The Conscious Swimmer’s Top 5 Books of 2022
I read a lot. But what is a lot? It is a question I needed answering. And the only way I could answer it was by keeping count. At the beginning of 2022, I decided to document how many books I read by taking a photo of the cover of each one. What a journey. The tally stands at 38 at the time of writing this blog. I can’t promise I won’t read anymore books before the end of the year :). Come with me as I share with you my absolute favourite reads of 2022.
I hope this will inspire you to read more and document your reading journey along the way.
I like to try new authors, themes and genres. I have my favourite authors, of course, but I want to keep experiencing new voices and tones. A good example of this was the book, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. His voice is so fresh and different. I loved it. I read this book on my summer holiday on the beautiful Danish Island of Bornholm. A perfect combination.
Reading is an existential joy for me. Take this away and I would struggle to find meaning. It sounds serious and it is. Luckily I grew up in a family of readers and it was perfectly normal to sit and read for hours on end. Reading has value. Its currency, in the world, is being able to have interesting conversations, connection to others and imaging a world beyond our own.
Books, like music, are deeply personal. This is me sharing my love of books with you. I understand if my favourite books don’t resonate with you. You can find a full list of the books I read in 2022 at the end of this blog. In the comments section, please let me know what your favourite reads of the year have been. I would love to know.
The Year Started off with these two books - they found me - in Malta
Shortly after new year’s I was in Malta in an Airbnb that had a very interesting book shelf. I was amazed at the gems there. You never know where and when you will find good books. Two books from the ‘Malta’ shelf is where I must begin my 2022 story.
The first one was Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore. A thick book that gave me the world of Japanese culture and thinking. It is a fascinating book. I loved the fantasy elements in the book, and the Japanese folk lore. It weaved me in and out of the superstitious landscape that builds some lives. It whispered to the possibility of the year ahead and that anything might be possible. Isn’t that the way all new years should start?
Don’t worry I won’t mention every book I’ve read, even though I’m tempted to, I’m so excited to share them all with you.
And the second ‘Malta find’ was JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass. It gripped me from the first word. Sitting in the living room with the view of the tumultuous blue sea before me, I read about the tumultuous life of someone who changed his mind in the most dangerous way possible and how the people meant to protect him, killed him. In this book you see not a perfect man, but a man struggling with the world his predecessors had left him. JFK decided to do what no President after him has ever done, try and broker peace for the good of the people who suffer from war. Peace is not profitable and the “industrialised military complex”, as Roosevelt named it, wouldn’t allow it. The book gives insight into the workings of the White House that were a real eye opener.
Oliver Stone called it, “the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance.”
My Favourite Books of 2022
So, on to my favourite books of 2022. A picture of their covers appears in the collage above. These books took me to places I would never have imagined , placed me into alternate realities and brought me back a changed human being. Grateful!
#1 Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This book grabbed me by the scruff of my soul and shook me to the core. I read this book in two days, it would not let me go. I was possessed. In my opinion, these are the best books. I cried multiple times while reading this book. The beauty of the prose and the story is unmatched in my mind. Delia Owens tells a story from the heart of the female experience; with all its trials, tribulations, connections, beauty, love and violence. As a Zoologist and conservationist, Owens paints this book with the beauty of the natural world she so loves. It is breathtaking.
This book touched me deep down, in a place I rarely go, yet a place that is still accessible after the death of my sister. A place of connection to the suffering and hardship of another and their resolution of it. It filled me with a warmth I can still feel now. 5/5 - Fiction
#2 The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
A beautifully written book. A living tree almost. Through this book I learnt about Cypress’ very difficult and painful past. The backdrop to this beautifully told story is the love between two people from opposite sides of the Greek/Turkish divide.
Interestingly, part of the story is told from the viewpoint of a fig tree. I loved this touch of genius. The tree is female and is able to say all the things the human characters cannot or may not say. This believable living presence speaks to hatred, intolerance and how the environment suffers when there is war.
