Month: December 2022

2022 Reading Year In Review

On By angeliquejamailIn books, children's books, children's literature, fiction, literature, nonfiction, poetryLeave a comment

This year’s Books I Read list is the longest it has been since I started keeping track of it, by far. For instance, I came down with an illness at the start of the summer that had me unable to get out of bed for a solid week, and in that week I read ten books, which had been my previous goal for how many books to read over the summer. I plowed through them — I tend to read at a fairly quick pace — and then kept right on going.

This is a partial grouping of the books I read this past year. My Kindle is on the top of one of the piles because a lot of the books I read were on that. Also, some books aren’t pictured because I accidentally left them at school over the holidays. Oops.

This year, I found myself reading voraciously anything that put me in a good mood, because reasons. Therefore you will find a lot of books on this year’s list that are just really fun, including — but not limited to — laugh-out-loud romantic comedies (which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite genres).

I also dove into a bunch of series this year, so you’ll see a lot fewer individual authors on the list than book titles. The breadth of my reading diet was also, therefore, not as wide as I normally strive for. (I’ll do better next year.) One thing I found interesting is that some series were excellent all the way through, and some were…less consistent.

One thing I’m always curious about is how an author maintains a contiguous storyline over multiple books, especially since I’m working on a series like that myself. But I’m also interested to see how series set within the same “world” (whether it’s the real one or not) work when each book is a separate storyline but shares characters. (We see things like this quite often in category romance, where different characters play supporting roles in their friends’ stories and then get to have their own protagonistic moment in their own book. And yes, I’m working on a series like that, too, though not in the romance genre.)

Also, because I am sometimes a completist, if there’s a book I want to read that’s in the middle of a series, I will read the books that came before it first. (See also the note above about the two types of series I’m studying the mechanics of.)

As always, I’m leaving off my list the titles of any books I did not finish reading. Likewise the titles of any manuscripts I read which are not yet published. This year I am including, however, books I read which I had read before in a previous year. There are some titles I revisit, either because I love them or because I’m studying them for craft/genre reasons or because I’m teaching them.

See below the list for a partial breakdown of genres.

Sleeper by Kayley Loring
Charmer by Kayley Loring
The Night She Went Missing by Kristen Bird
Trouble Maker by Kayley Loring
Bloodwarm by Taylor Byas
Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
All the Feels by Olivia Dade
The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
Still Mine by Jayne Pillemer
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
The Love Interest by Kayley Loring
Munro by Kresley Cole
Payback’s A Witch by Lana Harper
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Binti: Sacred Fire by Nnedi Okorafor
Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
Boogie Knights by Lisa Wheeler
Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor
Uncertain Resident by Tova Hinda Siegel
Tethered to Stars by Fady Joudah
Unbroken edited by Marieke Nijkamp
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Blood Countess by Lana Popović
Good Vibrations by Kayley Loring
A Very Bossy Christmas by Kayley Loring
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
A Not So Meet Cute by Meghan Quinn
Shutter by Taylor Byas
The Author Wheel Quick Guide to Productive Writing Habits by G.C. Boris and M. Haskell
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper
A Very Friendly Valentines Day by Kayley Loring
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith
So Not Meant to Be by Meghan Quinn
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Hello Darling by Kayley Loring
Cinder-Nanny by Sariah Wilson
Get Off Easy by Sara Brookes
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg
Lady Mechanika Volume 1 by Joe Benitez
It Takes a Villa by Kilby Blades
Roommaid by Sariah Wilson
The Reunion by Meghan Quinn
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
Switch It Up by Sara Brookes
The One Night by Meghan Quinn
In the Rough by Sara Brookes
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton
The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton
Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade
The Two Rabbits and the Great Texas Freeze by Anna and Sophia Nguyen
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Sh*t My President Says by Shannon Wheeler
Original Love by Molly Peacock

And here is the promised, but brief, breakdown by genre — only broad strokes this year, though.

