22 Things I Consumed in 2022
a letter about my favorite things I read, saw, and listened to this year
Dear friends,
How are you? Anything bringing you joy today? This draft is coming together in bits and pieces, written partly at my house in Massachusetts and partly in New York City on a trip to see friends near and dear. What a time, you say! And I agree: visits home remind me that my heart is in many places and that in itself is a gift.
Pleasantries aside, and as promised, I’m writing so soon after my last letter because I wanted to share my favorite art/media that I consumed this year. I recognize no one’s necessarily asked for this list, particularly as we are all swimming in end-of-year content, but something I’ve grown comfortable with is creating the things I want and sharing them with the world, and if people respond or engage or enjoy, then I simply become an even more lucky gal. (Basically, this is me advocating for more making simply for oneself.)
I could ramble for days, but I’ll stop myself here, as we have a long list ahead. Without further ado!
BOOKS
Let us start with the obvious: I love books. It was a slow reading year, but I’ve made peace with it—it’s not every year that I also write a dissertation and start working full-time. Inspired by the wisdom of Maybe Baby, I’m also challenging myself to remove numbers from my reading life because I fear tracking has had a bigger impact on what I read than I’ve realized. Quality over quantity, folks!
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller: I think I’ve recommended The Paper Palace to near everyone in my life, but who can blame me? It is a beautifully crafted story of love and longing, time and regret. That it also takes place on the Cape and London—both places I hold close to my heart—certainly didn’t hurt.
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer: I’ve already spoken at length about how much I enjoyed Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, so let this simply stand as a call to read it yourself if you haven’t already. It’s stuck with me in the way that only the best books do.
These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett: Ann Patchett’s most recent essay collection is just adding to the collection of books of hers that I adore. I found myself reading and loving many books this year that explore friendship as a site of radical love (see also: Hua Hsu’s Stay True and Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things). This is a trend I welcome.
The Trees by Percival Everett: Leave it to the ever-trustworthy Booker Prize shortlist to lead me to one of my favorite books of the year. Percival Everett delivers a bracing satire that is in part so effective because it is unafraid of toeing the line between truth and fiction. Really brilliant.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones: It seems I’m rather late to this one, given that it was first published in 2009 in Poland, 2019 in the States, and won the Nobel Prize in 2019, but good literature remains good literature no matter when you get to it. Did I know I enjoyed noir? Apparently I do.
THEATRE
Let us now name the second obvious: I love theatre. Whereas I found it a slow reading year, I look back and realize that I managed to see an abundance of theatre: some of it incredible (below), some of it decidedly not, but all of it made me think and feel in some way and that is why I continue to attend. Joyous!
Sing Street (Huntington Theatre, Boston): I’ve yet to find the word to describe the experience of seeing a show that is just so utterly perfect and you leave the theatre feeling verklempt and reminded that art is a very powerful thing indeed. Sing Street did that for me, and I hope it finds a deserved long life on Broadway.
Evita Too (Cambridge Junction, Cambridge): I caught a work-in-progress showing of this in Cambridge over the summer before its run at Soho Theatre and let me tell you: I feel lucky. I think Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit are some of the smartest theatre makers working today, and this piece—and its commentary on making art but also just existing as a woman—simply affirmed for me why.
A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, New York): I’m grateful to have seen this only days ago, after long admiring the original cast recording for what feels like several years. It is clever, honest, funny, human, and a string of many more adjectives that will fail to do the live performance justice. So, in short: I’m a big fan.
Spring Awakening (Almeida Theatre, London): I have a complicated relationship with this musical (the taints of producing!), but Rupert Goold’s production blew my hesitations completely out of the water. You’ll note a pattern across all my writing that I’m on the continual hunt for art that depicts adolescence with care, and this production did so brilliantly. Do watch their performance of “Purple Summer” at the Olivier Awards if you haven’t yet.
Blues for an Alabama Sky (National Theatre, London): There was a point in watching this in which everyone in the audience gasped, and it ranks high on my list of stunning theatrical memories. I don’t think there’s any way of seeing it since it closed, so you’ll simply have to take my word for it and read the script when you have the chance.
MUSIC
These feel like my most personal recommendations, and I think it’s in large part because my music listening feels so private, done in the crevices of my schedule where I’m on my own: in my room, at the library, on the tube. My Spotify Wrapped will tell you I listened to a lot of Green Day (the Broadway cast recording of American Idiot for the win), but my favorites below are the other albums that I continue to play on a loop, transported to another soundscape for an hour’s time.
