My 2022 Fall Reading List

I try to reading 8-10 books per month. With school starting on Monday, and summer winding down, I’ve started to think about what I want to read in the fall. Much of my reading is dictated by the butterfly effect of reading. So lists like the one that follows are subject to severe winds and shifts in the reading weather. Still, looking at what’s sitting on my shelves, and considering what I have been reading lately, along with what I know is coming soon, here is a list, in no particular order, of the books I’m currently planning to read this fall.

• Fairy Tale by Stephen King. The newest Stephen King comes out just after Labor Day, and as always, I am looking forward to it.
• Hell and Back by Craig Johnson. The newest entry in the Walt Longmire series also drops on the same day, which will make it really hard for me decide what to read first.
• This Living Hand and Other Essays by Edmund Morris. I’ve read several of Morris’ biographies, including the last one he wrote on Thomas Edison. But I’ve never read any of his essays.
• Roger Williams and the Creation of the America Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry. I read Barry’s amazing book on the 1918 flu, The Great Influenza. Growing up, I living in Rhode Island, where Roger Williams was an important figure. The zoo was named after him.
• The Statesman and the Storyteller: John Hay, Mark Twain, and the Rise of American Imperialism by Mark Zwonitzer. I’m nearly finished with David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas and John Hay makes an appearance in that book.
• Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson. Because it will be a while before Book 5 comes out–but “a while” is relative. Here, we’re talking maybe a year.
• Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw. I’ve been wanting to read this biography for a while now.
• Travels by Michael Crichton. One of the books I picked up at a used bookstore recently.
• Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell. I binged the two book’s Bythell has written about his bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland.
• Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen. In addition to history, I’m interested in the people who tell the stories, who write the histories.
• About the Author: Inside the Creative Process by Nicholas A. Basbanes. I absolutely loved Basbanes’ book, A Gentle Madness, and I am trying to read everything he’s written.
• Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the Twenty-First Century by Nicholas A. Basbanes. See above.
• Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Ditto.
• The Life of Johnson by James Boswell. Every now and then I have to tackle a Really. Big. Book. This one has been on my list for some time.
• The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor by John McPhee. One of the few McPhee books I haven’t yet read.
• The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present edited by Phillip Lopate. Just flipping through the contents of this book when I saw in in a used bookshop made me want to read it.
• Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing by Stephen King. A rare Stephen King book that I have not yet read.
• Back Where I Came From by A. J. Liebling. I loved Liebling’s The Sweet Science and have wanted to read more by him for a long time now.
• The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New HIstory, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Steve Brusatte. His book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs was the first dinosaur book I’ve read since I was a kid. It was a good book, and so I’ll take more.
• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. I’ve had this book for a while, but it was an article in the September issue of WIRED that reminded me of it.
• The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 1+2 by Steven L. Kent. I’ve read a few books on the history of video games. This 2-volume edition looks to be comprehensive.
• No Plan B by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The newest installment in the Jack Reacher series.
• And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham. I can’t resist books on Lincoln, or books by Meacham.

Sometime around the winter solstice, I’ll post a follow-up, and we’ll see how many of these books I get through. In the meantime, you can always check the list of books I’ve read since 1996, or Goodreads, both of which I keep up-to-date.

Written on August 26, 2022.