My 2022 in books, films and music

Year sixteen of sitting myself down in front of the computer on New Year's Eve and totting up (almost) everything I read, watched or listened to over the previous twelve months. (Not that you'd know, since I've nuked this blog's history several times over the last year or two, but it's all still there on archive.org if I ever want to remember or plot how my tastes have changed over the last decade-and-a-half.) I'm not even sure whether I enjoy this exercise any more, but it's been a thing for too long to give it up now.

Reading

I managed to read a couple more books this year than I did in 2021, although not through any deliberate effort. I still only ever really read in bed at the moment - perhaps if office-working does become more desirable I might read more while travelling as I did pre-pandemic, but I honestly don't see that situation changing any time soon.

Fiction

• Imajica (Clive Barker)
• Homeland (R.A. Salvatore)
• To Have and Have Not (Ernest Hemingway)
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
• Illuminations (Alan Moore)
• On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
• The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)
• Butcher's Crossing (John Williams)
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Max Brooks)
• Factotum (Charles Bukowski)
• The Last Guardian (Jeff Grubb)
• A Canticle For Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller Jr.)
• The Moviegoer (Walker Percy)
• Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson)
• Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
• The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen)
• No One Is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood)
• Harvest (Jim Crace)
• Big Damn Hero (James Lovegrove)
• Books of Blood: Volume One (Clive Barker)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
• The Big Six (Arthur Ransome)
• Better than Life (Grant Naylor)
• Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Grant Naylor)
• Someone Should Pay for Your Pain (Franz Nicolay)
• Antkind (Charlie Kaufman)
• Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)

As usual, a mixture of classic and modern literature, with a few re-reads of old favourites sprinkled throughout. After watching the new Hellraiser film I ordered a couple of Clive Barker books that I never got around to reading as a younger fan, and also filled in some gaps in other favourite authors' works (Bukowksi's Factotum was excellent; Hemingway's To Have and Have Not was massively disappointing). Alan Moore's new book of short stories came out, and I read Agatha Christie for the first time, but I think my favourite book was probably Antkind by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It had a lot of the same elements found in several of his films (Anomalisa, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine and Synecdoche New York) while creating something completely unique.

Non-fiction

• The Story of the Oliver Twins (Chris Wilkins)
• The Fry Chronicles (Stephen Fry)
• I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story (Anthony Daniels)
• How to Be an Imperfectionist: The New Way to Fearlessness, Confidence, and Freedom from Perfectionism (Stephen Guise)
• Long Players: Writers on the Albums that Shaped Them (Tom Gatti)
• Ramble Book (Adam Buxton)
• You'll Die in Singapore (Charles McCormac)
• Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons (Michael Witwer)

Another mixture of autobiographies and histories. The D&D book was an interesting insight into the birth of the game, as was the story of early ZX Spectrum pioneers the Oliver Twins, but the book that I was most surprised to enjoy was You'll Die in Singapore, a real-life recounting of a Japanese POW escaping across Indonesia. I only picked it up because it came in a "surprise book" bundle from Etsy, but it was actually very readable.

Comics

• Crossed + One Hundred, Volume 1 (Alan Moore)
• Red Rackham's Treasure (Hergé)

Hardly worth mentioning this year, the only comics I read were Alan Moore's run on Crossed (which I didn't really know enough about to really enjoy) and a Tintin book.

Watching

As usual, I'm only listing the films that I saw for the first time in the past year.

• Zodiac
• The Pianist
• Licorice Pizza
• The Power of the Dog
• The Door Into Summer
• The Batman
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife
• Accident Man
• All the President's Men
• Rent
• The Sparks Brothers
• Short Term 12
• 8½
• Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Thor: Love and Thunder
• Hellraiser (2022)
• Tenet
• Clerks III
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Metal Lords
• A Christmas Story
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Uncharted
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Bill & Ted Face the Music

After months of anticipation, PT Anderson's latest film Licorice Pizza was finally released back in January, and while not as immediately memorable as Boogie Nights or Magnolia I still enjoyed it a lot. Edgar Wright's documentary about Sparks was excellent, despite only knowing a single song by the band; and as a lifelong Kevin Smith fan I loved Clerks III (but would probably not recommend it to anyone that isn't). However, the film I've been recommending to everyone since I saw it is Everything Everywhere All At Once - it's utterly unlike anything else you're going to see, and I'm unsurprised to see it on so many end of year lists.

Listening

As per usual, artists that released albums in the first half of the year are at something of an advantage - there were definitely better albums that came out in the latter half of 2022 that failed to make it into the top ten (also not helped by Spotify's scrobbling plugin occasionally not working).

Top artists listened to in 2022

1. Post Malone
2. Guns N' Roses
3. Eddie Vedder
4. Bloc Party
5. Arcade Fire
6. Pearl Jam
7. Afghan Whigs
8. Bartees Strange
9. Muse
10. Mitski

Fewer old favourites than last year, although Guns N' Roses are only so high up because I went to see them in concert back in July. Everyone else besides Pearl Jam had a new album out this year.

Top albums listened to in 2022

1. Twelve Carat Toothache - Post Malone
2. Earthling - Eddie Vedder
3. Farm to Table - Bartees Strange
4. Laurel Hell - Mitski
5. Labyrinthitis - Destroyer
6. Endless Rooms - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
7. A Light For Attracting Attention - The Smile
8. Raw Data Feel - Everything Everything
9. Things Are Great - Band of Horses
10. Quitters - Christian Lee Hutson

I wouldn't categorise myself as a fan of Post Malone particularly, but I did find myself returning to his new album several times throughout the year - it's an undemanding pop/R&B sound that isn't too distracting to listen to while working. I also really liked Eddie Vedder's new solo album, as well as many new releases by artists that didn't make it onto this top ten list (notably The Mysterines, Broken Bells, Laufey, and Mint Green).

2022 picks

Favourite book: Antkind by Charlie Kaufman

Favourite album: Endless Rooms by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

Favourite film: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

All data comes from GoodReads, Last.fm (when it works), and Letterboxd.