Euphoria Season 2 Official Score: I have absolutely zero interest in watching Euphoria, but Labrinth’s score? Dreamy. The soundtrack, as well as his album Imagination & The Misfit Kid, is music that sounds like magic. I could write to it for days.
Prioritise Pleasure: If you do follow me on Spotify, this recommendation will come as no surprise; I think I’ve listened to little else besides Christmas music this month. For lack of a better description, it’s a work of art. I’m counting down the days until I see her live (!).
WE ARE: Jon Batiste’s music is everything I could want while going through life, says me and everyone else on this planet Earth. WE ARE won the 2022 Album of the Year at the Grammys and rightfully so. The man is joy personified; his music is the same.
TELEVISION
I am a poor television watcher in that I struggle to carve out the time to watch a season in full. We’re also in an age of television gluttony, and I’ve yet to figure out how best to keep up with the many shows I’m told to watch—my list of things to start remains quite long! Despite these self-pitying qualifiers, I love what I did get to; a good episode can be a daymaker.
The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix): A fun fact about me is that I love an unplausible legal drama. (Related: I have little patience for snobbery about media consumption. Let us all enjoy whatever it is that we love!) The Lincoln Lawyer entered my life at the exact time I needed it, and I ate it up in mere days. Second to this is the brilliant Slow Horses on Apple TV+, which has similar vibes if you’re in need of a British spy thriller.
Maid (Netflix): We all know I’m easy to tear up when it comes to art, but have you watched Maid? It’s a powerful adaptation of the memoir of the same name, as well as a showcase of stellar acting by a cast young and old. Watching it had me both angry and hopeful, which I suppose sums up my relationship with America as a whole.
The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime): Once again, here’s a recommendation mainly because it takes its teenage characters seriously. I didn’t care much for the books, but I found the story worked like magic on the small screen, a celebration of youth and summertime and crushes and growing up. Call it perfection.
MOVIES
One thing I did more this year was go to the cinema by myself, as I had the belated realization that it’s no different than going to the theatre or a concert on your own! It’s a habit I’d like to carry into the new year, as doing so has pushed me to keep up with movie releases more seriously and I love the afternoon escape they provide.
The Worst Person in the World: This was a polarizing film among friends, and while I can understand why (particularly if you’re in the I-need-to-emphasize-with-characters crowd), I enjoyed it a lot. It felt like a depiction of all things messy, which really means a depiction of life.
Aftersun: Is it hyperbolic to say that Aftersun is one of the best films I’ve ever seen? Maybe, maybe not, all I know is that I’m obsessed. I left the theatre in a trance, and though it’s rare that I re-watch a film outside of those sealed in tradition, I’m already seeking out an opportunity to see it again.
Mr. Malcolm’s List: Researching as I write this blurb, I’m reminded that this heartwarming Regency romp is also a book! Thank goodness because I’d happily revisit Suzanne Allain’s delightful world of dances and revenge and passionate declarations of love. I’m a romantic at heart.
OTHER
And, finally, a grab bag category, for the things I found fascinating/insightful/relatable/cathartic/enjoyable (you get the idea) but that don’t fit neatly into one of the sections above.
“For the Eight-Year-Old in You”: There are two podcasts I manage to follow consistently, On Being being one (Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, for those curious, is the other). I look to it for calming inspiration and wisdom, and this conversation with Kate DiCamillo had plenty. I think we can all agree that children’s book authors are a treasure.
Catherine Newman’s House Tour: One day, I will write about desiring a particular lifestyle aesthetic when that aesthetic is… love? Give me time to sort out my thoughts, but know that a lot of my thinking is rooted in (of all things!) a house tour that is all at once charming and welcoming and thoughtful and true.
The Joy of Being Alone: As a woman who is forever single, I toggle between feeling the need to justify to the world my love of being on my own, questioning whether I’m doing something wrong, and finding such honest and genuine joy in the life I continue to build for myself on my terms. Reading Lyz Lenz’s newsletter felt like someone peering into my soul, and if we ever talk dating, get ready for me to send it to you.
And with that, we’ve reached the end! Thanks, as always, for being here. I hope you enjoyed; that your New Year’s Eve is whatever you want it to be, and that 2023 kicks off on the highest of notes, wherever you are in the world. I can’t wait to see what the new year holds—let it be one of good books, theatre, music, movies, television, etc. for us all.
With much love,
Bella