22 Classics to Read in 2022

There are always classics which I think I'll get around to reading, but somehow I never find the time. So I think the New Year is the perfect occasion to make a resolution to finally get to some of these classic books. I've made a list of 22 classics I'd like to read or reread in 2022 – since revisiting a classic is always a valuable experience and you can watch me discuss all my picks here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzubPftOsLE

Many of these books have a special anniversary coming up concerning their first publication or their author's birth or there's a new film/tv series being adapted from the book. 1922 seemed to be bumper year for Modernist fiction as “Ulysses” by James Joyce appeared for the first time in its complete version as well as the books “Jacob's Room” by Virginia Woolf, “The Wasteland” by TS Eliot and “The Garden Party and Other Stories” by Katherine Mansfield. The final instalment of “Middlemarch” by George Eliot also first appeared 150 years ago in 1872. The oldest book on my list “Moll Flanders” by Daniel Defoe first appeared 300 years ago in 1722.

I'd also like to read some classics from outside of England including “All About H. Hatterr: A Gesture” by G V Desani (which is often called the Indian “Ulysses”), “The Castle” by Franz Kafka, “The Real Story of Ah-Q and other tales of China” by Lu Xun and “Manual of Painting & Calligraphy” by Jose Saramago. I'm not promising I'll get to all of them, but it's a good reading list to start from. Are there any classic books you're planning to read this coming year?

My Top Books of 2021

It's been another year filled with lots of uncertainty and time at home so I've been especially thankful for the consolation of books and all the discussions I've had with readers online. I have also been fortunate enough to have chats with some of the authors of my favourite books this year including Claire Fuller, Joyce Carol Oates and Richard Powers. I've always loved going to author events in person, but since these have been limited by the pandemic I've used the opportunity of having a BookTube channel to interview them myself. Here I get to ask them all the questions I want instead of waiting to raise my hand at the end! After this year's online Booker Prize ceremony I also had the chance to ask Damon Galgut some questions about his winning novel “The Promise”. Recently I also had the pleasure of meeting last year's Booker winner Douglas Stuart at an in-person literary salon. 

I've selected ten books as my favourites of 2021 as they have all broadened my point of view, expanded my knowledge, reinvigorated my love of the imaginative possibilities of fiction and meant something special to me personally. They're also all such compelling stories I completely lost myself in each. You can watch me discuss all these books here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5m4OVH5R8Y

Gayl Jones' triumphant return to fiction takes the reader to 17th century Brazil and follows the episodic journey of a girl born into slavery. The novella “Small Things Like These” is destined to be a new Christmas classic as it poignantly shows a man's dilemma when he realises the dark truth of his own Irish community. The stories in “The (Other) You” describe how our fantasies about other paths in life can quickly turn into nightmares. The brilliant American family saga “The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois” movingly shows how even the unknown aspects of our heritage play an active role upon our immediate present. “Bewilderment” is at once a deeply intimate story as well as one which seriously considers the biggest challenges our society is facing while taking readers to other planets. 

The mind-bending imaginative story of “This One Sky Day” gives insightful social commentary while making the world feel colourfully alive. The riveting story of “Detransition, Baby” is filled with so many tantalizing scenes that are tragic, comic and heartbreaking. “Unsettled Ground” movingly shows a sheltered character's progression towards independence. The epic “Cathedral” follows the stories of a wide cast of fascinating characters in medieval Europe as society's attitudes towards religion and capitalism were rapidly changing. I gained a new view on community life in “A Shock” which explores several different memorable characters' glancing connections with each other. 

I'd love to hear if you've also read any of these or feel inspired to read them now. And I'd be so curious to know the best things you read in 2021! 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

What makes a classic Christmas story? When I think about some of the most well-known Christmas tales such as “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens or the short story 'The Greatest Gift' by Philip Van Doren Stern (which inspired the film 'It's a Wonderful Life') or the Christmas sections of “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, the predominant festive themes concern homecoming and a spirit of generosity. 

Claire Keegan's new novella “Small Things Like These” fits right into this tradition while also providing a stealthy dose of powerful social commentary. It's 1985 in a small Irish town and in the lead up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant is very busy making deliveries to members of the community. Life is hard with the demands of work and family, but he and his wife have a strong partnership raising their five daughters. On Bill's rounds to the local convent - which is one of his best customers - he discovers something extremely distressing about the “training school for girls” which the nuns run there. It leaves him questioning whether he should intervene and how much he's personally willing to risk in order to do what he feels is right.

