Welcome to the long, rambling, last blog post of 2022 at Abby’s Writing.
Well, here we are, at the end of 2022. Now how did that happen?
Actually, to me, it seems like several years have passed. So much has happened and not just in my book life. It feels like more happened than usual in a year; it makes it seem like years have passed instead of just one.
As I look back over the 80+ books I read, there’s a part of me that keeps saying “Oh, I read that one this year?” because it seems so long ago that I read it.
So, let’s dive in, starting with my Goodreads / goal challenge for this year. Then we’ll go to the longest and shortest books I read, followed by some classics, name some favorites of the year, see if I met my reading goals for 2022, and then finish with some random things.
My original goal for 2022 was 24 books. Yes, I set the bar pretty low, but I wanted to see when I’d meet that bar and then how far I could push past it. My goal was to read at least 2 books a month for a total of 24 a year. Well, obviously, I ended up blasting past it to 80+ books! That’s about 6 books a month on average.
Some of these books I didn’t finish, either because I couldn’t or because I wouldn’t. It’s rare that I don’t finish a book, but there were a couple. Most of them I read and enjoyed.
When picking the next books to read, I tried to choose them from my ‘to-be-read’ list on Goodreads to whittle down my list, and while I did make a lot of progress, there always seems to be more books jumping their way on there. Wonder how that happens…
The longest book I read, according to Goodreads, is To Darkness Fled by Jill Williamson, at 681 pages. Whew, I do remember that being a huge book, which was perfectly fine with me. Definitely recommend that Christian fantasy series and glad I got to finish it this year.
The shortest book was The Mansion by Henry van Dyke at 61 pages. I’m not sure how I stumbled on that story but I read it on Project Gutenberg and it was convicting about living for heaven’s treasures and not earth’s.
Classics I read this year are primarily To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. (Also read the play Hamlet by Shakespeare, not bad but I’m not going to mention it here.)
To Kill a Mockingbird was strange to me in the beginning. I wasn’t sure how or where it was going, and the whole deal with the Radleys bothered me at first. But the ending came together so perfectly well, and that’s really when I saw it as the masterpiece of writing it is. It deserves its standing as a classic.
The Pilgrim’s Progress was also a beautiful and clever read. I read it in the original English, which presented an extra challenge, but I never had that much trouble understanding the story. It teaches such valuable lessons, and I want to reread it in the future.
Both of them were beautiful reads that lived up to their name as classics, and I’m so glad I got to read them this year.
Now, for favorites…
I can’t possibly name just one favorite non-fiction of the year, so I’ll list three of my favorites. First, Eric Metaxas’s 600 page biography on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It takes talent to make a person read a 600 page biography willingly, and Metaxas pulled it off.
Which leads me to my second book, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This theological work is amazing, challenging, and convicting. I think every Christian should have a chance to read it along with C. S. Lewis and of course, a good Bible.
The third book I’ll list is The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brannan Manning. At a time I read this, I was learning more about what grace was, and this book had a lot to say about it. The power and mystery of grace, which Bonhoeffer also talks extensively about, was expounded beautifully. I want to own a copy of this book for my own use one day.
Now, some of my favorites for the fiction side of things.
First, Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan. I haven’t actually written a review for this book yet, because there’s too much for me to say about it. I went into it with a guarded mind and did not anticipate how stunningly brilliant of a book it would be. I’m so glad I was able to snatch up a hardcover copy of it during a sale on Amazon after I read it.
Second, Defy by Tricia Mingerink. Oh my goodness, this book was amazing as all the others have been in this Christian fantasy series thus far. I’m looking forward to being able to read the fourth and fifth books in this series!
Lastly, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. This was my second taste of Tolkien, and definitely quite different from my first taste of his work, which was The Silmarillion. I really did enjoy it and I’m looking forward to continuing to read his work.
Finally, did I meet my reading goals for 2022?
Well, I didn’t have many of them. I certainly met the amount of books I wanted to read, which was at least two a month. I had three other ones:
Read more C. S. Lewis.
Finish reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (got started on it awhile back but never finished).
Read The Pilgrim’s Progress.
I haven’t read any more C. S. Lewis, though I’ve finally managed to purchase more of his works. I’m keeping those books until a time when I can fully appreciate and savor them, and I guess that time wasn't this year.
I never finished The Mysterious Island. But I finally read The Pilgrim’s Progress!
Now, for other random things that I did during 2022.
I attended my first Friends of the Library book sale. Never before had I been to those types of sales. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much there that looked appealing to me, and I honestly bought some books that I shouldn’t have. I’ve spent the later part of my reading life in 2022 working through these books, which have ranged from dense historical non-fiction to more children’s grade historical fiction.
Another thing is I started listening to audiobooks. Now, I’ve always liked listening to things, music, sermons, and podcasts mostly. But I introduced something new into my life which I needed something to listen to during it, and none of those options were working very well. That’s what started me on audiobooks.
My tiff with audiobooks beforehand, what little I had heard of them, was that they took too long. I’m a fast reader, and audiobook narrators just weren’t fast enough. But I guess things have changed, because I can enjoy them now. After listening to a couple other shorter books, I started listening to Janette Oke’s Canadian Western series. At first, it was just going to be the first book, but now I’m nearly halfway through the sixth (and last) one.
I'll be posting my reading goals for 2023 in another blog post. Often I don’t set any, in fact this last year was the first year that I did, so we’ll see what happens this coming year.
So, there you have it, my 2022 reading wrap up! I hope it was enjoyable for you to read, and this is the last post of 2022. So, I’ll see you in 2023!
Until the next post,
Abby