Year in Books 2022

Let the truth be heard

Dec 28, 2022

Well, I’m finishing 2022 the same way I started it—with COVID-19. I tested positive yesterday after waking up with a cough and sinus congestion that worsened throughout the day. It’s fairly mild. No fever. No chills. Nothing like what I went through in Belfast but I’m not feeling 100% and I’m stuck in a hotel in Downey so let’s get to it.

I read approximately 60 books in 2022. I set my reading goal for the year at 55, so good job me. Still, it doesn’t seem like a lot. I use Goodreads to track the books I’m reading (or try to anyway). I’m very generous with my rankings, I try to say something about every book I read, and I don’t read reviews of my own books.

If I wrote about a book here in Message from the Underworld or elsewhere, I’ve included a link (you may have to scroll a bit to get to the review.) I didn’t write as many reviews as I did in 2021, but I expect that to change. In fact, I’m working on a profile right now. More on that in a bit…

My commentary is a little light this year but do you really want me to go on and on about Bolaño, Melchor, and Pynchon? You do? Okay then. Before we start, what were some of your favorite books of 2022? What are you looking forward to reading in 2023?

Books That Made Me Question the Worthiness of the Human Project

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor
Nein, Nein, Nein! by Jerry Stahl
The Employees by Olga Ravn
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

Lots of dark AF fiction this year and I don’t see that trend reversing anytime some. Paradais was my favorite in this category but it’s the kind of book that after you finish it you set it down and stare into space and say “Fuck” over and over again. Good times.

Books That Reaffirmed It

Nina Simone’s Gum by Warren Ellis

I still can’t believe Ellis got an entire book out of an anecdote about a piece of chewing gum.

Books about Music & Musicians

Rock ‘n’ Roll Witch by Pleasant Gehman
Bang! by Henry Rollins
One from None by Henry Rollins
Anarchy at the Circle K by Patrick O’Neil
Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave
Soulside by Alexis Fleisig
A Brief Oral History of the Urinals and 100 Flowers by Ryan Leach

Will I read more Henry Rollins in 2023? You can bet your tiny black shorts on it.

Books That Zapped Me into the Past

I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart
You’ll Like It Here by Ashton Politanoff
Scream by Michael Seidlinger

Just a hunch, but I think I’ll be reading more history and historical fiction next year.

Books That Anticipate the Future

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Child Zero by Chris Holms

Books I Read for Research

Body Work by Melissa Febos.

I didn’t read Body Work for a particular project but since it’s a craft book I put it here. Highly recommended.

Books by Thomas Pynchon I Listened to While Driving Around California

The Crying of Lot 49
Inherent Vice
Vineland

Books That Don’t Rhyme

Howdie-Skelp by Paul Muldoon

I disliked this book so much it put me off poetry for the rest of the rear.

Books That Make Me Wanna Commit Some Crimes
Zig Zag by J.D. O’Brien
The Stowaway by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
Hangmen by Martin McDonagh
The Dalton Case by Ross Macdonald
Beneath the Black Palms by Nolan Knight
The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño
Silence William M. Brandon III

It was a great year for crime fiction and my reading was all over the map: plays, stories, novellas, and novels. Plus, I got to read two new books by my friends Nolan Knight and J.D. O’Brien and so should you.

Books That Go Bump in the Night

The Pallbearer’s Club by Paul Tremblay
Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

If you’re a fan of Hüsker Dü, and I know many of you are, you owe it to yourself to check out Tremblay’s latest.

Books with Pictures in Them

Reckless by Ed Brubaker
Friend of the Devil by Ed Brubaker
Destroy All Monsters by Ed Brubaker
The Ghost in You by Ed Brubaker
Pulp by Ed Brubaker
Fade Out by Ed Brubaker
The High Desert by James Spooner
Hard + Fast by Melanie Nissen

One of the highlights of 2022 was getting to know Ed Brubaker, James Spooner, and Melanie Nissen. Highly recommend the work these fine folks do.

Books with Stormbringer Slurping Up Some Souls

Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock
Fortress of the Black Pearl by Michael Moorcock
Sailor on the Seas of Fate by Michael Moorcock
Weird of the White Wolf by Michael Moorcock

If you want to hear about my summer of listening to stories about an albino warlock hacking demons to pieces with his sentient sword, I wrote about it in issue #130 of Razorcake.

