Books I Hope to Read in 2022

I wrapped up 2021 with 10/11 of the books on my reading list finished. (I had ambitions of at least starting to read Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy on December 31st, but instead I took a third trimester nap). I can live with that.

Past my official list, I read 117 books in total (34.5k pages) and the numbers will probably go down again this year, with my second daughter due in February. And, more to the point, my toddler is very insistent that when we read together, I read a book from her shelf, not mine.

I still like making these lists, because they give me permission to prioritize these books over other things. By default, my reading plans are set by the schedule of library holds coming in, so being reminded that I wanted to make time for these books, and that I’ve set them an artificial deadline, helps me choose them.

This year’s list is definitely shaped by books I’ve found through my Other Feminisms substack project. I’m looking forward to the Kittay in particular. So, without further ado:

• (√) Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency by Eva Feder Kittay
• (√) Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America by Evelyn Nakano Glenn
• (√) Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births by Michelle Millar Fisher
• (√) Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity by Claudia Goldin
• (√) The Virtues of Limits by David McPherson
• (√) The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture: The Cadaver, the Memorial Body, and the Recovery of Lived Experience by Brent Dean Robbins
• The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World by Ran Abramitzky
• Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church by Michael Philip Penn
• The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics by Andrew Willard Jones
• (√) Sun Slower, Sun Faster by Meriol Trevor
• Brisbane by by Eugene Vodolazkin

And I got a lovely gift over Christmas of Malcolm Guite’s Word in the Wilderness.

It’s a collection of poems, one per day for the seasons of Lent and Easter. I’m grateful to have a small daily practice of prayer and of beauty, especially as many traditional Lenten penances don’t work with a newborn.

(Arguably a list of planned reading for the year also doesn’t work with a newborn + toddler, but time will tell! I know the list will help me get to some of them I’d otherwise miss. The question is: Which ones?)