For such a brief book, this story says so much. It's filled with perfectly-pitched descriptions of physical details and dialogue which bring this humble community to life. There are evocative scenes of preparing a Christmas cake and a festive celebration. At first it feels like a highly supportive environment, but gradually we become aware of the sinister meaning behind what is not said. There's a conversation Bill has with his colleague Mrs Kehoe where she states “Tis no affair of mine, you understand, but you know you'd want to watch over what you'd say about what's there? Keep the enemy close, the bad dog with you and the good dog will not bite. You know yourself.” Though it feels like Bill has a clear moral choice to make there are social and financial pressures which make his decisions much harder.

It's clever how Bill's personal history as an orphan is weaved into the story of the present. He feels extremely fortunate to have had a benefactor who supported him. But there are aspects to his identity which have been hidden from him or not spoken about until an encounter he has while out for a visit. This makes him reflect: “Why were the things that were closest so often the hardest to see?” Keegan brilliantly portrays the way in which we create a narrative about our lives that is strongly influenced by the ideas and values of people around us so that sometimes the truth can remain obscured. But there are moments when it is revealed and this creates startling moments of realisation and ruptures in our reality. This novella dramatises an example of this on both a personal and wider community level.

Keegan's novella does that rare thing of facing the cruel facts of the world and creating a heartwarming story which is in no way sentimental but perfectly justified in its conclusion. It's what makes this novella a genuine Christmas story alongside the fact that it is set around the festive season. “A Christmas Carol” even plays a funny part in the story where Bill remembers the disappointment of being given a copy of the book (which smelled of must.) At the end of the book a note on the text provides some sobering context and information about Magdalene Laundries. Though the facts are shocking, it's even more startling to imagine how many communities must have been quietly complicit with what was happening in these institutions. It's powerful how this story reminds us to be vigilant and care for everyone around us – especially the most vulnerable.

In. by Will McPhail

I don't often read graphic novels so it's a delight whenever I stumble upon one which is not only a pleasure to read but also moving, funny and insightful. “In.” depicts the life of an illustrator named Nick who longs for the kind of blissful solitude he once achieved in childhood within the funnel of a waterpark slide. Now that he's an adult he's crafted a life of independence where he works on his own writing projects while occasionally freelancing for ad agencies (a meeting with one is brilliantly spoofed). He frequents trendy coffee shops and bars (with hilarious names such as 'just give us your money at this point' and 'Your Friends Have Kids') while drifting through the city. The trouble is that this independence is also suffused with loneliness and he longs for meaningful moments.

Nick assists his mother with her renovation of a building and babysits his nephew, but even these encounters are often filled with small talk, superficial chatter or blank silence. However, one day he finds that speaking about something close to his heart breaks through the white noise and establishes a real connection. The black and white illustrations of his daily life suddenly flip to a colour-filled phantasmagorical landscape for a brief time. This is alternately a space of dream and nightmare as we sense the tenor of his innermost being. It's a highly effective technique as we follow his journey establishing a new romance with a charismatic doctor named Wren and facing the facts of a family member's terminal illness. As is often the case with literary graphic novels such as “Sabrina” by Nick Drnaso, blank dialogue-less space and minimalist drawings express much more than what words can say.

This is a story which fully embodies what is termed the millennial problem of “adulting”, but in essence it expresses much more universal issues to do with disconnection and loneliness. Certainly, it's not necessary or at all alluring to have a deep soulful exchange in every encounter we have with every person we meet. This is acknowledged in Nick's fumbling attempts to break through the veneer of everyday life with a neighbour and his mother. But it's true that our daily lives can slowly become filled with meaningless exchanges and that we ourselves can become like automatons voicing what's expected rather than what we really feel. McPhail creatively grapples with these issues in this graphic novel in a way which is refreshing and poignant.

