Asking the Wrong Questions

I read 97 books in 2022. A large number by anyone's standards, but particularly impressive to me when I consider that for the first two months of the year, I barely had the energy to read anything. A house move sapped my ability to concentrate on the written word. In January, for example, while preoccupied with packing, moving trucks, and endless bureaucracy, and inspired by the recently-released movie , I read only the first two Dune sequels. Which might have occasioned some glaring looks from my TBR pile, except that it was all in boxes. Packing my books, in fact, was an occasion to think about my reading habits. Nothing makes you wonder whether the time reading it was well-spent so much as looking at a book and realizing that you're not willing to expend box space on it. And even in my new home (with a bit more space to spread out) I've found myself hesitant to bring more physical books into it. With every paper book I purchase, I wonder whether I will really be able to

At the beginning of this year, I participated in a Strange Horizons roundtable on the unexpectedly entertaining first season of Amazon's adaptation of the Wheel of Time books. In that discussion, I was present as the token non-book reader, the person who enjoyed the show but had no idea what greater significance its events, setting, and characters foretold. Now at the close of the year, I'm taking the opposite position on another roundtable about another Amazon show, the Lord of the Rings prequel series The Rings of Power . The other participants are author and reviewer Will Shaw, Strange Horizons coordinating editor Gautam Bhatia, and reviews co-editor Aishwarya Subramanian. The discussion was ably organized, led, and edited by reviews co-editor Dan Hartland. Abigail Nussbaum: I’d say my main issue with the show is its bifurcated approach to its storytelling, and especially how it filled in the source material. Yes, sometimes it felt incredibly imaginative and creative.