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dolorosa_12) wrote2022-12-16 09:31 am
dolorosa_12) wrote2022-12-16 09:31 am
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Friday open thread: favourite written works of the year
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
The Sentence sounds incredible.