Wire Haiku

Hello and welcome to Wire Haiku’s end-of-year retrospective, where I kick back and look at some of the best things I saw in 2022, starting with the best books I read. These aren’t necessarily books that came out in 2022, just the ones I discovered and loved this year.

In ascending order of best-ness:

3: The Listmaker by Robin Klein

This one is kind of cheating, but it’s my blog and I can break my own rules if I want to.

The Listmaker is a 1997 novel I read cover to cover several times as a child and only recently rediscovered. It’s about a young girl who’s spending the summer with her aunts as her whole life is being upended: her father is remarrying, her new stepmother is bitter and unlikeable, her friends from boarding school never call her and she’s constantly being interrupted by the brazen tomboyish girl next door.

Throughout all of this, she confronts her struggles by making lists: lists of cities, lists of books to read, lists of things to do and people to meet. It’s becoming a bad habit, but it’s the only thing she has to keep her sane while the world around her gets too much to handle.

I absolutely adored this book when I was young — I admit, I found it quite relatable — and as an adult I found a whole new angle on the story. Suddenly I understood while all the adults in this book were acting so strangely and why they never could give the protagonist the help she so desperately needed.

Absolutely a must read for anyone who felt a little too lonely and overwhelmed as a kid.

2: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Hot take: it’s The Martian with an actual story.

Sorry, I know people loved Andy Weir’s previous book but it just never gripped me the way it did most people. Project Hail Mary on the other hand, captured me right from the start.

Maybe it’s the in medias res start, the flashback storylines, the alien adventure; or maybe it’s just the incredible sense of discovery that happens on every single page of the book. Weir creates a genuine feeling of discovery and mystery that gripped me so hard I had to finish the whole book in a weekend. (I haven’t done that since Goblet of Fire.)

1: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

As a poet I should have a better way of describing this book, but honestly the only word that comes to mind is “heartbreaking”. Madeline Miller rewrote the story of Achilles from the perspective of his lover Patroclus, and every single moment pulls my heartstrings in just the right way.

It made my cry, it made me laugh, it made me stare out my window out at the stars above and the streets below. A good book makes you think about it, a great book makes you think about yourself and that’s exactly what The Song of Achilles did.

Well, those are my favourite books of 2022. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time for another retrospective.