OK, I’ve shared my total reading numbers for 2022—87 total—and my favorite fiction and nonfiction books. Now let’s talk stats.
My Diversity Stats
- 55% POC books
- 57% women/nonbinary authors
Top 5 Nonfiction of 2022
I read 87 books in 2022, and here’s my favorite nonfiction reads. I don’t read very much nonfiction (16 out of 87, so 18%), so it usually has to be something I’m really interested in. And this year I struggled through several 2-star books (and even a 1-star book).
- Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story by Julie Rodgers – A fascinating and difficult memoir about being gay in the church. From conversion therapy to excommunication, it’s not exactly joyful reading. But necessary.
- Raising Ollie: How My Nonbinary Art-Nerd Kid Changed (Nearly) Everything I Know by Tom Rademacher – Billed as a parenting nonbinary kids memoir, it’s more about raising unique kids and being a teacher and trying to deal with all the crap our culture throws at us.
- Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono – A few hundred pages too long, this memoir is at times insightful and at times self indulgent (but what do you expect from a rock star).
- United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good by Cory Booker – Talk about self indulgent, that’s the definition of a politician memoirs. However, Booker manages to be humble. He’s always admitting mistakes and giving credit to others.
- All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson – As nutjobs try to ban books left and right, this one is frequently in the crosshairs. For no good reason. If you’re not gay, you probably have no idea what LGBTQ folks go through as they come of age. That’s why we need books like these.
On that note, definitely a theme this year with my LGBTQ nonfiction. Might keep it up in 2023 as I just picked up Danica Roem’s Burn the Page from the library.
More Reading
If you want to read more, check out my booklet 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading Again.
And how about previous top non-fiction lists: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012.
Top 10 Fiction of 2022
I read 87 books in 2022, and here are my favorite fiction reads:
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – Such a fun story telling the history of a video game company, but it’s really about friendship.
- The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson – A generational novel about the Dakota in Minnesota. Haunting.
- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi – Just a dumb, fun, sci-fi book. I even wrote about how fun it is to have the right book at the right time.
- Light Years From Home by Mike Chen – Another joyous read. I think I started my year with some real clunkers and to finally read a book that was so good was just lovely.
- Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott – As much as I love Star Wars, it’s rare for a Star Wars book to be that good. This story is. It gives the backstory of Count Dooku, the Jedi turned Sith who makes brief appearances in the prequel movies. The book is really a script and as an audiobook it’s a full production.
- Dead Space by Kali Wallace – A slow build of a sci-fi thriller.
- Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell – The final installment of the Simon Snow trilogy, this one felt like a book-length version of the Scouring of the Shire (that’s the closing chapters of the Lord of the Rings trilogy where the real battle is over but the hobbits head home for one last adventure). Surprisingly, a great series.
- To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers – Her books often seem to be short on plot, and this one has some of that as well, but it’s also just a fascinating dive into sci-fi exploration.
- Cog by Greg van Eekhout – Robots! I’m a sucker for a robot story, and this is a fun one, especially the way the author captures the voice.
- Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell – I don’t like short story collections. But this is an exception. Rowell has a delightful ability to tell ‘meet cute’ romantic stories, and this one is full of them. As a bonus, several of the stories feature characters from her novels, but in a way where you can enjoy them as standalone stories but also find some joy when you discover the connection.
2022 Reading List
I read 87 books in 2022. It’s up from last year, so that’s a win.
You can also check out my previous reading lists: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001.
If you want to read more, check out my booklet 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading Again.
I Started Mountain Biking and Didn’t Die
In 2022 I did a thing. I started mountain biking. And I didn’t die. (Whenever I go out, my wife tells me not to die.)
Instead I biked 239 miles, 37 separate times at 19 different places across 8 states. (And that’s just mountain biking, not counting my road biking.)
It was not without incident.
- I managed to bruise my tailbone on my second ride out and couldn’t ride for three weeks. I had to sit on a donut. So I bought knee pads.
- My brand new bike fell off my bike rack. Let’s not talk about how I didn’t notice right away and dragged it let’s not say how far.
- How hard can a teeter totter be? I never found out, because I fell off the raised platform before I even got to the teeter totter.
But it was also incredible fun. I saw mountain rivers and fall colors, winter frost and waterfalls. The exercise kicked my butt, but it was fun so I didn’t care.
Continue reading I Started Mountain Biking and Didn’t Die
West St. Paul Reader Member Drive
I’m in the midst of a member drive for my local, neighborhood news site, West St. Paul Reader. We do hyper-local news—like City Council, new restaurants in town, and local election coverage. We’re supported by members—neighbors, really (it’s a small suburb)—hence a year-end push to grow our support.
