In 2022, I continued to go through my Greatest Works of Literature list, a project I began back in 2011.  I’m now up to the mid-19th Century.  A big part of the year was spent reading four of the six books in the Barsetshire Chronicles, by Anthony Trollope. I had never read anything of his before, and he is now one of my favorite 19th Century authors. I occasionally detoured to the 21st Century to read books on nature and art, and one recent novel.  I was excited to read the book Loving Orphaned Space by my college friend Mrill Ingram (see my review HERE).

Here are the 21 books I finished in 2022, in order of publication date, with my 1-5 star rating.  Thanks to Goodreads for providing a space to keep track of my reading.

1. The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni (1827) (4/5)
2. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame – Victor Hugo (1831) (4/5)
3. Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse – Alexander Pushkin (1833) (4/5)
4. Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac (1835) (5/5)
5. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal (1839) (4/5)
6. Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville (1835, 1840) (5/5)
7. Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol (1842) (4/5)
8. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket – Edgar Allan Poe (1844) (4/5)
9. Walden – Henry David Thoreau (1849) (5/5)
10. The Prelude – William Wordsworth (1850) (5/5)
11. The Warden – Anthony Trollope (1855) (4/5)
12. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (1856) (4/5)
13. Barchester Towers – Anthony Trollope (1857) (4/5)
14. The Origin of Species – Charles Darwin (1859) (5/5)
15. The Small House at Allington – Anthony Trollope (1864) (4/5)
16. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope (1867) (5/5)
17. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting – Syd Field (1979) (4/5)
18. What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World – Jon Young (2012) (4/5)
19. The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben (2015) (4/5)
20. Utopia Avenue – David Mitchell (2020) (3/5)
21. Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth – Mrill Ingram (2022) (5/5)

In 2021, I continued to work my way through the chronological “greatest books of all time” list, focusing primarily on books I already own (with occasional trips to the library).  I finished the 18th Century and moved into the 19th Century.  One of the highlights was the four volume Dream of the Red Chamber (also know as Story of the Stone), one of the four classic Chinese novels.  (I had previously read The Water Margin and Journey to the West/Monkey, two of the other classics.)  But I veered off the greatest booklist path a few times.  I read two books on recent biological discoveries – I like to keep up-to-date with science. I read some art books, as part of my recent obsession with art. And I read some history/biography.  My niece gave me a 2018 Frederick Douglass bio as a gift, so I read that and then of course I needed to read Douglass’s autobiography. And a friend raved about the first volume of Rick Atkinson’s American Revolution trilogy, so I checked that out as well.  Another friend loaned me The Pueblo Revolt, which helped provide historical context for our vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico in September/October.

Here are the books I finished in 2021 (in chronological order by publication date), with my 1-5 star rating:

1. The Social Contract (1762). By Jean-Jacques Rousseau (4/5)
2. The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). By Oliver Goldsmith (4/5)
3. The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings (1774). By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (4/5)
4. Dangerous Liaisons (1782) By Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (4/5)
5. Confessions (1782). By Jean-Jacques Rousseau (4/5)
6. Dream of the Red Chamber (Story of the Stone) (1791). By Cao Xeuqin (and Gao E) (5/5)
7. Autobiography and Selected Writings (1791). By Benjamin Franklin (4/5)
8. Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). By William Blake (4/5)
9. Kant: Selections (1770-1797). By Immanuel Kant. Edited by Theodore M. Greene (4/5)
10. Faust: A Tragedy, Part One (1808). By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (4/5)
11. Persuasion (1817). By Jane Austen (4/5)
12. Faust, Part Two (1832). By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (4/5)
13. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). By Frederick Douglass (4/5)
14. Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture (1976). By Frederick Hartt (5/5)
15. The Pueblo Revolt (1994). By Robert Silverberg (5/5)
16. Modern Art in the U.S.A.: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century (2000). By Patricia Hills (4/5)
17. Why Evolution Is True (2008). By Jerry A. Coyne (4/5)
18. Speaking of Art: Four Decades of Art in Conversation (2010). By William Furlong (4/5)
19. A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth (2015). By Peter D. Ward (3/5)
20. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018). By David W. Blight (5/5)
21. The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (2019). By Rick Atkinson (4/5)