Ghosted by Jenn Ashworth

There may not be any actual ghosts in Jenn Ashworth's novel “Ghosted” but there are many different kinds of ghosting. The story begins when Laurie's husband Mark vanishes and she fears that he might have simply walked out of their relationship or “ghosted” her. But, alongside the complexity of this fading marriage, the narrative explores in many different ways the tension between presence and absence. There's the question of lineage, the condition of dementia, the loss of a child, the textures and patterns physically left in a house from previous inhabitants, the people who perform labour for us that we never see, the mystery of a murdered local girl, a medium who claims she converses with spirits and an awareness of a looming environmental disaster. The author meaningfully explores the lines between what's known and what's imagined and what we project into reality in order to make sense of or embellish it. 

We follow Laurie's point of view in the weeks and months following Mark's disappearance so alongside deeper ideas there's also a tantalizing question about how much we can trust her perspective. She takes a suspiciously long time to report that Mark is missing and easily lies to those closest to him pretending that he's still there. She has a fascination with crime dramas and the reader wonders if she's a fantasist that's had something to do with Mark's disappearance. This makes for a mesmerising tale as well as a subtly moving one. Scenes of domestic drama are shown with refreshingly realistic details which give a sense of how emotional and sexual interactions can be infused with unresolved anger and grief. The language evocatively reflects a Northern English dialect and a point of view not often depicted in fiction. This is richly-involving, multilayered, excellent storytelling.

Learwife by JR Thorp

How many people have watched Shakespeare's tragedy 'King Lear' and wondered 'But... what happened to Lear's wife?' This is a question author JR Thorp embraced as the subject of her debut novel which follows the perspective of Lear's exiled queen in the time immediately following the end of the play when the insane king and all three of their daughters have died. She's resided in a remote abbey for the past fifteen years where she explains “The abbey is the prison Lear made for me, the bridle so carefully constructed for my face. Forcing down my tongue.” Here she finally gets her say as she desires to depart to finally re-enter the world and the kingdom she's been banished from. We gradually understand the story of her life through fragmented memories and interactions with the nuns, but her thought-process is never straightforward as “in me the past and future are eliding, coiling together, thicker than umbilical cord, made of the selfsame substance”. Her perspective contains both poetic ambiguity and searing precision as her intense and justified bitterness is palpable. The author has created a brilliantly-calibrated voice that gives many insights and keeps the reader wondering whether she herself is mad or if circumstances have driven her to insanity or if she is carefully scheming as she cannily asserts “I have always been the kind to turn brutal luck to a better chance. I lie, and plan.” 

This is a narrative worth taking time with as the reader gradually becomes tangled in her thorny meditations. There's a delicious tension to the mental sparring she conducts with the nuns surrounding her who she is cooped up with because the abbey is under quarantine amidst a plague. She gets little compassion from these physical figures as she hilariously explains: “Who would speak to nuns of emotions? Better argue a point on politics with a piece of wood.” However, the nuns are also competing for her favour as a new abbess must be chosen and the narrator has been endowed with the duty of making this decision. Here we see on a more micro level the power at play within any organization and the politics involved which the queen formerly experienced on a grander scale when she lived at court. Through her memories we understand the way she's learned to wield power and rule, but also the way women were constrained by the sexist attitudes of this medieval time. I especially appreciated the way she wryly comments upon biblical stories such as the tale of Lazarus where his wife was forced to readjust to having her raised-from-the-dead husband there again: “perhaps she had become used to sleeping in the thin bed alone... Have you ever shared a bed with a man? It is sweet perhaps for a while but they sweat and stink out all their sins in their sleep.” 

We also see the way the past intrudes upon her present. Perhaps it's her new responsibility and the knowledge of her family's passing which instigate the feverish psychological battles she wages with the ghosts of the past. This is compelling but a difficulty with this novel's plot is that there isn't a great deal of action in the story. The physical drama has already unfolded in Shakespeare's play so that what we're mostly left with is her ruminations. Figuring out the mystery of what happened in her life and the key to her identity (her true name is teasingly withheld throughout the narrative) is highly intriguing however there's not a tremendous amount which actually happens in the story. This novel is more about her melancholy, barely-suppressed anger and the way her intelligence has been underestimated by patriarchal incompetence. Her assertive voice is mesmerising especially when she casts out sinister statements such as “Lear, I will die better than you. My God can do what yours cannot.” There's a dour satisfaction in following this survivor's voice and her steely determination to dominate over the spectres of her past – even if it precipitates her own destruction.