Ten of the Top Books I Read This Year: 2022

No spoilers, just some recommendations of what books to read.

Free for Use Image by Hermann Traub on Pixabay.

For the last several years, I’ve set reading goals on Goodreads. It’s worked — I kept reading and working up my goal to read thirty books in 2022. I met the goal last week and am ready to share what books I enjoyed reading the most! They are not all novels, but all good reads, nonetheless.

There is no particular order to the books.

#1 Ashton Hall — Lauren Belfer (2022)

My Goodreads rating: Five stars

Set in England, this book captured my attention because of who wrote it. I have read Belfer’s other books and loved them all. The genre is historical fiction. The main characters are a mother and her neurodivergent son, who finds skeletal remains in a centuries-old Cambridge building. The mother goes on a quest to learn as much as she can about the prior inhabitants of the house. Spanning age-old settings to the modern day, the story captures one’s imagination and makes you wonder what you might do given the same situation. I loved the book and will reread it in the future. It’s shelved along with the other books written by Belfer in my home library. If you like stories about strong women, this book is for you. Highly recommended.

#2 Let Him Go — Larry Watson (2013)

My Goodreads rating: Three stars

I picked up this book at our local library, not knowing anything about the story or author. I enjoyed the story, which is well-told. The writing is good and the story is compelling. But, Watson chooses to not use quotes for his dialogue in this novel. While I admire his creativity and ability to go against the grain of conventional writing, the lack of the use of quotes made the novel hard to read. At times, I had to reread a passage to decide who exactly was speaking. He is a college professor and I wondered if he allows or encourages his students to write without using conventions.

In any case, the novel was a good read. There is a movie by the same name that stars Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. I’d read the novel first, but the movie was…