So far it’s a big success. We hit our initial goal last week—25 new or upgraded members—and then hit one of our ongoing goals—200 total members. Now we’re pushing for 225 members and then our big goal of 250 members—when we’ll add coverage of local school board meetings.
Continue reading West St. Paul Reader Member Drive2022 in Music: Spotify Unwrapped
It’s the time of year when we rehash the year with lists, so here’s my year in music. It’s courtesy of Spotify Unwrapped again, which is still a goofy, app-only, mess of a user interface. But oh well, the basics are there.
I listened to 47,914 minutes of music (more than 91% of users), accounting for 5,964 songs, 2,691 different artists, and 83 different genres. (Here are last year’s stats for the sake of comparison.) I play music while I work, often tuning the music out if I’m really focused, so that’s why I have such ridiculous stats.
Supposedly my top five genres are indie pop, pop, stomp and holler, rock, and alt z (what is alt z?).
Top Songs
- “Hot & Heavy” by Lucy Dacus (41 times)
- “Holiday (Green Day)” by Half Past Two
- “Glowing Review” by Maisie Peters
- “Love Me More” by Mitski
- “The Story of Us” by Taylor Swift
I’m always looking for a good ear worm, so here are some highlights from my top 100 songs:
- “The Last Great Sweetheart of the Grand Electric Rodeo” by Sarah and the Safe Word
- “Cannonball” by Avril Lavigne
- “My World” by Koren Grace
- “Who Are You” by Diet Cig
- “Growing Up” by The Linda Lindas
- “Raise Up” by Semler
- “Got Away” by Kady Rain
- “Under You” by Charly Bliss
- “F*****g Up What Matters” by Tegan and Sara
- “Road to Paradise” by TAT
- “Rehab” by People Planet
- “Full Metal Black” by The Royal They
- “Irrelevant” by P!nk
- “Gay Kids” by Rachel Kurtz
- “Scotty Doesn’t Know” by Maddie Ross
My Top 5 Artists:
- U2 – I listened to 2,236 minutes of their music. That puts me in the top 0.1% of their listeners. No real surprise there.
- Five Iron Frenzy – I listened to a lot of Five Iron leading up to their Denver show, so no big surprise there either.
- Maisie Peters – She’s one of my favorite new discoveries this year.
- Taylor Swift – I don’t even think I listened to her new album that much, so it’s probably older stuff.
- Tegan and Sara – Between their new album and the debut of their High School TV show (which is 1990s retro wonderful), I’ve had them on repeat.
Last year my top 3 were Five Iron, U2, and Taylor Swift, so I guess things haven’t changed much?
2022 Tennessee Vacation
Milo and I recently took a six-day trip to Tennessee so he could compete in a national taekwondo tournament. Airfares were pretty pricey, so we ended up driving, spending some extra time in the mountains, and I brought my mountain bike for some extra biking time.
Continue reading 2022 Tennessee Vacation
2022 Election
Tuesday is another chance to exercise our democracy. After the threats we’ve seen in recent years, I hope you’re taking full advantage of this opportunity. Go vote.
If you’re in West St. Paul (or even Dakota County), I’ve put together what I hope is a very helpful voter’s guide.
Continue reading 2022 ElectionTurning on the Heat 2022
Sitting at my desk shivering this morning seemed dumb, so I guess it’s time. We woke up to snow this morning, it’s 32 degrees outside right now, and the high is only 43. There are a couple days with highs in the 60s on the horizon, but there are also days with lows in the 20s.
- 2022: October 14 (inside temp: 59)
- 2021: October 22 (inside temp: 63)
- 2020: October 16 (inside temp: 61)
- 2019: October 5 (inside temp: 52)
- 2018: October 1 (inside temp: 61)
- 2017: October 12 (inside temp: 64)
- 2016: October 14 (inside temp: 62)
- 2015: October 28 (inside temp: 62)
- 2014: October 5 (inside temp: 60)
- 2013: October 16 (inside temp: 63)
- 2012: October 8 (inside temp: 59)
- 2011: October 20 (inside temp: 60)
- 2010: October 24 (inside temp: 63)
- 2009: October 2 (inside temp: 63)
- 2008: October 16 (inside temp: 61)
- 2007: October 11 (inside temp: 63)
- 2006: September 21 (inside temp: 64)
- 2005: October 24 (inside temp: 55)
- 2004: October 5 (inside temp: 58)
- 2003: September 29 (inside temp: 58)