Here we are again, thank goodness. Another annual report to my imaginary shareholders.

The year found me feeling far happier than in recent years. 2020‘s lockdowns, 2021‘s covid problems and house move, years of catching up after the visa struggle are all behind us now and I find myself on the other side of a recovery process. I felt extremely creative this year and hungry for action. Next year, all being well, will be even more gorgeous.

Here goes.

2022’s first weeks were spent finessing my novel and sending it to choice independent publishers. After a couple of humane but final rejections and an unhealthy dollop of silence, I was still sending out manuscripts in September. But there’s a plan and I’m certain it will land on the doormats of patient readers and on the shelves of bookshops soon.

My other big creative project of the year was another book (my sixth), which was supposed to be out by now but there have been wintry delays. I don’t want to announce exactly what the book is yet, but there’s a teaser here and the British comedy psycho fans among you will deduce what it is. I’ll just say that it’s a lengthy pictorial interview with someone I admire very much. We spent a day together at Battersea Arts Centre in June and I finished the text of the book by late July. Then there was another round of pitching to publishers until finally settling on the logical choice.

There was also a third big project in the works during all this (also a book, a collaboration) but it’s embryonic at the moment and probably for fruition in 2024 if not later.

Excuses, excuses. I had the privilege of working hard and attentively this year on three wonderful things of my own invention, though I have nothing tactile to show for it yet. Soon, my pretties, soon. Next year’s review will be massive.

I turned 40 this year and I’M FINE WITH THAT.

The fat-handed twats at Specsavers broke my expensive hand-made glasses, which I am less fine with. RIP, my classic Harold Lloyd face.

Because I’m clearly such an interesting and delightful fellow, I was interviewed three times: first by comedy gadfly John Fleming, then by Gabe Featherstone for the British Comedy Guide, and finally in December for Outside Left. I was a guest on the I Quit Star Trek podcast too.

I published an essay about job quitting in the Idler, which seems like so long ago it can’t possibly have been this year (but it was).

While writing about job quitting, I perversely took a six week work-from-home contract for a library service. It was a piece of piss and the wounds healed so well that I can barely remember anything about the experience. Kerching!

Towards the end of the year I took to blogging more frequently here at New Escapologist. I think that’s because I’ve found a slightly new angle for the magazine, which has energised my Escapology gland and renewed my passion for it all. I also moved the New Escapologist mailing list over to the brave new world of Substack, which is so far paying dividends.

A survey for New Escapologist readers yielded an impressive 150 responses in December and some very useful data. Thanks to everyone who participated. If you didn’t know about this, it’s probably because it was a mailing list exclusive with the offer of a free book attached. You can join the fun here. As you probably know already, I’d like to bring the magazine back properly in 2023 so these activities have been a nice prologue to the process. Vive l’évasion!

I also overhauled my Wringham website to make it look lovelier. And in a “Web 1.0” nostalgia mood, I made a pointless links page. Fun!

For travel, Samara and I went to York by rail to see the Ismay Collection like a couple of pensioners, and later visited Napoli, Pompeii, and Herculaneum.

Oh, cripes, I went to Shetland too. This was quite an adventure. I went on my own, facing a rough sea crossing and rain and social awkwardness. Also sheep. It was bracing and brilliant. Proper travel without technically leaving the country.

Thanks to some cleverly-acquired new book cases here at Escape Towers, the library I share with Samara exceeded 500 volumes this year. This is delightful knowledge for a book lover after so many years of strict minimalism.

Ownership is unimportant compared to actually enjoying things. So here’s the list of books I devoured. Ask me anything about any of them if you’re interested. More than half the books I read this year were by women (and three by trans or non-binary authors). Well done, me. In 2015 I made the effort to achieve gender balance, but this year it just happened naturally. Either the world is becoming less sexist or I am. Hooray! The year started as a bit of a sausage fest though:

Nicholas Lezard – Bitter Experience Has Taught Me
Thomas Dolby – The Speed of Sound
Adam Buxton – Ramble Book
Bohumil Hrabal – Closely Watched Trains
Douglas Wolk – All of the Marvels
Michael Scott Moore – The Desert and the Sea
Michael Harris – Solitude
Martin Dorey – No More Rubbish Excuses
F Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Ali Smith – Autumn
Lonely Planet – Train Travel in Europe
Paulette Jonguitud – Mildew
Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle
David Sedaris – A Carnival of Snackery
Sarah Silverman – Bedwetter
Kay Dick – They
David Sedaris – Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Jonathan Ames – I Love You More Than You Know
Rachel Ingalls – Mrs. Caliban
Jonathan Ames – What’s Not to Love?
W. E. Bowman – The Ascent of Rum Doodle
John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
Jonathan Ames – The Extra Man
Marion Rankine – Brollyology
Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
Kikuko Tsumuro – No Such Thing as an Easy Job
Russell Hoban – The Bat Tattoo
Ali Smith – Artful
Luke Stephenson & Helen Champion – The Clown Egg Register
Desmond Morris – The Lives of the Surrealists
Mike Mignola et al – BPRD: Hell on Earth Vols. 1-4
Walter Tevis – The Queen’s Gambit
Lauren Elkin – Flaneuse
Stephen King – It
Margery Williams – The Velveteen Rabbit
Moyra Davey – Index Cards
Tove Jansson – Fair Play*
Chris Atkins – A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner
Angela Kirwin – Criminal
Carrie Marshall – Carrie Kills a Man
Ezra Rose – FYMA: A Lesser Key
Shola von Reinhold – LOTE

Honorable mentions (books I read in substantial part but didn’t finish for one reason or another):

Lucia Berlin – Manual for Cleaning Ladies
Derek Jarman – Modern Nature
Michael Pollan – How to Change Your Mind

May you all have a beautiful Year of the Globular Springtail.

If you’ve enjoyed some of the largely unremunerated work I’ve done this year, please consider sending some caffeine to fuel next year’s probably-too-ambitious and completely unfunded projects.

I end the year feeling much improved and, importantly, LIKE AN ARTISTE!

01 Jan 2023 No Comments