Books That Are Difficult to Classify

A Shock by Keith Ridgeway
In the Pines by Paul Scraton
The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter
It Never Ends by Tom Scharpling
Take What You Need by Idra Novey
Stay True by Hua Hsu

Hsu’s Stay True made a lot of best music book lists, which is weird, because it’s not really about music. It’s about a terrible thing that happened to a close-knit group of college students who do all the things that college students do, including listen to music, but it’s not about music or musicians. Although I found some of the promo materials that Hsu generated about the book interesting, and the book is both tender and moving, music is a minor part of the narrative.

Books with Short Stories in Them

Best American Stories of Mystery & Suspense edited by Alafair Burke & Steph Cha
Homesickness by Colin Barrett
Natural History by Andrea Barrett

Books Recommended without Reservation

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
No One Left to Come Looking for You by Sam Lipsyte

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t recommend the new Lipsyte to just anyone but if I had $20,000 laying around I’d send a copy to every subscriber of Message from the Underworld. Gritty urban noir? Check. Punk rock poverty? Check. Hairball drug habits and sketchy sex? Check. Sam-fucking-Lipsyte? Oh yeah.

Wilson’s twisty LA novel is one of those books that is so good you can’t want to see the author in person so you can tell him. Read these books. They’re both short.

Books That Had the Biggest Impact

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Trés by Roberto Bolaño
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

I feel like I owe an explanation. Sometimes when I put this category together I’m thinking about the impact these books had on me as a reader, and sometimes I’m thinking about the books as a writer. Two of these books came out a long time ago and the third isn’t out yet, but they’ve had a profound impact on various projects.

I watched Fight Club just as I was undertaking a rewrite on my novel and it really got me thinking about the political aspects of the project--something I hadn’t really considered before. I have a lot to say about Fight Club, Project Mayhem, 9/11, and ethical vigilantism for an essay I’m pulling together.

When I bought Trés in a bookshop in London after Forest of Fortune came out, I didn’t realize I’d be carrying the book with me almost every time I visited a Spanish-speaking country for the next seven or eight years and become an integral part of my journey to learn to speak Spanish. I finally finished Tres after writing a very bad short story about a punk band in the ‘90s that needed serious work. The second part of Trés, “The Neochileans,” showed me the way.

Just last week I read Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows to prepare for a profile I’m writing about the author and I was blown away by the novel. Friends new and old have been raving about the book. Being a salty Gen Xer, this had the opposite effect, but now I know better. This book is a monster and I’ll have a lot more to say about it in the coming weeks.

Corporate Rock Sucks

Of course, no book had a bigger impact on my life in 2022 than Corporate Rock Sucks, a book that was—much to my surprise—greatly anticipated and widely celebrated.

I’ve been writing for punk rock zines since the mid-90s. Usually when I write something that people respond to it can take weeks or months and sometimes years to hear about it. Plus, books about punk rock generally don’t get the same kind of attention as books about The Beatles or Bob Dylan. So no one was more surprised than me when my book made a bit of a splash this spring. The book was reviewed in newspapers and magazines, I was interviewed by Nardwuar and shared the stage with Gina Schock, and I was a guest on more podcasts than I can count.

Books have a natural life cycle. There are always new books to read and “old” books get moved aside to make room for the new ones, which is as it should be.

So it was a nice surprise to see Corporate Rock Sucks named to a number of end-of-year lists in recent weeks, including Rolling Stone’s best music books of 2022, L.A. Taco’s best books about L.A. in 2022, and Louder’s best music books in 2022. (That’s in addition the lists by Pitchfork and Vanity Fair that I already told you about.)

All this attention has resulted in an unexpected hit of dopamine as I reflect on the year that was, the year to come, and all the fun projects I’m currently working on. If you’re new to Message from the Underworld or have been with me since November 2019, thank you for tuning in. Writing this newsletter each week has been a safe harbor in a very tumultuous year.

Programming note: I didn’t send out a new edition of Orca Alert! on Christmas day, but will resume this Sunday. What’s Orca Alert!? It’s a weekly round-up of links to stories you may have missed while you were avoiding the latest terrible thing in the news. Orca Alert! emphasizes stories pertaining to science, culture, and art and goes out to paid subscribers of Message from the Underworld.

If you’d like to receive Orca Alert! (almost) every Sunday, simply upgrade to a paid subscription. Thanks to those of you who recently upgraded. Your support goes a long way toward making Message from the Underworld possible. If you’d like to share this post with the book lovers in your life, I would greatly appreciate it.

Happy New Year! 2023 isn’t an election year, which means it has to be better than 2022, right?