Books Post – 2022 in Reading
Dec. 31st, 2022 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radiantfractureMe too. I want to do a 2022 in Reading post too.
It’s good to look back over this year's reading. It wasn’t a shining year for volume. The list of books that truly stayed with me feels short, but reading those titles over reminds me of experiences I valued.
I gave up on Goodreads this year. That was a good move for my particular brain.
A few years ago, Goodreads was a great launchpad to get me started reading for pleasure again. Unscrunchily1, the numerical pressure and focus on complete books excluded a lot of my shorter-than-books reading and drove me towards consuming shorter books I could read quickly rather than longer books that might mean more to me. Now I’m tracking my reading more informally and allowing partial and shorter reads to count for something.
Reading Highlights
(Note: I have other reading that because of glitches in the spacetime continuum won't count as read in 2022, so those will make another post, with backstory.)
Taking on Munoz’ Cruising Utopia early in the year was a good move. (Remember when I was reading that a chapter at a time here on DW, and never finished? No? I don’t blame you. It feels like one thousand years ago.)
This book got me back into reading queer theory and reminded me that I like theory. I have many doubts about the practice of theory as a defining part of scholarship – I think it should be like RPGs or lace-making, very fun for some and a matter of indifference for others – but I happen to be of a theoretical kink and it was good to see that I can still play the game.
I read a little Mark Fisher, too, atsovay 's instigation, and would like to get back to it this winter.
I did a lot of re-reading and reading for work, with mixed results.
I thoroughly enjoyed Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, despite / because of its sprawl, and Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman. Queer books about irredeemably sweet people please.
Wait a sec (searches) Oo, Fellman’s novella The Two Doctors Gorsky came out on November 29th! (Orders from local bookstore)
Sonya Taaffe's As the Tide Came Flowing In was one of those slim volumes with long echoes; I thought the title story pretty remarkable.
I have only faint memories of Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo was a pleasure, formally and emotionally; I liked it better than Mr. Loverman, which I followed it up with.
A surprise was Motherhood by Sheila Heti. I find Heti generally a mixture of very gifted and very irritating. But I liked Motherhood a lot – in large part for its structural play, which felt relevant and true rather than stunty.
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes – I didn’t engage with this properly because I had to read it for the first time it at the last minute in order to teach it week to week, but I’m glad to have at least some of it in my brain, and it helped me think about how to teach difficult books. And it’s nice to start and close the year with the same genre (Roland Barthes is autotheory from before that was a word.)
{rf}
1. I just wanted a word that was like "unfortunately" but livelier.
It’s good to look back over this year's reading. It wasn’t a shining year for volume. The list of books that truly stayed with me feels short, but reading those titles over reminds me of experiences I valued.
I gave up on Goodreads this year. That was a good move for my particular brain.
A few years ago, Goodreads was a great launchpad to get me started reading for pleasure again. Unscrunchily1, the numerical pressure and focus on complete books excluded a lot of my shorter-than-books reading and drove me towards consuming shorter books I could read quickly rather than longer books that might mean more to me. Now I’m tracking my reading more informally and allowing partial and shorter reads to count for something.
Reading Highlights
(Note: I have other reading that because of glitches in the spacetime continuum won't count as read in 2022, so those will make another post, with backstory.)
Taking on Munoz’ Cruising Utopia early in the year was a good move. (Remember when I was reading that a chapter at a time here on DW, and never finished? No? I don’t blame you. It feels like one thousand years ago.)
This book got me back into reading queer theory and reminded me that I like theory. I have many doubts about the practice of theory as a defining part of scholarship – I think it should be like RPGs or lace-making, very fun for some and a matter of indifference for others – but I happen to be of a theoretical kink and it was good to see that I can still play the game.
I read a little Mark Fisher, too, at
sovay 's instigation, and would like to get back to it this winter.I did a lot of re-reading and reading for work, with mixed results.
I thoroughly enjoyed Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, despite / because of its sprawl, and Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman. Queer books about irredeemably sweet people please.
Wait a sec (searches) Oo, Fellman’s novella The Two Doctors Gorsky came out on November 29th! (Orders from local bookstore)
Sonya Taaffe's As the Tide Came Flowing In was one of those slim volumes with long echoes; I thought the title story pretty remarkable.
I have only faint memories of Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo was a pleasure, formally and emotionally; I liked it better than Mr. Loverman, which I followed it up with.
A surprise was Motherhood by Sheila Heti. I find Heti generally a mixture of very gifted and very irritating. But I liked Motherhood a lot – in large part for its structural play, which felt relevant and true rather than stunty.
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes – I didn’t engage with this properly because I had to read it for the first time it at the last minute in order to teach it week to week, but I’m glad to have at least some of it in my brain, and it helped me think about how to teach difficult books. And it’s nice to start and close the year with the same genre (Roland Barthes is autotheory from before that was a word.)
{rf}
1. I just wanted a word that was like "unfortunately" but livelier.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-31 07:50 pm (UTC)It does feel like a thousand years ago, but that's just time in 2022. I was thinking about it last night when I re-shelved Carolyn Dinshaw with the queer nonfiction and was trying to decide whether to do the same with Noam Sienna or leave him in Judaica.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2022-12-31 10:06 pm (UTC)Maybe this year is the year I properly and methodically read some Mark Fisher beyond the one that I read.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-02 04:45 pm (UTC)(I do have other books posts in genesis but they were delayed for Reasons)
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Date: 2023-01-03 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-03 03:18 am (UTC)I have on hand Ghosts of My Life and The Weird and the Eerie (and have had them on hand since I bought them uhh a year ago).
We could even just pull out the essays that looked most useful & read those. No need to be completist. This isn't GoodReads.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-03 12:44 pm (UTC)I am utterly a completionist with a Goodreads account, lol.
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Date: 2023-01-04 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-05 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-05 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-06 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-01 05:07 am (UTC)I did too, it was an impressively beautiful novel.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-01 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-05 04:03 pm (UTC)