I have not been current at all about reviewing books or about the progress I am making in my quest to “Read All Shakespeare 2022.” So here is an update.

Non-Shakespeare: The books I have read this year, in order, complete with my elegant sorting system.

1. God Knows, Joseph Heller, thumbs down. (An interviewer once observed, to Joseph Heller, “You haven’t really written anything that matched Catch-22.” Heller responded, “Has anybody?”)
2. The Awakening, Kate Chopin, thumbs up
3. The Captive, Fiona King Foster, thumbs down.
4. Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin, thumbs up.
5. Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke, thumbs up.
6. Paradise Lost, John Milton, thumbs up.
7. Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton, thumbs up.

The following are books of the Bible I have read in 2022, in order:

1. Nahum, thumbs up. (the best and most insane of the minor prophets)
2. Song of Solomon, thumbs down (please do not crucify me for saying that I am not in love with this poem–at least not after two readings.)
3. Matthew, thumbs up.
4. Proverbs, thumbs down
5. Ecclesiastes, thumbs up
6. Joel, thumbs up
7. Zechariah, thumbs down
8. Habbakuk, thumbs up (this was a thumbs down on first reading–which suggests a value in returning to texts that I don’t like).
9. Joshua, thumbs down
10. Amos, thumbs up
11. Obadiah, thumbs up (I think… this is one of the shortest books of the Bible, and while I remember the content (a prophecy against the Edomites) I forget my impressions of it).
12. Ecclesiastes again, thumbs up
13. Psalms (I read the psalms almost every day, with a mixture of thumbs up and thumbs down. Stay tuned for a future post: top ten psalms that ask “where are you, God?”)

Shakespeare: again, these are plays I’ve read on the year. To elucidate my ranking system, thumbs up means that I had a generally positive experience reading, thumbs down means I had a generally negative–or unfulfilling–experience.

1. Antony and Cleopatra, thumbs up
2. Coriolanus, thumbs up (T.S. Eliot famously said that Coriolanus was a better play than Hamlet. Expect a long blog post on that insane bit of contrarian criticism.)
3. Timon of Athens, thumbs up
4. Pericles, thumbs down
5. Cymbeline, thumbs up

Finally, before I sign off to loaf, the following are partial, in progress, or abandoned books–yes, I will abandon a book now and then.

1. Vanity Fair, Makepeace Thackeray
2. King Solomon’s Mines, Rider Haggard (gave this a shot after viewing the hilarious League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, of which Alan Quatermain (Sean Connery) is the protagonist. Almost forgot I read the opening chapter of this–that is the value of keeping a journal.)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (I know: I’m a bad person. But I make no secret of being a bad person. This blog is, after all, called “Nolan Throws Momma from the Train.” But: I’ve read Beloved before, loved it; this time around it was just too punishing to keep going when I knew the outcome. The hyper-lyrical prose style–combined with the (entirely appropriate) punishment of the reader–is not to my taste. For what it’s worth, I’ve also struggled to read Faulkner, one of Toni’s chief influences. If you love Toni Morrison, this post is not at all intended as an attack on you–I just feel like, with a book like Beloved, I need to explain setting it aside.)
4. Lydia Davis’s first collection of essays (not abandoned, I just come to this one essay at a time).
5. The Possessed, Elif Batuman. I started out LOVING this book. But Batuman’s collection of essays tries too hard to bridge the gap between an essay collection and a memoir. There are elements of the essays (the recurring figure of Matej, for example) which only exist so the collection has some through lines–and this saps the power of individual essays which could have otherwise stood alone. Really disappointing to be stunned by the introduction and most of the first essay (Batuman is brilliant, funny, a great stylist) only to watch the book transform to filler before my eyes. I would pick up another book by Batuman, but I would pick it up with a sense of dread: there is nothing worse than watching a brilliant person put together a mediocre book.
6. Creative Dreaming, Dr. Patricia Garfield. I may finish. IDK.
7. The Faerie Queene, Spenser. Not sure if this old piece of allegory is subversive enough for my taste; but would give it another try next year.
8. Wheelock’s Latin, Wheelock. In progress, textbook I am using to teach myself Linguam Latinum.
9. Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, in progress, and enjoying so far.

Okay everybody, I will sign off now. But never forget: A writer writes–always!