52 books in 52 weeks (2022 edition)

Year NINE nine NINE of reading 52 books in 52 weeks. I started off doing really well, hit a few hiccups, and ended my last week reading three books over the span of 4 days... so... how very 2022. 

I'm trying to analyze my book choices this year, but hard to really see any trends. Out of the 52 books, the total page count was 20,460 pages. I read two books in the Wheel of Time Series but they are so long it might take me another 10 years to get through all of them.

I read 19 female authors and 24 male authors, which... is unfortunate. I wanted to read more books by women and by BIPOC authors. Definitely got my fill of Agatha Christie books though, reading 6 total -- but still not done with all of her mysteries. And some of these later ones are... quite questionable. But let's not blame the ol' Dame. She really churned them out!

In 2023: more books and more exploring different ideas, genres, cultures, and viewpoints. I want to see the world through a vast array of different books. So more women authors, BIPOC authors, and other books outside of my normal thinking -- but also gotta through in some fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery books. 

Now, onto lists because that's my favorite part of the year-end wrap up: 

Least Favorite Book: The Darwin Affair by Tim Mason. (How can you take such a cool premise and make it be so bad?!); You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers (Eggers is not for me).

Longest Book: The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan. These Wheel of Time books are THICCCC.

Biggest Letdown: The Archived by Victoria Schwab (Boring!) or The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan (Juvenile!) 

Least Favorite Character: The protagonists in You Shall Know Our Velocity!

Most Batsh*t Character: Anyone in Confessions by Kanae Minato. Insane book!! 

Favorite Book: Hard to pick this year but it's between: Wanderers by Chuck Wendig; Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr; or Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson; Killing Commed

Shortest Book: Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson

Favorite Character: It's impossible to choose just one. So many great characters! Maybe Lillian from Nothing to See Here. Always Hercule Poirot too! 

Favorite Author: KEVIN WILSON has taken that crown this year. Such fun, witty, intriguing prose and stories! 

And that's it for 2022. What are the odds that George R.R. Martin will save us all by completing The Winds of Winter in 2023?? I say this every year and it never happens!! COME ON GEORGE!!! WE need to know when these dang winds of winter are freaking coming. Okay, bye! 

- ben fleck

1. America Is Not the Heart - Elaine Castillo

2. Confessions - Kanae Minato

3. The Dragon Reborn - Robert Jordan

4. Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson

5. The Archived - Victoria Schwab

6. Island - Aldous Huxley

7. Deep Water - Patricia Highsmith

8. The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan

9. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift

10. A Winter's Promise - Christelle Dabos

11. The World of Ice & Fire - George R.R. Martin

12. Fall of Man in Wilmslow - David Lagercrantz

13. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

14. Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber - Mike Isaac

15. Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined - Scott Barry Kaufman

16. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell

17. Wanderers - Chuck Wendig

18. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee

19. Jade City - Fonda Lee

20. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

21. Everything is Illuminated  - Jonathan Safran Foer

22. Ms. Marvel: No Normal - G. Willow Wilson

23. Codename Villanelle - Luke Jennings

24. Timeline - Michael Crichton

25. Find Me - Andre Aciman

26. Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami

27. The Guest List - Lucy Foley

28. The Darwin Affair - Tim Mason

29. Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie

30. NW - Zadie Smith

31. Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo

32. The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

33. Sad Cypress - Agatha Christie

34. The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman

35. Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr

36. You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers

37. Ink and Bone - Rachel Caine

38. Deception Point - Dan Brown

39. Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith

40. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe - Agatha Christie

41. Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

42. The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson

43. The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd

44. Evil Under the Sun - Agatha Christie

45. The House in the Cerulean Sea - T.J. Klune

46. Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie

47. The Hollow - Agatha Christie

48. Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov

49. Poison for Breakfast - Lemony Snicket

50. Book Lovers - Emily Henry

51. Into the Dark - Claudia Gray

52. The Unhoneymooners - Christina Lauren 

52 books in 52 weeks (2020 edition)

Wow! What a year it has been, in a not good way... 2020 has been surprising, difficult, tiring, irritating, and more. Never did the world think we would be suddenly facing a pandemic as we entered a new decade & faced an important Presidential election, but HERE. WE. ARE. 

Quarantined inside, separated from loved ones, and doing everything through glitchy video meetings. It's been tough.

And if you think being stuck inside made it easier to read 52 books in 52 weeks, you would be wrong. It was still as difficult as ever. Reading was hard to feel motivated to do, but I did it. And read some pretty good books.

