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.