30 books I read in 2022

Grab a cuppa, browse my reading list and stock your shelves for 2023.

Reading sesh with the mini. Raise a book lover, get more time for reading.

I read 30 books in 2022, five more than the year before. I achieved this by completely losing my taste for TV, which means I still haven’t watched White Lotus, or the bad Marilyn biopic, or any of the hyped-up series everyone’s been talking about. I might never get around to them; there are too many books I still want to read.

Memoir is still my genre of choice, and will probably always be my first love. I kicked off the year with the incandescent, tender Just Kids by Patti Smith, which made me a lifelong fangirl and sealed 2022 as the year of Patti. Free Money from her seminal Horses album became one of my most-played songs of the year. I got to see her perform live at the Paradiso, Amsterdam’s most iconic live music venue, and it was the most emotional and spiritual rock gig of my life.

Patti was my most-read writer this year with four books on my list, and hers is my most beloved Substack. Sheepish confession: I didn’t know she was a rockstar before she was a writer.

The mini knows Patti too. Only her songs for now; the books will come later.

On this list you’ll find a couple of books that I disliked except for their sex scenes. In 2021, I was determined to read as many books on sex as I could, to learn how to write sex scenes for my own book and figure out my own language for writing about sex. In 2022, I got all sexed out. No more sex! I mean, only on the page.

Halfway through the year, it occurred to me that the majority of books being hyped by the literary types I followed on Twitter, presented to me by various algorithms, or that reached me via word of mouth, were all by white female American authors. Why is that? Just because I’m a woman who consumes English content?

So I decided: enough of that. My attempt to diversify my reading led me to some real gems, so I’ll be keeping it up in 2023.

Here’s my list.

Memoir

• Just Kids (Patti Smith) - a buoyant, moving account of Patti’s early artistic life in late 60s New York, as well as her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Winner of the National Book Award.

• M Train (Patti Smith) - after the heft and responsibility of Just Kids, Patti wanted to write something light and fun. Meandering, irreverent, and interwoven with dreams and symbols, this is the story of Patti’s ramshackle beach hut in Queens and its transformation into a writer’s sanctuary.

• Wounds of Passion (bell hooks) - a personal account of the acclaimed Black writer-activist’s early life, career and toxic, abusive relationship with another Black writer. The crystalline precision of her language captivated me.

• Whip Smart (Melissa Febos) - a vivid, smartly written memoir of a professional dominatrix. I liked it so much that I’m now reading Body Work, a memoir-slash-manifesto on why women must write our personal stories, by the same author.

• Anything but a Wasted Life (Sita Kaylin) - a memoir written by a professional stripper. I’m ashamed to admit I got sucked into buying this by a racy Instagram account with lots of boobs on it. I thought it would be like Whip Smart, but no. It wanted to be daring and titillating, but ended up being dull and repetitive. Salaciousness is no replacement for a compelling narrative; I just couldn’t get invested. Account unfollowed, book unfinished.

• On Writing (Stephen King) - a memoir-slash-writing masterclass by the King of Horror. Entertaining and inspiring, especially for writers who are more commercial than literary in their orientation.

• Fierce Attachments (Vivian Hornick) - an intimate, honest glimpse into a complicated mother-daughter relationship, both of them strong, opinionated Jewish New Yorkers.

• Slow Days, Fast Company (Eve Babitz) - colorful and carefree episodes from a glitzy Hollywood life full of rich bores, drugged-out desert nights, and Southern California realness from Joan Didion’s saucier socialite contemporary. For me, Eve over Joan any day.

• The Body Papers (Grace Talusan) - a poignant memoir of immigrant family secrets by a Filipina-American writer.

• Goodbye to Berlin (Christopher Isherwood) - a collection of six novellas set in Berlin in the Roaring Twenties, said to have inspired the musical Cabaret. Love the period, didn’t love the book.

• A Book of Days (Patti Smith) - 365 days of photographs by Patti, inspired by her daily posts on Instagram. I love everything she does, so this catalogue of her life, inspirations and references was a real treat.

Best memoir of 2022: need you ask? Just Kids.

A close second: Wounds of Passion.

Nonfiction

• Upstream (Mary Oliver) - contemplative essays on nature by a favorite poet.

• Daring Greatly (Brene Brown) - research on vulnerability as an aid to living life with greater courage. I don’t belong to the cult of Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle, Elizabeth Gilbert and the like, but I appreciated the insights in this book.

• The Sex Lives of African Women (Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah) - a collection of interviews of African women describing their sex lives in honest, straightforward detail. Thoughtful, diverse, eye-opening, insightful, and SO. MUCH. FUN. When is someone going to write this book for Asian women?!?!

• An Inventory of Losses (Judith Schalansky) - a meticulously researched inventory of 12 things lost to mankind, from a submerged island to Bette Davis’ smile, each written according to the rules of a different genre. Inventive, beautifully written, but challenging to read at times.

• The Body Keeps the Score (Dr Bessel van der Kolk) - this book on the relationship between body, mind, brain, trauma and healing was my lifeline throughout the six weeks that I underwent EMDR therapy to resolve trauma responses surfaced by my writing and relationships. By transforming my understanding of how the brain works, this bestseller gave me greater compassion for why I’m wired the way I am, and how people become the way they are. Highly recommended.

