It’s time for my annual list of books read last year. My 2022 list is down quite a bit due to some non-book reading and studying. I’ll rank the books from favorite to least favorite with a short description of what I remember about the book or what led to its ranking.
Without further ado, here is my list of books from 2022:
- Marvelous Work and a Wonder
- One of my favorite (and most important) books ever, so despite it being my third or fourth read, still has to top the list. This book lays out just how marvelous a work and a wonder the restoration of Christ’s gospel is.
- God Emperor of Dune (book 4)
- This is the fourth book in the Dune series and comes ahead of Children of Dune and Dune Messiah.
- Children of Dune (book 3)
- It’s hard to separate all these books, they blend into one in my mind, but I think God Emperor was my favorite after book 1, followed by Children of Dune. We’ll get to Dune Messiah later.
- 5000 Year Leap
- This book was given to me by CJ Matthews and as you can see by its ranking, I highly enjoyed it. It resulted in a blog post which is a sign of a good book that made me think.
- Project Hail Mary
- This was another recommended book, this one from John Safstrom. I loved this book, close call between this and the author’s other popular book turned feature film, The Martian starring Matt Damon.
- What a Difference a Daddy Makes
- Yet another recommended book, thanks Mitch Waters who recommended this book after he heard my second daughter was coming. Must read for any girl dad.
- The Cuckoo’s Calling
- J.K. Rowling is a modern marvel. I love her and her writing. While reading, knowing Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym, I couldn’t help but recognize her amazing writing style. This book was so good it made me continue on with the series and I’m currently on book 3, “Career of Evil.”
- Night Chills
- Classic Dean Koontz, spooky and fast-paced. I recommended this to a friend along with a long Stephen King novel (Tommyknockers). The friend quit Tommyknockers and finished Night Chills.
- Dune Messiah (book 2)
- This one drops a bit below the others because I think it was more of a transition book to keep the series going, at least that’s what Frank Herbert seems to have said about the book. It’s still ranked highly because the Dune series is so awesome and sometimes you need bridging books to make the next ones that much better.
- Eli’s Promise
- Any book that makes me cry multiple times probably needs to be in the top ten. This book was a split between Holocaust and modern-day time lines, jumping around a bunch, which kept things interesting throughout.
- Herland
- Classic book I never read in high school but when it was assigned reading for a class I took this year, I decided to actually read the whole book. Glad I did. Book is based around the idea of a women-only society.
- Ford County Stories
- I really like John Grisham. This is a book of short stories focused around Ford County. You know an author is good when they take a topic you have zero interest in, like a small Mississippi town, and make you love it.
- Knees Over Toes
- This book was tough to rank because it made huge changes to my daily habits and saved my Achilles, but can’t be rated higher as a book than the ones above it. Recommended to me by my brother Garrick.
- Simplified Husbandship Simplified Fathership
- This was an impactful book overall but a notch below What a Difference a Daddy Makes (#6). Definitely made me think more seriously about being a father and husband.
- Silmarillion
- I Enjoy the Lord of the Rings stuff, but the mythology can be a bit to keep up with sometimes. I really enjoyed the Silmarillion, but Lord of the Rings books in general are lower on my list due to their density. If I’m reading a fantasy fiction, I like to spend less time trying to understand geography.
- Book of Lost Tales Vol 2
- See notes on Silmarillion, this one is more dense than the Silmarillion since the Silmarillion is like a mythological overview, which made it more enjoyable to me.
- The Book of Lost Tales Vol 1
- The Books of Lost Tales are going way back in the Lord of the Rings mythology, farther than JRR Tolkien ever got published. They’re his son compiling his notes and other works to put together more stories. I enjoy them, but again, very dense and a lot of geography to try to understand sometimes.
- A Guide to Tolkien
- This was basically an encyclopedia of Tolkien. Someday I’ll read the actual encyclopedia.
- Just to Illustrate
- This was a collection of sayings from LeGrand Richards, thus the saying “Just to illustrate,” which apparently was something he was known for saying. Very much enjoyed this book. Though it’s low on the list, LeGrand is one of my favorite people ever.
- Faith in the Service
- This book was all about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that served in the military. As I review this list I realize I didn’t read many bad books this year. I really enjoyed this book, and it still falls near the bottom for the year.
- Mormon Reflections: The Path to Mountain Meadows
- This was a fictional account of what could have led to the horrific events of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Made me think about things. Made me wonder what events could have led to people doing something so heinous.
- Joshua Man of Faith
- This is from a series of books that details the ancient prophets. I read the Moses (# 24) one last year. I didn’t like this one as much as the Moses one. It’s hard to compete with Moses.
- Profiles of the Presidents
- This was a biographical book of all the Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- True to the Faith
- Almost feels wrong having this so low, but it is essentially a textbook. A textbook on faith, but still a textbook. Weird having a book so low that I feel I should read at least once a year.
- What Da Vinci Didn’t Know
- A book being this low basically means it didn’t stand out to me. I think this book was basically trying to get in on the Da Vinci Code movie hype. I don’t remember learning anything super interesting from this book besides that Leonardo da Vinci was “Leonardo from Vinci.”
- 40 Years and Marching On
- Despite probably liking this book more than What Da Vinci Didn’t Know, I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything about the book until I found it on my shelf. A book that un-memorable gets demoted. It was a BYU studies book that was interesting but still bottom of the list for the year due to being forgotten.
Additional reading:
- Book of Mormon
- Mosiah 2-Alma 17 alongside a cultural commentary.
- Doctrine & Covenants
- Finished Doctrine and Covenants sections 133-Official Declarations. Read alongside two student manuals.
- New Testament
- Book of Matthew and started Book of Mark, reading alongside New Testament Student Manual.
- Come Follow Me lesson each week
- Did a semester of school and completed 15 credits.
- Most memorable reading was Nietzche.
Couldn’t pick my favorite for the cover photo, so keeping with tradition from last year:
No Coincidences 