in 2018, I consumed a lot of non-fiction books and I didn't write down about each book. So I tend to forget which book is which. I wanted to make a change from that past experience, and I wanted to remember the things that I learned from each book. That's why I created the Notion book club :

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What do I do to read better?

1. I have my Notion book club to write my thoughts, ideas, personal arguments, analysis, and yes, perhaps reviews (for me, I feel like reviews are very subjective so I usually don’t focus on that).
2. By having to keep track of my reading/listening experience, I have to stop and put myself into a thinking mode, then I have to sit to do some light research and then write about it. It’s like a personal practice to learn how to think and hone my writing skill.
3. I also have a commonplace book where I write things that capture my interest, words that I don’t understand, or lovely quotes that I want to reread later

My good book list this year :

1. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
2. Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
3. The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves
4. I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux
5. Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
6. The Invisible Life by Addie LaRue by VE Schwab
7. The Song of Achilles by Madelline Miller
8. The Unseen Body by Jonathan Reisman
9. How to Make Disease Disappear by Dr Rangan Chatterjee
10. Non-fiction books by Ann Patchett & Rachel Cusk

Books that make me stop & think :

• Huge-gap relationship, the age of consent, abusive relationship - Consent by Vanessa Springora, My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth, The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov
• Mental health - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Vladimir Nabokov, The Upstair House by Julia Fine
• New ideas - The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister - the idea to store memories in smell, Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens - POV of a ghost falling in love with a writer, Meet me in another Life by Catriona Silvey - Deja Vu, stuck in the unconscious mind
• Why did I cry ? - The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
• Good entertaining story-telling: The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Story of Achilles by Madelline Miller, Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman, The Story of Gilgamesh by Yiyun Li, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab
• On long marriage, separation - The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greves, Aftermath by Rachel Cusk, The Good Mother by Sue Miller, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
• The Life in the 1900s - Anne of the Green Gable series
• Losing & grief - I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux, Farewell Ghost by Nadia Terranova
• Motherhood, post-partum depression, parenting - Black Milk by Elif Shafak, I’ll Show Myself Out by Jessi Klein, The Highly Sensitive Parent by Elaine N Aron, The Good Mother by Sue Miller, The Upstair House by Julia Fine
• Friendship - Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
• On health - The Unseen body by Jonathan Reisman & How to Make Disease Disappear by Dr Rangan Chatterjee
• What gives a bad taste? - The Maidens by Alex Michaelides, A Cold Trail by Robert Dugoni, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

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All the page covers in my Book Club Notion were done by me, each and every one of them (look at the whole year's dedication !), I am so proud for reaching the end of 2022 with one thing that I promised I do throughout the year. The writing was a pain - I DIDN'T KNOW WRITING MY OWN OPINION IS A SET OF SKILL ONE NEEDS TO LEARN :F There are books that I didn't write anything in - those are the books that didn't leave any thoughts that I want to remember or it was so dull I just don't want to write anything about.

Anyhow, the one book that gave me the experience to remember in 2022 was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. It took me 1.5 months to finish it - a book that makes me feel so much. Thank you, Hanya for writing such a masterpiece. One day I will want to reread it again, in the meantime, I'm waiting for my preorder copy of To Paradise early next year.

Thank you 2022, to finding more good books next year! ⚘

Check out my Year in Books compilation (Goodreads). If I were at school and there was another reading competition, I would probably win this again ❤