I didn't know the podcast was ending! I'm a few episodes behind so I'll have to catch up and make sure I listen in. Fair winds and following seas to both you and Christy.
Best books of the year
1. Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers (and I have you and Christy to thank for telling me about her - she and Lord Peter Wimsey got me through a lot the last few years!)
My three favorite books that I finished this year are The Five Wounds (Kirstin Valdez Qualde), Station Eleven (Emily St John Mandel), and The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan). That last one, about a mother trying to keep custody of her daughter in a dystopian child-welfare system, is emphatically not a general recommendation because it low-key gave me postpartum anxiety, but it's so so good. Moby Dick is on track to become my favorite book of all time but I haven't finished it yet.
First off, I love seeing the return of miscellany! That was one of my favorite parts of your blog way back in the day :) As of right now I've read 102 books this year, and due to finish one or two more before the year is out-and a lot of the books I've read this year have been fabulous, so it's hard to pick my "top three." (especially when they are all so different). But, here are some of the ones I loved, in no particular order:
1. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
2. Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
3. Emily of Deep Valley, by Maud Hart Lovelace
Looking forward to building my 2023 reading list based on the other recommendations here!
I've been trying to reread a Tolkien every year and did LOTR this year too! So good but also such a time investment! Might do the hobbit next year instead...
1. Rereading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to the kiddos at night before prayers. They are just finally reaching that stage where this is possible and I was surprised by how delightful I found Lewis’s writing even as an adult.
2. The Domestic Monastery by Rolheiser is short but definitely what I needed in prayer this year
3. My book! Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad 😊.
It was fun stepping away during the editing process, getting nervous that it would be cringey when I reread it (okay that part wasn’t fun), and then returning to the text to see that, oh, yeah, this really is valuable. Any other writers feel that way about your own work?
Dec 21, 2022·edited Dec 22, 2022Liked by Haley Stewart
My favorite books I read this year:
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher - a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher
Shady Hollow by Juneau Black - cozy murder mystery with animal characters. One is a raven named Lenore Lee.
For the third I'm going to cheat and say The Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos. It's a YA steampunk fantasy with adult characters and amazing world building.
Honorable mention goes to fantasy horror Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham. I'd describe its plot as a Redwall feast gone wrong.
And their is a couple books I've started reading that I hope turn out good. The first is GennaRose Nethercott's Thistlefoot wherein estranged siblings inherit Baba Yaga's hut. The other is R.F. Kuang's Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.
I didn't know the podcast was ending! I'm a few episodes behind so I'll have to catch up and make sure I listen in. Fair winds and following seas to both you and Christy.
Best books of the year
1. Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers (and I have you and Christy to thank for telling me about her - she and Lord Peter Wimsey got me through a lot the last few years!)
2. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.
3. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Busman's Honeymoon is wonderful. And The Remains of the Day is one of my favorite books of all time.
My three favorite books that I finished this year are The Five Wounds (Kirstin Valdez Qualde), Station Eleven (Emily St John Mandel), and The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan). That last one, about a mother trying to keep custody of her daughter in a dystopian child-welfare system, is emphatically not a general recommendation because it low-key gave me postpartum anxiety, but it's so so good. Moby Dick is on track to become my favorite book of all time but I haven't finished it yet.
I bought The Five Wounds but I haven't started it yet!
First off, I love seeing the return of miscellany! That was one of my favorite parts of your blog way back in the day :) As of right now I've read 102 books this year, and due to finish one or two more before the year is out-and a lot of the books I've read this year have been fabulous, so it's hard to pick my "top three." (especially when they are all so different). But, here are some of the ones I loved, in no particular order:
1. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
2. Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
3. Emily of Deep Valley, by Maud Hart Lovelace
Looking forward to building my 2023 reading list based on the other recommendations here!
Oh, that's good to hear! I'm excited to get it going again.
I'm doing the same thing ..scrolling through and adding so many to my Goodreads!
I loved our Cigar Club "Christmas party" answering these questions! What a year for you.
My fave reads of 2022:
1. The Abolition of Man, by CS Lewis
2. The Genesis of Gender, by Abigail Favale
3. Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry
I loved it, too! I'm reading The Abolition of Man right now (we're going to read it alongside Michael Ward's After Humanity for the WOF Book Club)
Haley, top three!! I'm so honored -- thank you :)
I'm still thinking about the book! And grateful for the nudge to step back from social media.
it's a good nudge I have been sending my own way lately ... though admittedly I say this literally as I post my latest article to Twitter
Hard to choose definitively but three of my favorites this year were:
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (bit of a cheat since this actually encompasses 4 books)
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Love LOTR, of course. And I read A Man Called Ove a few years ago and I loved it so much! I'm excited to see the film based on it.
I've been trying to reread a Tolkien every year and did LOTR this year too! So good but also such a time investment! Might do the hobbit next year instead...
Declutter like a Mother by Allie Casazza
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Pray For Us by Meg Hunter-Kilmer
KL forever! And I loved Pray For Us, too
Thank you, Haley! So happy you are settled and digging into family and all things books!
1. A call to faith in a broken world
by sally read…will rock your world
2. Genesis of Gender
3. With All her Mind
Great to see a WOF book on your list! And I have been meaning to read some Sally Read.
3 favorite books:
--Agressively Happy, by Joy Clarkson (so very encouraging!)
--Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather (even two months after reading it, her descriptions make me so eager to see the Southwest)
--At Home in Mitford, by Jan Karon (just the sort of uncomplicated read I need for the Christmas season :) )
Joy's book is such a delight!
My favorites:
1. Rereading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to the kiddos at night before prayers. They are just finally reaching that stage where this is possible and I was surprised by how delightful I found Lewis’s writing even as an adult.
2. The Domestic Monastery by Rolheiser is short but definitely what I needed in prayer this year
3. My book! Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad 😊.
It was fun stepping away during the editing process, getting nervous that it would be cringey when I reread it (okay that part wasn’t fun), and then returning to the text to see that, oh, yeah, this really is valuable. Any other writers feel that way about your own work?
I really enjoy re-reading Narnia, too. The writing is so fun. Congrats on your book!
Favorite books:
Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (maybe favorite book of all time! A great memoir of a Iranian refugee moving to Oklahoma as a kid)
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (juvenile fiction that my daughter actually read after I recommended)
Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime
I've heard great things about the Nayeri book. I'll have to add that to my list.
My favorite books I read this year:
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher - a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher
Shady Hollow by Juneau Black - cozy murder mystery with animal characters. One is a raven named Lenore Lee.
For the third I'm going to cheat and say The Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos. It's a YA steampunk fantasy with adult characters and amazing world building.
Honorable mention goes to fantasy horror Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham. I'd describe its plot as a Redwall feast gone wrong.
And their is a couple books I've started reading that I hope turn out good. The first is GennaRose Nethercott's Thistlefoot wherein estranged siblings inherit Baba Yaga's hut. The other is R.F. Kuang's Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.
These all sound fascinating!
Villette by Charlotte Brontë
Grandmother and the Priests by Taylor Caldwell
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp
I think Villette is underrated! I really enjoyed it.
Three favorite books of the year:
The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
Then it’s a tie between Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine and Cinder Allia by Karen Ullo
I bought Karen Ullo's book at the Catholic Imagination Conference and now I've misplaced it! Gotta find it and start reading.
Best books of the year -
The genesis of gender (thanks to FOC for that recommendation!)
Vile bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Killing of the flower moon by David grann
Favorite books of 2022:
1. Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey
2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
3. Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery