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2022 in Books
Every year it’s my goal to read 50 books, about one every week. This year I managed to read about 75, with about 20 in Spanish. Below are my five favorites as well as my least favorite.
Olvidado Rey Gudú by Anna María Matute
I’ve written a longer review for this book as a separate article on this blog that you should check out if you are interested. This book follows the fictional kingdom and dynasty of Olar over its three generation lifespan. Like Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, Gudú brings magical realism to a more traditional fantasy setting. Throughout the sprawling epic, Matute explores the futility of the human desire for immortality, the necessity of love for the human condition, and the ceaseless march of forgetfulness in our lives. This book will certainly be something that I will be rereading in 2023! Unfortunately, the book has no English translation, but is available in German, Italian, and of course, Spanish.
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
Since basically forever, I’ve been interested in gardening, agriculture, and ecology. I had a couple of raised beds for growing vegetables in middle and high-school at my parents’ house. I grew carrots on my windowsill in college, and worked in almost exclusively plant biology labs before graduate…