This book touches so many aspects of what it means to be human, good and bad. It left me wanting more. This book is a book of remembrance and hope. It gets a 4.8/5 from me. Fiction
#3 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
This book made the biggest impression on me this year. It changed me the most. Or more importantly, it validated some convictions I already had. I wrote Feminism - Where to now? as a result of reading this book. The book deals with data bias in a world designed by men. It speaks into the way women are “forgotten” by men and big data. It is candid and holds no punches in telling the story of how half the population are still seen as a minority by the male world that designs things from smart phones to breast pumps.
The take away from this book is to question everything we see and use by asking, “Was a women consulted in its design?”
It may not always be intentional, but the impact of the default male mentality goes a long way. It creates fallacies and errors of thinking that could be easily corrected by removing the default male from the equation and sex-disaggregate data to see how women experience the world. This book is a look into the ways women are forgotten and it is alarming.
This book is a MUST read for all my male friends and colleagues. 4.6/5 Non-Fiction
#4 Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis
How do you tell the tale of a world without Capitalism? And how do you do it convincingly? Well, you create a wormhole to a parallel universe, that’s how. The former Greek minister of Finance has written a delightfully light novel that deals with a deep and very serious issue: If not Capitalism, what then? What now for the world? If you cannot imagine what the world would look like without Capitalism, then this is the book for you. It will provide a mental framework to think and talk about life without Capitalism. It is a great conversational piece at parties, let me tell you.
Just like Huxley and Orwell, who painted a picture of a future that has mostly come true, Varoufakis has painted a new and brave world in his novel. It is a world I would like to live in. His novel helps to resolve issues like, social and colonial injustice and our current climate crisis.
This book reads uncomfortably, because the concepts it proposes are so unfamiliar to the Global North mind and hence why it is essential reading. 4.5/5 Fiction CLI-FI
#5 Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel
We all feel it, don’t we? That the world is in trouble. The cause might be unclear, but we know that it has something to do with this constant need to grow: grow sales, markets and profits. Growth is only good to a point. Indeterminate growth for children, for instance, would lead to ill-health and death. Indeterminate growth of the economy is leading us in the same direction, to ill-health of the planet and extinction. Infinite growth is a myth and it’s hurting our beloved planet.
Less is More explains in the first half of the book how this concept of exponential growth was born from Capitalism’s trecherous past. Hickel pulls no punches. ‘Growthism’, as Hickel calls it, is rooted in injustice, colonialism and slavery. The book highlights the role growthism has played in bringing us to the brink of environmental collapse.
The second half of the book speaks to what degrowth is, why we shouldnt be afraid of it and how degrowth can bring the world back to a place of abundance. He talks about using resources to meet human need, not shareholders greed. It mentions logical and healthy steps the world needs to take to step away from the dangerous edge we are on and start healing the earth and its people. It will take courage and vision, but this book points the way.
This book was recommended to me by Cecile van Oppen, see her talk at the Love Tomorrow Conference here.
Happy holidays and may Santa bring you the book of your dreams.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The person who never reads lives only one.” - George R.R. Martin
Books Read in 2022 in Chronological Order
1. Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
2. JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass
3. Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty
4. That Glimpse of Truth, 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Written by David Miller
5. Blog to Win Business by Henneke Duistermaat https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/
6. Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
7. Findings by Kathleen Jamie
8. Creative Writing by Teach Yourself
9. Story by Robert McKee
10. The Secret River by Kate Greenville
11. The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
12. Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel
13. The Road to Jerusalem by Jan Guillou
14. The Knight Templar by Jan Guillou
15. Birth of the Kingdom by Jan Guillou
16. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegat
17. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
18. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
19. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
20. Human Kind by Rutger Bregman
21. Why we Swim by Bonnie Tsui
22. The Second Deadly Sin by Åsa Larsson
23. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
24. The Pious Ones by Joseph Berger
25. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
26. Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis
27. The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Cathering Gray
28. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
29. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
30. Brave New World by Aldus Huxley
31. The Island of the Trees by Elif Shafak
32. The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
33. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
34. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
35. Less is More by Jason Hickel
36. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
37. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
38. Freedom to Think by Susie Alegre
