2022: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2022, my second full year of remote working, I managed to surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 55 books, an increase of one book over last year and my second consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I surpassed last year’s total with a mere three days remaining in 2022.  I read (or listened) to 19,328 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the third time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, fifteen were non-fiction and, of the remaining 40 novels, only two were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 44 e-books and three audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 37 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

A little more than half of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 31 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Adam Nedeff Kelsey McKinney Simone St. James Laura Dave
Jeff Warren Carlye Adler Matt Paxton Jordan Michael Smith
Alyssa Milano Alex Finlay Taylor Jenkins Reid Emily Ratajkowski
Samantha Downing Dave Grohl Mary Lynn Rajskub Stephanie Perkins
Michael Schur Joseph Henrich V.E. Schwab Brianna Madia
Jimmy Piersall Richard Whittingham Richard Osman Colleen Hoover
Jenette McCurdy Sally Rooney Josh Malerman Alice Sebold
Katie Mack Penn Jillette Elin Hilderbrand Nita Prose

Alex Finlay, Simone St. James, Karin Slaughter, Megan Goldin, Jeffery Deaver, and Richard Osman were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2022.

16 of the books I read were released this year, while only two of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1953.

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Book 13 (of 52) – Keep The Memories, Lost The Stuff

Keep The Memories, Lose The Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life – Matt Paxton with Jordan Michael Smith

TV’s Matt Paxton, best known from Hoarders and Legacy List with Matt Paxton, checks in with this helpful collection of tips and tricks on how to declutter your home, either to prepare for a move to a smaller space or just to clean up your current home.  Each chapter breaks down a specific part of the process, from how to manage your collection of family photos to how to sell that unwanted family heirloom that is probably worth less than you think to finally packing up and moving to a new location.

Keep The Memories, Lose The Stuff, published in conjunction with AARP, takes the lessons he has learned over the past 20 years as a professional cleaner.  The focus is on older people looking to downsize and finding the best way to get rid of a lifetime’s worth of stuff while keeping those things that are really important.  While that is not really something I need to worry about just yet, I can take some of the tricks and tips to declutter my own space, getting rid of things that I don’t need and don’t necessarily want.