Books Read In 2022

It's time for another annual overview of all the books I managed to read during the previous year.

Here is my list for 2022 (in the order I read them in):

  1. The New Wilderness - Diane Cook

    A novel set in the not-so-near future where a group of volunteers has chosen to live outside the pollution of the City (a fictional big city). They live together as a group in a place called the Wilderness State. Not only do they have to survive as hunter-gatherers but also as nomads, due to the many rules laid down by a group of rangers.
    The book looks at the group dynamics and relations between different people in the group. But it mainly focuses on a mother and daughter, whose relationship gets tested over time.

  2. Coders - Clive Thompson

    Being a developer I thought it would be interesting to read this book. The author tries to explain the impact that coders have on the world today and what kind of people they are. This goes down to personal traits and ways of working.
    Clearly written for people who work with coders but are not a coder themselves, and want to understand them better. Some things in the book are maybe a bit stereotypical, but many things did feel very recognisable to me.

  3. The Overstory - Richard Powers

    This book starts with what looks like a bunch of unrelated stories about different people. The only connection between each story is the importance of trees in them.
    While each chapter jumps back and forth between the stories, as the book goes on more stories are coming together. I guess it's a bit like the roots of a tree that are widespread and come together in the trunk.
    This was a very nice read. Especially once I realised there would be a connection between all stories. The final joint effort to combat the destruction of forests gives it a nice climax.

  4. Less Is More - Jason Hickel

    Our current system of capitalism is unfair and causing ecological collapse, due to its constant quest for growth.
    That's definitely something I agree with as well. This book is advocating a concept called degrowth to restore the balance, and stop further destruction and climate change.
    It's another new economic idea for a post-capitalism era, similar to the doughnut economics that I read about last year .
    This book underwhelmed me slightly, since the majority of it was explaining more about the current system and how it's causing issues. Most of that I was already aware off. Only in the last few chapters it goes into how to achieve degrowth.

  5. Winter - Ali Smith

    The second book in the series I started last year . I was expecting this to be a continuation of the previous story (or at least some characters), but it seems a completely different story.
    This story centres around a family gathering for Christmas, where the son has hired someone to pretend to be his girlfriend.
    Another nice read, and now I'm intrigued where the next book in the series (Spring) will go.

  6. In Europa - Geert Mak

    I'm not someone who re-reads books. But for this book I made an exception. It was about 17 years since I first read this book, and I was looking forward to re-reading it.
    The book was written during a tour of Europe by the author on the eve of the new millennium in 1999. He visits various places in Europe that have played a role in events during the 20th century that have shaped Europe the way it is.
    While reading the book again there were two poignant observations that stood out. One was the fact that the author talked about the historical tensions between the UK and Europe (which now has culminated with Brexit). And the other one was a visit to Ukraine where he talked to someone about the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. This person expressed his fear that Russia would at some point try to annex Ukraine again. And that is exactly what happened 22 years later.

  7. Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck

    I do try to read some books considered classics, and this is definitely one of them.
    Written in 1939 and it follows the story of a family from Oklahoma who travel west to escape the drought during the Great Depression.
    Since the dialogue in the book is in an Oklahoman accent, I thought it would be hard to read. But I actually got into it pretty quickly and had no trouble reading it.
    The story of people having to flee their homes, receiving a mixed welcome from the people they meet and being exploited, all still feel very relevant today.

The number of books I read this year was the same as last year. By far the most time I spent reading In Europa, as it's over 900 pages long. It took me a few months to complete.
Apart from that book all the other books came from my local library again. And that's something I hope to continue with during this year.