Second paragraph of third chapter, though I did not get that far:

I was all alone with my present. With my future.

A retelling of the story of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, from her own viewpoint. Historical cliché piled upon historical cliché; antic diction interweaves with the style of a magazine tell-all article. I did not quite make it to the end of the second chapter. You can get The Good Wife of Bath here.

This was the non-genre fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that list is Our Wonderful Selves, a play by Jon Pertwee’s father Roland Pertwee.

Also read, but I’m not going to review it, The Spark That Survived, by Myra Lewis Williams, the second paragraph of whose third chapter is:

As their first child, I’ve heard their story so many times I can recite it in my sleep.

This was the shortest book that I had acquired in 2022 and not yet read. Next on that pile is Yet More Penguin Science Fiction, edited by Brian Aldiss.