• Holding Change (adrienne maree brown) - a handbook on facilitating group dynamics for social justice, but was also helpful during a period in which I was navigating change in an intimate relationship. I’m a big fan of a.m.b.’s work; if you haven’t read Pleasure Activism, start there.

• Sexologies (Gabriela Wiener) - sharp, smart essays on sex, ranging from the raw and revealing to the witty and investigative, by a brilliant Peruvian journalist. Her essay Three on nonmonogamy really spoke to me.

• Women and Power (Mary Beard) - a compilation of lectures on ancient and modern attitudes toward female speech. Heavy on British politics so mostly unrelatable for me, but a quick pocket read with some insightful points.

Best nonfiction of 2022: The Body Keeps the Score

A close second: The Sex Lives of African Women

Fiction

• Smaller and Smaller Circles (F.H. Batacan) - the first true Filipino crime detective novel, about a serial killer on the loose in Smokey Mountain, the world’s largest open garbage dump. Two Jesuit priests investigate the child murders, playing detective in a system rife with corruption. A fast-paced, brilliant study of crime in the corrupt and often absurd Philippine context.

• Luster (Raven Leilani) - a career-launching, critically acclaimed, multi-awarded, heavily hyped debut novel that I really wanted to like…. but didn’t, in a way that made me feel bad because maybe am I just too dumb for literary fiction? I found the premise laughable and flimsy: twentysomething literary type starts dating a man in an open marriage, whose wife then moves her into their home to take care of their adopted daughter. Like, what?! If Marlon brought home a casual hookup to start co-parenting our child after two dates, best believe it would be the END of us. I found the writing relentlessly intelligent, like it had something to prove, but tiring and overwrought at times. Some excellently crafted sex scenes though.

• The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt) - an intimidating volume but once you get into it, unputdownable. The story of a priceless painting that disappears from a museum and ends up in the possession of an orphaned boy, and how it changes his life, is vivid, entertaining and highly enjoyable.

• Circe (Madeleine Miller) - the myth of Circe, the witch who captivates a shipwrecked Odysseus on a deserted, magical island, retold from her point of view. I loved everything about this book, from marvellously compelling characters to lush, voluptuous writing. Highly recommended, a joy to read.

• My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante) - late to the party, I know. I enjoyed the writing and characters in this richly described novel of girlhood in a poor, post-war neighborhood in Naples, but am somehow not driven to pick up the next novel in the series any time soon.

• The Sword and the Scimitar (David Ball) - THE novel to read if you’re traveling to Malta. Two siblings’ destinies are forced apart by medieval Christian-Islamic conflict, unfold in rich detail in 7th-century Valletta and Sultan Mehmet’s court in Constantinople, then converge at the Ottoman Empire’s historic siege of Malta. Cheesy at times, but entertaining, and I loved being able to picture all the settings in the book so clearly after visiting Malta.

• Adele (Leila Slimane) - the story of a Parisian wife and mother whose secret life as a sex addict is exposed by unexpected events, written by a critically acclaimed French-Moroccan author. Maybe I just read it at the wrong time, but I found it utterly depressing. Again, some excellently written sex scenes, which I admired for their raw, almost brutal honesty.

• Moth (Melody Razak) - set in Delhi leading up to India’s Independence and the Partition of 1947, this stunning debut novel follows a family torn apart by one of the biggest forced migrations in history: the creation of the Hindu state of India and Muslim state of Pakistan, resulting in the displacement of 10 million Indians.

I have a personal interest in this last novel—my grandparents lost everything when they were expelled from (Muslim) East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and forced to migrate to (Hindu) West Bengal on foot. I was shocked to realize they did this when my grandmother must have been heavily pregnant with my father, who was born only two months shy of Independence.

The scope of the violence and anguish that occurred on the back of Independence is staggering. I am ashamed to admit I don’t know much about the Partition; my grandmother never wanted to talk about it. I had a good cathartic cry after this novel, and now want to dive into that dark rabbit hole of Indian—and family—history. This book was a fantastic end to 2022.

Best fiction of 2022: Circe

A close second: Moth

Poetry

• The New Jerusalem (Patti Smith) - dreamy meanderings and musings by my favorite, in Dutch and English. Got this signed at her Paradiso gig.

• Your Wound, My Garden (Alok Menon) - also got this at a live spoken word gig, by the Malaysian-Indian-American writer and performance artist known for their flamboyant, colorful, gender non-conforming style and queer activism.

• Earth-Based Poems (Larry Robertson) - a self-published collection of earthy, rhythmic, flowing poetry by an American poet, designer, and multi-talented creative I had the pleasure of meeting at a Berlin cafe years ago.

I hope this inspires you to stock your shelves with a few new picks. I’ve already devoured my first book of 2023: In the Warm Shadow of Islam, a sublime North African travelogue by Isabelle Eberhardt, who disguised herself as a man to study Sufism and travel through Tunisia and Morocco in the early 1900s. My kind of escape, and my kind of lady. Thanks, Patti, for suggesting her to me.

Which books did you read (and love) in 2022?

What’s on your TBR list for 2023?

Here in Amsterdam, today’s morning light—gentle, glowing, rosy—feels like a balm after too many days of pouring rain and lashing wind. It also feels like the promise of spring… or is that still too far away? I shall cherish it anyway; I was always good at long-distance relationships.