Friday open thread: favourite written works of the year

[dolorosa_12]

My out-of-office email autoresponse is set, I'm slowly filling the house with delicious things to eat over the next couple of weeks, and the town is blanketed in crisp ice and frost. In other words, things are very much in holiday mode, and I'm very much in the mood to reflect and wrap up the year.

With that in mind, today's open thread prompt is another one asking for people's best of 2022 media. This time, I'm asking about written work — something you read or listened to this year. Which was your favourite?



I feel as if I might not have read my favourite thing yet, as I have a tendency to store things up for the holiday period if I feel I'm going to especially enjoy them. But I went back to my Goodreads list to remind myself of the books I read this year, and of the listed books, there is a clear winner so far. Excluding rereads, the best book I read in 2022 was The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper, the second in her historical fiction trilogy about women working in a brothel in ancient Pompeii. I had intended to write a longer review of this book soon after I read it, but things got away from me and the review remains unwritten. In short, the book is a marvellous recreation of a very specific time and place, and it digs into things that I always enjoy seeing explored in fiction: the injustices of extreme power imbalances, the ways that the powerless (especially groups of women) build connections and community unnoticed in the margins, and the various dystopian compromises and bargains disempowered people have to make to survive a world which denies them their humanity, and the toll these bargains and (on occasion) hypocrises take on them. The book is excellent, and I am very much looking forward to the follow up.

Comments

[naye]

The Hands of the Emperor is the thing I read that meant the most to me this year. Possibly because of the timing. I started reading it the night before my surgery, when I was in a shared hospital room with people doing even worse than myself, and so hardly got any sleep. Once I was back in a private recovery room, I kept reading. The morphine kept the pain away, and Victoria Goddard's characters kept me company. That book is what I read when I practiced getting out of bed and sitting up in a chair. It was so engaging and so good that it transported me somewhere warm and bright and fragrant. (And kind. That is the most important thing of all.) I have the sequel ready to go for my next hospital visit, and I hope it will offer the same kind of necessary escape from physical unpleasantness.

[goodbyebird]

♥

[dolorosa_12]

It's so important to have books that give you what you need at the right time, and it sounds like this one came along for you at exactly the right moment. I hope the sequel give you exactly the same nourishment as the first!

[mific]

For me it was the audiobook of Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon, which I chanced upon, and loved. Ofelia the elderly protagonist is such a great character and her transformation across the novel is wonderful - from being a remnant, left behind when the population of the colony world she lives on is transported elsewhere, to being so much more, yet still completely herself.

[lirazel]

Elderly protagonist!!!!

[mific]

She's amazing! :)

[dolorosa_12]

Oooh, that sounds really intriguing!

[mific]

Highly recommended!

[shadaras]

I finally read Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura series, which I have only been told is My Kind Of Thing since they started being published a decade ago. xD I'm not sure if it's outright my favorite written work, but I feel like it's Of Note for that regardless. (winged shapeshifters! no humans, just a lot of varying humanoids with distinct cultures and biologies! cool fantasy worldbuilding! also Wells has a protag type she likes, and I'm here for it, and also the snarky banter she enjoys writing.)

[dolorosa_12]

It's so fantastic to get recommended a book that really works for you, isn't it? I'm glad this series was very much your kind of thing!

[lirazel]

Well! I'm sold! Though I will probably wait till the series is complete.

I don't have a super clear winner, but I read a bunch of MG/YA books that were new to me that I adored this year: Wise Child and Juniper, Gullstruck Island, and Book of a Thousand Days.

As for nonfiction, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity was such an endeavor to read, and I think some of the theories are probably not entirely substantiated, but I loved the way it introduced me to societal structures I never knew anything about. I love that it's perspective is both "People have always been people" and "People actually do have a choice in how we organize ourselves, actually, and there are way more possibilities than we've been led to believe."

Oh! And I read The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which knocked me over but was so intense that I haven't read the other books yet.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, Monica Furlong! I love Wise Child and Juniper so much that they're almost like bones or connective tissue. And Hardinge is always wonderful, so I'm glad you enjoyed Gullstruck Island.

"People have always been people" and "People actually do have a choice in how we organize ourselves, actually, and there are way more possibilities than we've been led to believe."

I love this!

The Traitor Baru Cormorant has been on my radar for ages, and knowing that you liked it is definitely pushing it up my list.

