Things I Liked in 2022
7 January 2023
For context, I gave up any sort of pretension at objective “best of” lists long ago. I read, watch, and listen to what I can manage and like what I like. There are always things I miss or catch up on later. But here are things that I thought didn’t suck in 2022.
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Films from 2022 I liked: Decision to Leave, TÁR, The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion, The Northman, Turning Red, Emily the Criminal. I liked a lot more horror films, but they get their own list (coming soon).
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Not from 2022, but I got the opportunity to see the rereleased Out of the Blue, which was phenomenal.
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Television shows (either limited series or shows with seasons from 2022) that I liked: The Bear, The White Lotus, House of the Dragon, Yellowjackets, Made for Love, Severance, Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities, Barry, Our Flag Means Death, What We Do in the Shadows, Los Espookys, The Dropout, 1899, Light & Magic.
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My reading is always lagging a bit behind the newest releases, but books I read in 2022 (either from 2021 or 2022) and enjoyed: The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran; The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas; Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey; Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper; Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Stephen Graham Jones; The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling; Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca; When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow; Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange; Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami.
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In the classic book category, last year I finally read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (wonderful) as well as J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla.
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Podcasts with 2022 seasons: You Must Remember This: Erotic 80s, Rabbits, Ghost Church, Sympathy Pains. I also really got deep into horror storytelling podcasts like Creepy and No Sleep.
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One of my 2022’s resolutions was to go to the opera, something I had never done before. I went twice to Lyric Opera of Chicago and saw Tosca and Don Carlos.
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Another resolution was to take a long-distance trip by train, which I did, from Chicago to New Orleans and back. That was good.
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I took a class to learn how to use my DSLR camera and photography became my new hobby, by which I remembered that you can do things without feeling compelled to perfect them, but rather just because you enjoy them.
(If you really like lists, you can also read what things I liked in 2021 or all of the things I liked lists.)