46 fiction titles
5 poetry titles
3 nonfiction titles
2 graphic novels/memoir
3 children’s books

As I do every year, I’m offering to give you my opinions, for what those are worth, on any of the books listed here. Just ask if you want to know. (Also, if you want to read my formal review of Kristen Bird’s The Night She Went Missing, click here to read my essay that was published by Literary Mama.)

At some point in the next week-ish, I will do my annual Romance Titles Ranked By Heat Level list as well, since that seems to be very popular here on the blog.

So. What have you been reading? Anything you’d like to recommend? Have at it in the comments!

12 Days of Seasonal Songs to Soothe Your Soul (Day 12)

On By angeliquejamailIn holidays, John Roderick, Jonathan Coulton, musicLeave a comment

And here we are, at the end of this series for another year. Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I’ve shared this song before. (I suspect at some point it will become as much a tradition as “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses.)

Not only do I love this song, but I also love this week. It’s about as low-pressure as my life gets. There’s still work to do and the house to clean, but everyone’s home and more relaxed than usual. The bustle of getting ready for Christmas in my large extended family has ended, and while I miss those traditions now that they’re over for another year, I’m looking forward to New Year’s Eve, and celebrating the new beginning that a new year naturally engenders.

When I was a child, the week between made me a little sad. My father used to tell me I had the “Christmas blues,” a melancholy kind of sorrow for the end of the holiday. (That was before I wised up and began insisting that my family actually do something fun every year for New Year’s Eve.)

Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick tell a funny story about this song, and in fact, about the album it’s on. They wanted to make a lucrative record and decided the way to do was to make a holiday collection in time for Christmas. But Coulton didn’t want to make any covers of established Christmas songs (especially the tired ones I started this series on my blog almost a decade ago to rebel against). He didn’t want to use the words “merry,” “cheer,” “joy,” etc. So they were left with the “darker” and more morose side of Christmas.

Except this album of all original songs isn’t “dark” or morose at all. (Well, unless you count a couple of songs that have a twistedly funny sense of humor.) One Christmas at a Time is actually one of my favorite holiday albums of all time, and the song I’m including today, one of my favorite tracks on it.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is completely aspirational for me. I have a moment to rest, a moment to do whatever the heck I want, and a moment to imagine the possibilities I will make of the coming new year. It’s lovely. Just like this song.

12 Days of Seasonal Songs to Soothe Your Soul (Day 10)

On By angeliquejamailIn holidays, humor, Jonathan Coulton, music, sci-fi, science fiction1 Comment

Houston’s Christmas Music Station has started playing their regular rotation again as of yesterday, but with holiday songs still sprinkled in. So here’s another Christmas song from me, too!

Jonathan Coulton is, frankly, an inspiration. He decided he wanted to make his career in music and so wrote a song a week, then posted it, built a following, and transitioned from his old job (that he apparently didn’t love) to a career in music. That kind of creative stamina is something I wish I could even imagine on a practical level, to say nothing of achieve. (To be clear, there’s a lot about my “day job” I like and wouldn’t want to give up. But the ability to create so much is just astounding to me, and feels therefore aspirational.) I also find his quirky, clever sense of humor really satisfying.

This song was from one of his Thing A Week albums. Enjoy!

12 Days of Seasonal Songs to Soothe Your Soul (Day 7)

On By angeliquejamailIn Finley and Pagdon, holidays, music, Yule2 Comments

It’s the winter solstice here in the northern hemisphere. Happy Yule to everyone celebrating it!

It can be challenging to find Yule carols that aren’t just remakes of well-known Christmas carols, but this original song is quite lovely and captures the comfortable wintry cold of the season nicely, for those who like that sort of thing. (And I rather do, perhaps because I’ve never had to actually live in a snowy climate rather than just visit it for a week or so. Or so suggests my husband, who is from Maine.)

Anyway, enjoy this additional festival of lights, added to a season filled with them.