[lirazel]

I love Wise Child and Juniper so much that they're almost like bones or connective tissue.

This is such a lovely way of putting it!

The Traitor Baru Cormorant has been on my radar for ages, and knowing that you liked it is definitely pushing it up my list.

It is heavy! Very heavy! But really so well-crafted. I don't know that I've ever read anything quite like it.

[senmut]

All of my reads this years were re-reads of old favorites. Two of those held up really well, but the suck fairy hit the series off one of them.

[dolorosa_12]

Awww, it's always a shame when an old favourite doesn't hold up on a new reread. I'm glad the other two still resonated with you.

[chestnut_pod]

Sofi Thanhauser's Worn (nonfiction on the textile industry through modern history) must be up there for nonfiction -- precise, thorough, responsible, on a topic very dear to my heart.

But for fiction, it absolutely must be The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. I gave it a full review earlier in the year that I won't recap here, but suffice to say it is likely to be my touchstone "Covid book" for a very long time to come.

[dolorosa_12]

I love those kind of nonfiction deep dives, so Worn definitely sounds interesting.

The Sentence sounds incredible.

[likeadeuce]

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai really blew my mind and broke my heart. It's primarily an AIDS crisis drama set in Chicago in the 1980s, and the author is too young to have experienced it directly but did some really loving and vital research into a community whose experience of that era hadn't been extensively documented. It's also just a really stunning character drama and, obviously, wrenchingly sad but it just spoke to me so much.

[dolorosa_12]

This sounds absolutely exquisitely done.

[meteordust]

I've been working my way through Gillian Bradshaw's (thankfully extensive) back catalogue of historical novels. Three of hers are my favourites for this year:

- The Beacon at Alexandria - Charis of Ephesus is a girl who disguises herself as a eunuch, to run away from an arranged marriage and study medicine in Alexandria. It's just as good as everyone who recommended it said it was.

- The Sand-Reckoner - A young Archimedes, passionate about pure mathematics, turns his mind to engineering siege defences, when his home city of Syracuse is threatened with war.

- Cleopatra's Heir - What if the last Ptolemy wasn't killed by the Romans, but had to take on a new identity to survive and learn to live among the common people?

[dolorosa_12]

Oooh, these all sound fantastic! I love that kind of historical fiction. I might have to add them to my own to-read list!

[vriddy]

I would have bet you'd mention Perhaps the Stars or something Terra Ignota, I'm surprised :D I still have your reviews saved, I had to pause reading it due to bad timing when I started it. The book you mention sounds very interesting, especially the relationships!

I tend to have too much recency bias so I won't try to pick a favourite from this year XD

[dolorosa_12]

Perhaps the Stars is incredible, but I read it last year so I can't count it for this prompt. I'm so flattered that you have my review bookmarked, and hope you are able to get back to the series when you're feeling in the right mood — it's a lot of work due to the writing style, but is definitely rewarding if you can stick with it.

[vriddy]

Oooh I got mixed because I only started it this year... 😂 It all makes sense, now! Thank you, I'm looking forward to getting back to it, too!

[blackcatofmisery]

This year I finally read the Agatha Christie novels I've had for years. I've watched the Poirot and Miss Marple shows and movies. (Pretty sure I've seen them all, honestly, until recent releases. I marathoned every version I found.)

I really really enjoyed the stories. Her writing is not fluffy; it's descriptive but more factual than emotional, which works for detective stories. And for being marketed as her token detective characters, the Belgian and old lady really do not have starring roles in the books. They're almost side characters; I thought it was a neat approach. I wasn't used to that.

But I liked what I read from her enough that I've bought more. /w\

=^..^=~

[dolorosa_12]

That's really interesting — I've seen various Christie adaptations but have never read the books, and some of what you suggest is surprising. I guess it's easier to adapt them if you bring the detective characters to the fore and make them the central focus.

[blackcatofmisery]

Yeah! I recall reading some of the stories that didn't even mention Miss Marple or Poirot until maybe halfway through the story. It was odd. These are your title characters! I've never looked it up, but I wonder if the writer thought them up as title characters or if it was a marketing thing. She may have just used them as a way to build up a series of novels; having recurring characters is a way to build familiarity and draw in readers.

It's just a unique way to approach it. Completely unlike their movie and show versions.