For the last few years I've set myself a goal of reading 50 books a year. While initially pretty achievable, since becoming a parent the challenge of reaching that target has escalated significantly. Last year I barely crept over that line with 51 books read in 2022. While I am pleased to have reached the target, upon reflection I’ve decided to reduce my target to just 40 books in 2023. I read a lot of good books in 2022 but one thing that was clearly missing was big doorstoppers, the kind of books that take me weeks to read. I spent too much time picking books based on reaching my target and not allowing myself to sit and enjoy a book over a longer period. I’m hoping the reduced goal will give me that time while also keeping me motivated and reading every day! Enough musings about my reading habits, though, let’s get on with the list!
I’ve picked a selection of fiction and non-fiction books I really liked in 2022. These are books I read for the first time last year, not necessarily books that were published this year. Same rules as the top games list, basically. While I wrote a review of every non-fiction book I read in 2022, most of which can be found at https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/category/Book+Review, I’ve decided to summarise what I liked about these books again and provided new summaries for the fiction books which I have not previously reviewed.
Non-Fiction
The Jacquerie of 1358: A French Peasant’s Revolt by Justine Firnhaber-Baker:
This was the first book I read in 2022 and one of my favourites. A fascinating exploration of the history of medieval France's most famous peasant revolt that breaks myths about how violent it was and provides some great context on what it meant to be a French peasant in the 1350s. While definitely a very academic work I found it relatively easy to read and if like me you enjoy a deep dive into the source material, including considerations for how to engage with it and its limitations, you’re in for a treat because this book has that in spades! History of the medieval peasantry is notoriously difficult due to the limited evidence that we have for them, and in studying the Jacquerie Firnhaber-Baker also opens a door into the lives of the ordinary people of fourteenth-century France. This book is an excellent read and now that it is available in a much more affordable paperback edition I highly recommend it. I got my copy of the book to review it for the journal History, which is why I didn’t publish a review on my blog.
Peacemaking in the Middle Ages: Principles and Practice by Jenny Benham:
January 2022 was a strong month for my book reading as I read this very soon after finishing The Jacquerie. Purchased on a whim during one of the various academic publishing sales that accompanies medieval history conferences (I shop the sales even if I don’t attend the conferences), I was very impressed with this book even as I went in with no clear picture in my mind about what it would cover. This is very much a study of the process of peacemaking in the High Middle Ages and focuses on two case studies, one Anglo-French and one Danish-German, which covers multiple periods of war and peacemaking. The book goes into amazing detail describing things I never would have thought of, such as the geography of how peacemaking was conducted and how medieval people viewed ideas like borders, as well as challenging the teleological bias inherent in much discussion of medieval conflict. That being that just because war was later resumed that a peace negotiation was inherently a failure - particularly when the cause of the new war may be an event entirely out of the control of any negotiating party. A really excellent book that left me with lots to think about.
White Mythic Space: Racism, the First World War, and Battlefield 1 by Stefan Aguirre Quiroga:
Who doesn't want a fascinating exploration of racism, game design, and popular memory of the First World War? If that doesn't sound super interesting to you I don't know if we can be friends. It also helps that Stefan's writing is stellar and the book is immensely readable. A+ no notes, please give me a sequel.
Siege Warfare During the Hundred Years War by Peter Hoskins:
As part of my next book project I spent much of 2022 doing an extended dive into Hundred Years War historiography. While I had a great time with many of these books, and was impressed by the quality of some older histories, I think this is the one that I probably enjoyed the most. I didn't go in expecting much, once you’ve read 4+ surveys of the Hundred Years War you can get a little jaded, but Hoskins delivered a book that felt like it was tailor made to my taste. I’m the insufferable sort who is always harping on about how important siege warfare was and why battles, especially Agincourt, are overrated. Here Hoskins reframes the Hundred Years War to be about it’s famous sieges not its battles and in the process provides a great introduction to late medieval European siege warfare. It’s an engaging read that can really change how you perceive the warfare of this period and the Hundred Years War in particular, highly recommended.
Fiction:
Ghost Stories by M.R. James
I always try and read one or two spooky book during October and last year among my choices was a small collection of ghost stories by medievalist and late Victorian author M.R. James. I had heard very good things about his ghost stories but my only real engagement with the form was a few of Dickens’, including his most famous one, so I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect. The result was that I was blown away. It helped that this is exactly my bag - a spooky story about the horrors arising after you find that perfect manuscript you've been desperately searching for? Sign me up! - but on top of that James is a very good writer who constructs a very believable reality to set these stories in. If you’re at all a fan of writers like H.P. Lovecraft or Robert Chambers’ King in Yellow stories you should try M.R. James. Next year I know I’ll be buying a bigger collection.
Cosmic Laughter ed. Joe Haldeman:
I was given this collection of humorous science fiction stories, curated by the great Joe Haldeman, as a Christmas present in 2021 and like many books on this list while I wasn’t sure what to expect I was very pleased with the end result. Published back in the 1970s the stories definitely have an old school sci fi flair to them, think Clarke or Heinlein, but it also made me realise how little funny science fiction I have read. Sure I’ve read some Douglas Adams, but beyond that I’m not sure I could name anything else. Not every story in this book was a home run, but it includes several truly great stories and I really enjoyed my time with them. I wish there was a volume two.
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo:
I’ve recently gotten more into murder mysteries. A few years back I got really into classic 1920s detective fiction, Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler et al, but in 2022 I decided I should read some more classic detective fiction - what I tend to think of as “British detective fiction”. My mother-in-law is a big fan of this kind of fiction, she’s read a lot of Agatha Christie, and I had previously gifted her a set of Japanese mysteries that are very much in the vein of Christie. In 2022 she loaned them back to me and my favourite was The Honjin Murder, a locked room mystery set in pre-World War II Japan. It features an eccentric but likeable detective, a tricky mystery, and even includes diagrams of the crime scene! It’s a quick read and not the most complex mystery, but I really enjoyed it and it didn’t overstay its welcome.
The Sunken Road by Ciarán McMenamin:
This past year I also tried to read more historical fiction, something which was helped by a gift I received for Christmas which sent a new historical fiction book to my door every month. Of the ones I received The Sunken Road was my favourite (so far anyway, I haven’t read them all). The narrative skips back and forth between the First World War and the beginnings of the Irish Civil War, following the life of one Irish soldier fighting in both conflicts as well as his best friend and his best-friend’s sister. Themes of sectarian division in Northern Ireland, the messiness of Irish independence, and the horror of war reverberate throughout the text. It’s well written and engaging, but it really won me over when it took a small break to go full Kelly’s Heroes and included a bank robbery in the middle of a battle on the Irish border. It’s understandably a bit of a bleak read, heist sequence aside, and I will not be adding depressing Irish novels about World War I into my regular reading rotation but I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction and/or depressing Irish novels.