Reading Tally for 2022

VÄINÖ HÄMÄLÄINEN, A MAN READING

With two days to go, it's unlikely I'll finish reading another work by the end of the year. so my 2022 tally will stand at 66. Noticing others keeping such tallies also included page counts, I also began this year to keep a page count: 12,671

I entered the year knowing I would read fewer works than I did the year before (95). I chose some heftier, more difficult, more dense works, like the lesser Shakespeare plays or The Brothers Karamazov. Plus, I have added volunteer activities to occupy my time.

Here's the tally, roughly organized by category (spiritual, classics, children's, mysteries, poetry, etc.):

Heroes of the Catholic Reformation: Saints Who Renewed the Church by Joseph Pearce

Faith of Our Fathers: A History of True England by Joseph Pearce

Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton 
The Shepherds' Prayer by Richard M. Barry 
The Golden Thread by Louis de Wohl
Saint Joan: The Girl Soldier by Louis de Wohl
The Song at the Scaffold by Gertrud Von Le Fort
Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

Utopia by St. Thomas More
The Confessions by Saint Augustine
Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna: A New Translation and Theological

     Commentary by Kenneth J. Howell

Sonnets of the Cross: The Via Dolorosa by John Patrick McDonough with art by David

     McDonough 

This Thing of Darkness by K. V. Turley and Fiorella De Maria
A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson 
Toward the Gleam by T. M. Doran

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris 
Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson 
How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman
Legendary Ireland Photographs by Tom Kelly, Text by Peter Somerville-Large
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis 

Klem Watercrest The Lighthouse Keeper by Jay Diedreck

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien
Phantastes by George MacDonald

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Symposium by Plato
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Spirit Woman by Margaret Coel 
Last Things by Ralph McInerny

Sine Qua Nun by Monica Quill (Ralph M. McInerny) 
The Ghostway by Tony Hillerman 
Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman 
The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle 
An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters 
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett 
The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by “Carolyn Keene” 
Maigret on the Defensive by Georges Simenon 
Requiem at the Refuge by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie 
The Secret of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton 
“The Donnington Affair” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Vampire of the Village” by G. K. Chesterton

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare
Love’s Labor’s Lost by William Shakespeare 
Pericles by William Shakespeare 
Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare 
All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare 
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 
The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare 
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare 
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare 

Brief Candles: 101 Clerihews by Henry Taylor 
Academic Graffiti by W.H. Auden 
A Further Range by Robert Frost 
A Witness Tree by Robert Frost 
The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton 
Lepanto: With Explanatory Notes and Commentary by G. K. Chesterton 

Friendship and Other Poems by Marguerite de Angeli

One of my goals for the year was finishing my reading of all the 38 officially credited plays of Shakespeare; I met that goal. There is another play on which he is believed to have collaborated, a play about Saint Thomas More. It's not included in the official list, but I will read it this coming year.  I also hope to read all of his sonnets.

I met another goal in reading another Dickens (Oliver Twist). And I made progress on reading all the Hillerman Navajo mysteries, all of the Father Brown (Chesterton) mysteries, and all of Robert Frost's published books of poetry.

There were some other works that I set out to reread - and did: 

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Confessions by Saint Augustine
The Symposium by Plato

I fell short on some others, though:

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.
The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn .

I am working my way through Imitation, so I'll finish that early next year. 

Goals for 2023:

50-70 works, 12,000+ pages

More spiritual reading, including some encyclicals and Mere Christianity by Lewis

Finish the Hillerman Navajo mysteries

Finish the Father Brown mysteries (Just 9 stories to go!)

Read at least one more of Frost's poetry books

Reread David Copperfield by Dickens

Read Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 

Read Saint Thomas More by several writers, with input by Shakespeare

Read all of Shakespeare's sonnets

I'm sure more works will surface as the year progresses.

Pax et bonum