Adieu, 2022

It’s been a year of three big creative adventures: getting a new job (first in fourteen years); a family holiday in France (first to Paris for a week, then to Morzine in the French Alps); setting up my Patreon (experimenting with a patrons-only podcast).

There was very little fiction writing, but plenty of reflective writing, a lot of films (131), and some books (26 of which were fiction).

In time-honoured fashion, here are my favourite discoveries of 2022, in chronological order of publication or release.

Favourite books of 2022

  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), Douglas Adams
  • Climbers (1989), M John Harrison
  • A Patchwork Planet (1998), Anne Tyler
  • Nod (2012), Adrian Barnes
  • I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2016), Iain Reid
  • The Spirit of Science Fiction (2016), Robert Bolaño
  • Saltwater (2019), Jessica Andrews
  • Braised Pork (2020), An Yu
  • Dead Relatives (2021), Lucie McKnight Hardy
  • Seafood & Cocktails (2021), Eygló Karlsdóttir

Favourite films of 2022

  • Stop Making Sense (1984), dir. Jonathan Demme
  • Morvern Callar (2002), dir. Lynne Ramsay
  • The Consequences of Love (2004), dir. Paolo Sorrentino
  • Oslo, August 31st (2011), dir. Joachim Trier
  • Columbus (2017), dir. Kogonada
  • The Empty Man (2020), dir. David Prior
  • Palm Springs (2020), dir. Max Barbakow
  • Undine (2020), dir. Christian Petzold
  • The Sparks Brothers (2021), dir. Edgar Wright
  • Top Gun: Maverick (2022), dir. Joseph Kosinski

Time to wrap this year up and store it with all the others.

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