In no particular order, here is a non-comprehensive and surely forgetful list of things I liked in 2022:

Television:

Magpie Murders was an absolute delight, a meta-murder mystery with colliding plotlines and timelines. One of the most refreshingly different mysteries I’ve seen in a month of Sundays.
Professor T (Belgian, with subtitles). This ended up being one of my favorite television series of all time. Ever. The series explores human suffering, pain and ultimately redemption in ways that I’ve never seen a whodunnit manage. And there’s plenty of humor to lighten the mood when needed (Goele Derick is a genius in her role as a passive aggressive university secretary). Caveat: two episodes deal with assault, so be aware if you’d prefer to avoid.

Books:

Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation).
Farenheit 451 is absolutely chilling and you may as well give up on sticking to your bedtime, should you attempt to read before sleep. That hound — shudder…
Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education, by Stratford Caldecott. Math has always left me cold, but reading this challenged my understanding of beauty, order and the structure of the universe. While written from a religious perspective, there’s plenty of science-y bits that would appeal to anyone, regardless of creed.

Podcasts

In Our Time covers a multitude of subjects ranging from literature to philosophy to history. I love to queue this up before long car drives.
I’ve burnt out on true crime podcasts, but did enjoy Atlantic.

Other things I loved? A visit to the Museum of Russian Icons this past March and a side trip to Nashoba Valley Winery made for a fun excursion. Keeping a garden provided plenty of joy and occasional madness (read: cabbage moth caterpillars). I did some part-time work and balanced that with studying, as well as finishing art for a new installment of the Anne of Green Gables series. I also wrote two truly terrible first drafts for books and barely resisted the urge to light them on fire. So while 2022 felt at times like a massive real-time version of Whack-a-Mole, it had its good points all the same.

So upwards and onwards, into the new year. But first I plan to polish off the remainder of the cookies…