This year I read 160 books, a total of 39’479 pages, or about 250 pages per book, 114 books and 46 graphic stories. That’s more than last year and way too much. My creative fever, which involves a lot of different crafts (knitting, crocheting, painting, basket weaving, etc.) was still alive and getting worse, as I added linocut to the list. It means I can’t seem to sit still. So my goal of reading less than last year failed. I will put it back on this year’s list of resolutions. Another goal was to finish all the books in my house that I hadn’t read, and which I did with brio.
Which books did I love this year? Firstly, a special mention for James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was unreadable, and which I managed to get through with the help of three companion books, The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses by Patrick Hastings, Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman, and The New Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires. Reading Ulysses led to reading The Odyssey by Homer, Hamlet by Shakespeare and Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, which I had forgotten I liked so much. I also got back into crime novels and discovered several books by Julia Chapman and Louise Penny. A few others that stand out: Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner and The Naked Tree by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, which took me back to Korea and increased my knowledge of the country, a very moving book by Baptiste Beaulieu, Où vont les larmes quand elles sèchent, the dystopic and disturbing books by Antoine Jacquier and Agustina Bazterrica, a wonderful biography of Monet and a very interesting essay by Mona Chollet, Réinventer l’amour. This is really only a selection, as I have read other amazing books this year.
