2022 Reading Year in Review

I read 41 books in 2022, 12 less than last year and I smacked myself up the side of the head when I realized why---I've had my nose in my phone, or more specifically, surfing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik-Tok!  That's substituting mindful, focused, in-depth reading for 30 second fixes IMHO.  A few weeks of tracking revealed I was spending an average of 4.5 hours EACH DAY on casual internet reading!  So, those apps are off my phone, and I've resolved to only check some of them and then only once a day.  I'm already seeing an improvement in my attention span, focus and general well-being.  That being said, this year's reads were an interesting mix.

I read 11 fiction books, and only one of those that I consider worth reading, The Power by Naomi Alderman a futuristic feminist story with a dark theme.  There were several books on history (7), many memoirs (9) and science ones (6), most with a genealogy related theme.  

My other recommended reads were The End of Genetics by David Goldstein, on the future potential of genetic editing; The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind on the greed of the Enron conspirators, still relevant today; Uprooted by Peter Boni on discovering he was conceived by artificial insemination in the 1940s.  I enjoyed what I learned from Moonshot by Albert Bourla about Pfizer developing a Covid vaccine, and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes an older title from 1986 on the intersection of science, the military and politics as well as How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil addressing our dependence on ammonia, plastics, steel and concrete.

I'm reviewing my TBR list as I enter 2023 and hoping to finish some on that list.  Let me know if you've read any of my 2022 selections or what your favorite reads were in 2022.

Before Your Memory Fades - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 This was a lovely, touching read, cleverly asking what we would do if we could go back in the past, yet not be able to change anything in the present?  In short vignettes, Kawaguchi introduces us to four individuals attempting to reconcile a hurt in their lives and the lives of their loved ones.  Each chapter is a surprise, a gentle unveiling of getting beyond that pain and moving on into the future.  This is the third book in the series.  

The setting is a coffee shop where one can go back to the past "before the coffee gets cold" in the cup poured for the time traveler.  Throughout the story, the characters are deciding how they would respond to the dichotomies posed in the book "What if the world was ending tomorrow? One Hundred Questions".  Each question asks the reader to make a decision about a situation with the end of the world in mind, forcing an answer we would likely avoid in real life. 

My mind has a problem keeping track of characters with unfamiliar names, in this case Japanese ones, but I caught on eventually.  I don't know if I'll read the other books but I enjoyed discovering this one.

Quotes:

"Burnout syndrome is considered by some to be a type of depression.  But while depression begins with the stress of fatigue or a large shock like an accident or a loss, burnout syndrome originates with the thought that all of one's efforts are in vain.  It strikes right at a time when life is not turning out as expected, despite devotedly pouring one's soul into a certain activity, usually one's work."

"Inside every person is an inherent capability to make it through any kind of difficulty.  Everyone has that energy.  But sometimes when that energy flows via our anxiety valve, the flow can be restricted.  The greater that anxiety, the greater the strength needed to open the valve and release the energy.  That strength is empowered by hope.  You could say that hope is the power to believe in the future."

"Something I strongly believe is that we mustn't allow the death of a person to be the cause of unhappiness.  The reason for that is simple: if we let everyone who dies be a cause for unhappiness, that would mean people are being born to become unhappy.  But the opposite in fact is true.  People are always born for the sake of happiness."

Published: 2022   Read: December 2022  Genre: Fiction, Philosophy

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

I've read other books by this author and enjoy his sharp witted dialogue and quirky characters.  In this novel, the hero, a Beta-Male named Charles Asher, is given the job of Death Merchant, responsible for collecting the souls of the recently departed.  The absurd and zany adventures was a great escape for a few nights of reading.  There's a sub-text of how we deal with the loss of loved ones and our fear of death.  

Quotes:

"[Talking about his Mom dying with his sister] You're doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was - the one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn't understand.  Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves.  When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul - the essence of who we are, beyond the different face we wear throughout our lives."

"I've seen it again and again, said Charlie, more with men than women...a wife or husband dies, and it's like the survivor is roped to him like a mountain climber who's fallen into a crevasse.  If the survivor can't let go--cut them loose, I guess--the dead will drag them right into the grave."

Published: 2006  Read: December 2022  Genre: Fiction 

 

A Short History of Humanity - Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe

 Sub-title: A New History of Old Europe

Krause is an archaeogeneticist, an archaeologist who focuses on the ancient DNA discovered in archeological digs. His co-author, Thomas Trappe is a German health journalist.  The book re-visits previously recovered remains from ancient origins to apply the latest DNA technical analysis tools.  Using this updated information, some discoveries are reaffirmed, and others updated or revised entirely.  As explained in recent articles where ancient (13th-14th century) remains are analyzed, in some cases, entirely new discoveries are made.  The book can get a bit technical on the science used.  I was fascinated with the process and how our understanding of ancient migration patterns, languages, and diseases can be tracked using DNA.

Quotes:

p 27 "A mutation reliably appears in mtDNA only every 3,000 years on average...this means that for 3,000 years, the mtDNA passed down along a female line is identical."

p 27 "The mtDNA of all living modern human beings can be traced back to a single female ancestor...she lived around 160,000 years ago...mitochondrial Eve. A male counterpart, chromosomal Adam, lived almost 200,000 years before mitochondrial Eve however, so we can say with certainty that they weren't a couple."

p 41 "Some Europeans and many South Asians, inherited a gene that causes a much stronger immune reaction to a COVID-19 virus infection.  Carriers of the Neanderthal gene are three times more likely to die from this newly emerged virus."

p. 144 "Using DNA analysis, we were able to identify men from five consecutive generations in some family graves, but we did not find a single adult female descendant, confirming that the daughters of the families were likely sent away before they became adults.  Evidently sons, instead, inherited the farmsteads from their fathers. ..In all, this genetic data reveals patriarchal and hierarchical structures that became widespread during the Bronze Age and continue to shape some familial and social conventions even today."

p. 167..." in 2012, the US Dept. of Defense launch the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Algorithm Challenge...to develop a computer algorithm that would quickly discover and identify bacterial and viral DNA.  Daniel Huson, a specialist in bioinformatics, developed a related algorithm that could match a billion DNA sequences to their organism of origin within 24 hours..instead of weeks.

Published:  2021  Read: December 2022  Genre: History, Science