Favorite books of 2022

I think I was successful, definitely improving over the previous year, and I finished 24 books this year. Below is a review of my favorite books from this year in order of how fondly I look back on them.

All links for books and authors go to Goodreads.com.

1. My First Summer in the Sierra

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author: John Muir

John Muir, famous naturalist and author, maintained a diary (later published as this book) on his first summer in the Sierra mountains in central California. He described the scenery, plants, and animals with such awe and prestige, the I couldn’t help but hold the region in high regard. Reading Muir’s writings prior a trip to Yosemite with my girlfriend in the spring of this year enriched the entire experience noticeably as it framed the trip with a sense of adventure and appreciation of the natural wonder.¹

2. Down the Great Unknown²

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author: Edward Dolnick

This book detailed the trip lead by John Wesley Powell, eccentric professor, down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, definitely the first for a non-Native American to the region, and perhaps the first for man judging by the accounts of native peoples contacted in preparation for the trip whole wholly regarded it as a suicide mission. The author is thorough in description of the time, the men, the various simultaneous storylines, but this book reads fast as there is an overwhelming sense of adventure thread throughout.

3. Meat Eater³

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author: Steven Rinella

Many of the tales of adventure are written in a world that no longer exists – see the first two books in this list. In Meat Eater, Rinella tells of a diverse array of adventures he has taken at every stage of his life in the modern world, in times and places that are accessible to the common man. While this book is an easy read, it remains thought-provoking and insightful as it is much a story of exploration of the natural world as it is an exploration of a maturing man.

4. Coolidge

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author: Amity Shales

We never learned about Coolidge in school; he was skipped jumping from T.R./Wilson/WWI to Hoover/The Great Depression/WWII. Yet, he was a remarkably unremarkable president as he is one of the first modern Republicans (that is, a limited-government politician in the era of big government). I didn’t know much about his life or presidency, and Shales provided a clear, concise portrayal.

5. The Nazi War on Cancer

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author: Robert N. Proctor

Historical reports of the Nazis are often, quite rightly, focussed on the slaughter of millions of innocents, predominately the antisemitic attempt to “cleanse” the world of the Jews. While that part of history is important to remember and study, The Nazi War on Cancer instead turns its attention to the study of cancer in early 1900’s Germany, a society at the vanguard of science and engineering. I happened across this book as I was preparing to write by Ph.D. dissertation on cancer genetics and it was, rather unsurprisingly, a fascinating read that covered critical and influential stages in the history of the field⁴.