Book Around the Corner

I can’t believe we’re already in 2022. At work, I’m starting to see contracts that ends in 2030 and the first one struck me as being a mistake but after recounting the years, I thought, “Oh right, we’re that close to 2030 after all”. Before I share my 2022 reading projects with you, let’s have a look at my 2021 reading year.

I read 76 books, two less than in 2020 but the end of December has been busy, my concentration was shot and I couldn’t read anything. For a lot of bloggers, 76 books is what they read in three months, but for me it’s a good score.

I’ve read your posts full of stats about countries, writers’ gender, translated books, non-fiction vs fiction, numbers of pages read and all that and I admire you for checking out all these numbers. I work with numbers all day long and I keep them at bay from my reading. So, no stats like this from me, I’m afraid.

Here, I’m happy to live without numbers and only go with totally subjective opinions about books I read. So, here we go, with categories of my own.

Best Least Commented Billet

I looked into my billets in search of the least commented ones. Some of my favorite books of the year are in this category, sadly. Something happened to The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart, it fell into a pit and nobody cared about this Texan family saga. It is an amazing book, though. Rugged characters, beautiful writing and a story that takes you away to Texas for a while. I haven’t read Lonesome Dove yet, but I figure it’s the same kind of book.

Best Gallmeister Book

Frequent flyers of this blog know that I’m fan of books published by Gallmeister. They publish excellent American literature with a focus on crime fiction and Nature Writing, the books that Oliver Gallmeister loves and wishes to promote.

Among the eleven books that I read this year from their catalogue, my favorite on is Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. It’s a bestseller in France, readers, libraires and literary critics loved it. I was a bit reluctant to read it, as often with books with a lot of hype. (Still haven’t read Elena Ferrante for that same reason). It was a Book Club choice and I’m very happy the group pushed me to read it.

It’s based on the true story of Tiffany McDaniel’s mother growing up poor and part-Cherokee in Ohio in the 1950s. It is a beautiful homage to McDaniel’s grandfather too, written in a style that hooks you up. Violence and pain are part of the family story but it’s not a bleak book. Highly recommended.

There will be more Gallmeister books in 2022, starting with Italian crime fiction as they’ve branched out and started to publish non-American books.

Best Most Relaxing Book

This category is for comfort and fun books. I loved Miss Mole by E.H. Young . It was a wonderful study of character, an easy read with excellent insight. A total comfort book. Thanks for the recommendation, Ali.

I also had a blast with Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gishler. It’s like reading an action movie set in the near future and it was sheer fun. I owe this one to Guy.

But the book that combined comfort and fun was The Grey Ghost Murders by Keith McCafferty. It’s all-in-one for me: crime fiction, Nature Writing, fun and exotic.

Best Non-Book Post

Since 2019, I have a best-of category for my billets that are not a book review. This year, the most read and commented ones were about lists of books, my 20 Books of Summer List and my Book Club 2021-2022 List. That’s us, avid readers, we all love book lists, reading recommendations and book piles.

Sign of the times, there has been no Literary Escapade billet in 2021. I hope to resume these outings in 2022.

Best Read With-Sister-in-Law

I’m now in my third year of readalong with my sister-in-law. (Hi S!) It’s been a year with literary fiction and crime fiction. We couldn’t finish Elmore Leonard’s Western Stories. It’s well-written and all but we got tired of formulaic cowboy stories.

The most striking book we’ve read it The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. The characters are fictional but it’s based on the real place, the Dozier School in Florida. It was a reform school operated by the State of Florida and as you imagine, it was not a Care Bears kind of place. Reading it made me so angry on behalf of all the boys that were destroyed in that school and by the very people who were supposed to take care of them.

Best Translation Tragedy

A Translation Tragedy is a book available in English but sadly not in French or vice versa. This year I’ve read fifteen books that are not translated into English and nine that are not translated into French.

Among the nine books not available in French, three are from Australia and New Zealand, three are from America and three from UK. I think that Death on Demand by Paul Thomas would find its public in France as we are fans of crime fiction and his Maori maverick police officer would be a hit. Thank you, Kim, for organizing your Southern Cross Crime event as it led me to Death on Demand.

Nine of the fifteen books not available in English are French books, the others are from Italy, Colombia, Morocco, Japan, Egypt and Québec.

Noah’s Ark by Khaled al Khamissi is the book I’d want to see translated into English. The intertwined stories of the characters show the various reasons why people want to emigrate and how well it works for them.

Best Book-I-Want-To-Buy-To-All-My-Friends

I guess it’d be Convenience Store Woman by Sakaya Murata. The main character, Keiko Furukura, is a peculiar lady. She’s 36 and had been working at the SmileMart convenience store for 18 years. She’s single, never had a boyfriend, doesn’t wish to marry and loves her job. She doesn’t conform to the Japanese society norms. This novella is an easy read and shows an interesting side of Japan. Thanks Vishy for pointing this one to me!

Best Book Club Read

Our Book Club year was a success but the one book I want to show off is Entre deux mondes by Olivier Norek. It’s hard but not bleak and it will force you to see what happens to migrants on our shores and especially in Calais, in the North of France, across the UK. I wish that all the candidates to the French presidential election and the current British Home Secretary read it if they’re openminded enough to see the human beings behind their speeches and actions on emigration.

Best Non-Fiction

I loved the time I spent with Monsieur Proust’s Library by Anka Mulhstein.

It’s a slim book in which Anka explores Proust’s relationship with books, literature and writers. It’s a delightful book that will appeal to all readers, whether they’ve read Proust of not.

Best Random Discovery

By Random Discovery, I mean a book I read after leaping from another book. That’s exactly what happened with The Last Night at the Ritz by Elizabeth Savage. I read a book by her husband, Thomas Savage, realized that he was married to a writer and decided to try her books too.

The Last Night at the Ritz is told by an unreliable but likeable narrator and it goes back to a life of friendship between two women and their different paths in life.

Best Bleak Book

In 2021, I seemed to have the knack for picking bleak books, as I mentioned it in my billet B is for bleak : the bleak fest continues in Oktober. The bleakest book of my reading year was Les larmes sur la terre by Sandrine Collette.

In a dystopian future, Moe lands in a breaker’s yeard with her baby, gets a used car for housing and discovers that poor people are parked here with no real hope of ever going out. I’ve rarely read a book that dark and that hopeless. It has wonderful literary qualities in its style and the story is totally new. But wow, it’s taxing for the reader.

Best Spooky Book

Nothing prepared me for The Wild Inside by Jamey Bradbury. The main character is Tracy, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in Alaska.

Her mother died the year before and their family fell apart after that. Her father and mother were mushers but now he doesn’t want to race anymore. And Tracy has a strange need to spend time in the wilderness, a need she shared with her mother. She has a special connection to wild life, one you’ll get to know if you read this book.

That’s all folks! 2021 has been an excellent reading year for me and I’m sure 2022 will be too. What was your favorite book in 2021? Say the first that comes to mind when you think “What did I read in 2021?”