For those keeping track, my goal to read every Agatha Christie book is trekking along. This year I read 8 more of her capers. Some were... not good. Dame Aggie can't hit every book outta the park.

And as for my Shakespeare quest, I only managed to read 2 of his plays. Oop. Look, I just didn't feel up to slogging through ol Willy Shakes' words this year. 

I did read a bunch of teen horror books by Christopher Pike. Lots of fun was had in those pages. Out of the 33 authors I read this year, 13 were female and 20 were male. Narrowing that gender gap. I also tried to read more BIPOC authors. 

I can always do better -- looking to continue reading different books from a variety of authors going forward.

I read some classics, read some books for work, some for the book/movie (boovie) club that I am a part of. Reading remains fun even when it is hard to be motivated to do it. 

Let's stop prolonging the best part of this post--my lists! See below.

Least Favorite Book: Normal People - Sally Rooney (So boring & not for me!)

Longest Book: The Once and Future King - T.H. White (So Long, So Arthurian & Witchy weird)

Biggest Letdown: The House with a Clock in Its Walls - John Bellairs (So much potential just quickly thrown down the drain...or, into the walls or w/e)

Most Depressing Book: Mood Indigo - Boris Vian (c'est tragique!); the Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead (the tragedy of slavery is fucking awful)

Least Favorite Character: Honestly, I find Sherlock Holmes quite awful & annoying & arrogant & not that fun. Throw in Tummy & Tuppence from Agatha Christie's books too.

Most Batsh*t Character: Any Villain in a Christopher Pike novel -- truly wild people, perhaps the most wild in Remember Me.

Favorite Book: Mood Indigo - Boris Vian (I don't know if because it's translated from French or one of the most beautiful movies I've seen, but it just really hit home for me in this year 2020)

Shortest Book: The Lemesurier Inheritance - Agatha Christie

Favorite Character: Deborah Lacks from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Deborah is a real-life person, so she's not technically a character, but she was astounding to read about. 

Most Surprising Character: Grace Randolph from You Should Have Known - Jean Hanff Korelitz. Let's just say she was nothing like Nicole Kidman and her many coats and accents in the Undoing and it changed the whole way I looked at the story.

Favorite Author: Dame Agatha (durp), Christopher Pike, Boris Vian

And that's it for 2020. Maybe next year is the year I can finally conquer Shakespeare and/or Christie. Maybe George R.R. Martin will complete The Winds of Winter. Time will tell. 7 years of 52 books in 52 weeks. Here's to 7 more years aka 364 more books! CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL. STAY INSIDE. WEAR MASKS. BE SAFE AND BE EMPATHETIC. We can get through this.  

- ben fleck

1. Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

2. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle

3. The Lemesurier Inheritance - Agatha Christie

4. Leia: Princess of Alderaan - Claudia Grey

5. N or M? - Agatha Christie

6. Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie

7. Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie

8. By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie

9. The House with a Clock in Its Walls - John Bellairs

10. Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie

11. Artemis - Andy Weir

12. The Collectors - Philip Pullman

13. Remember Me - Christopher Pike

14. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

15. The Eternal Enemy - Christopher Pike

16. Bury Me Deep - Christopher Pike

17. Road to Nowhere - Christopher Pike

18. Tales of Terror: Volume 1 - Christopher Pike

19. Tales of Terror: Volume 2 - Christopher Pike

20. The Tachyon Web - Christopher Pike

21. Weekend - Christopher Pike

22. Postern of Fate - Agatha Christie

23. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

24. Normal People - Sally Rooney

25. The Once and Future King - T.H. White

26. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

27. Morning Star - Pierce Brown

28. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L. Baum

29. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

30. Mañanaland - Pam Muñoz Ryan

31. Bayou Magic - Jewell Parker Rhodes

32. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

33. Mood Indigo - Boris Vian

34. The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle

35. City - Devin Grayson

36. Murder in the Mews - Agatha Christie

37. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez

38. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green

39. The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde

40. The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde

41. Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie

42. The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

43. The Two Gentleman of Verona - William Shakespeare

44. The Case of the Missing Marquess - Nancy Springer

45. I Know What You Did Last Summer - Lois Duncan

46. The City of Ember - Jeanne DuPrau

47. You Should Have Known - Jean Hanff Korelitz

48. Rip Van Winkle - Washington Irving

49. Serpentine - Philip Pullman

50. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

51. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

52. Chain Letter - Christopher Pike