It was another memorable year of discovering new books from a wide range of genres, made even more meaningful by my amazing book club that is going strong after seven years and added some new members this year. Some of the best books I read this year were book club picks, including Olga Dies Dreaming, Great Circle, Lessons in Chemistry, and The Lincoln Highway (read at the end of 2021). I read a few National Book Award winners and finalists (Hell of a Book, Where the Dead Sit Talking, Matrix, All That She Carried, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club), all of which were excellent. I was also incredibly impressed with some of the debut novels I read this year (Remarkably Bright Creatures, Olga Dies Dreaming, Black Cake, Lessons in Chemistry, School for Good Mothers, to name a few) and I look forward to seeing what these authors come up with next!
Santa Fe had its inaugural International Literary Festival, bringing big name authors to our small city to talk about their work and their ideas. I met Colson Whitehead (for the second time), as well as Joy Harjo and Sandra Cisneros, but the highlight was seeing Emily St. John Mandel. I loved her most recent work (Sea of Tranquility) and hearing her talk about her life as a writer and mother, and her previous book about a pandemic, written long before 2020. There are a number of books arising from the pandemic (Cloud Cuckoo Land, In Paradise, Sea of Tranquility) that explore very similar themes including time travel, climate change, and connections to the past and to the future, and I think we will continue to see creativity and storytelling take a new direction as a result of the trauma of the past three years.
I often remember books based on where I was while reading them. This year our family did a lot of traveling, so some of the books I read were travel stories or travel guides. As I look back on my book list from the year, it’s fun to picture where I was when I read certain titles: on the plane to Venice, poolside in Isla Mujeres or Turks and Caicos, curled up by the fireplace in Breckenridge, at a park in Milwaukee, or listening to an audiobook while jogging through the woods on Whidbey Island. Books transport us to other worlds, but I think the lens through which we interpret and respond to a book also depends on our physical location and the events of our own lives.
I didn’t read as many memoirs this year (although some of my favorites were Crying in H Mart, Inside Out, One Life, and Poet Warrior, plus some humorous ones including Happy Go Lucky and One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter). I read two plays, two collections of poetry, and a few graphic novels. Per usual, I listened to a lot of audiobooks. When the narrator is good (like in The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Mad Honey, Where the Crawdads Sing, Anatomy: A Love Story, and The Winners), the voice makes the story come to life. The best nonfiction books I read this year (and some really excellent reporting) were The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness, The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach, and Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. I have a new appreciation for romance stories, especially those with contemporary themes (Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, People We Meet on Vacation, Seven Days in June).
Another highlight of the year was exploring chapter books with Ady! Now that she’s in Kindergarten, her reading skills are really taking off. I grew up with the American Girl stories and I find them to be such a meaningful introduction to historical fiction. We started some of the books about Addy and Kit, and we have some of Molly and Samantha’s stories to read next year.
As always, it was hard to narrow it down, but here are my favorite 22 books of 2022 (in no particular order)...
Best 22 of 2022
Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
True Biz, by Sara Novic
Razorblade Tears, by S.A Cosby
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
How Beautiful We Were, by Imbolo Mbue
Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez
Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
The Latecomer, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara
People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sherri Fink
Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen
Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng
The Winners, by Fredrik Backman
Fine: A Comic About Gender, by Rhea Ewing
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, by Anna Malaika Tubbs
And 23 books I look forward to reading in 2023...
Bronze Drum, by Phong Nguyen
A Map for the Missing, by Belinda Huijuan Tang
The Deluge, by Stephen Markley
Now is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson
The Sun is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon
Solito, by Javier Zamora
His Name is George Floyd, by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Dopamine Nation, by Anna Lembke
Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui
Bad Vibes Only, by Nora McInerny
Spare, by Prince Harry
Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty
Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, by Meghan O’Rourke
So We Can Glow: Stories, by Leesa Cross-Smith
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Hester, by Laurie Albanese
In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss, by Amy Bloom
Jackal, by Erin E. Adams
These Impossible Things, by Salma El-Wardany
The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd
Someday, Maybe, by Onyi Nwabinelli
The Survivalists, by Kashana Cauley
And for any who's interested, here's the complete list from 2022...Happy Reading!
Fiction Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby
Conjure Women, by Afia Atakora
The Trees, by Percival Everett
A Little Hope, by Ethan Joella
Matrix, by Lauren Groff
Small Country, by Gael Faye
The Sentence, by Louis Erdrich
Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney
Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Of Women and Salt, by Gabriela Garcia
Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez
The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller
West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge
To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara
Mink River, by Brian Doyle
A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurt
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Bunny, by Mona Awad
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
French Braid, by Anne Tyler
Seven Days in June, by Tia Williams
Intimacies, by Katie Kitamura
Reckless Girls, by Rachel Hawkins
Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles
Violeta, by Isabel Allende
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, by Alexis Hall
The Maidens, by Alex Michaelides
Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson
No One Goes Alone, by Erik Larson
One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle
Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
The Club, by Ellery Lloyd
Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea
Family of Liars, by E. Lockhart
The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J. Ryan Stradal
Run Rose Run, by Dolly Parton
Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult
Lapvona, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
True Biz, by Sara Novic
The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren
Anatomy: A Love Story, by Dana Schwartz
Yerba Buena, by Nina LaCour
The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
Sag Harbor, by Colson Whitehead
The School for Good Mothers, by Jassamine Chan
The Girl in His Shadow, by Audrey Blake
Jazz, by Toni Morrison
This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
Apples Never Fall, by Liane Moriarty
The Unsinkable Greta James, by Jennifer E. Smith
The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams
The Kiss Quotient, by Helen Hoang
The Latecomer, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen
Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict
Tracy Flick Can’t Win, by Tom Perrotta
The Diamond Eye, by Kate Quinn
Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
Summer Island, by Kristin Hannah
The Dead Romantics, by Ashley Poston
Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng
Hell of a Book, by Jason Mott
The Winners, by Fredrik Backman
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
How Beautiful We Were, by Imbolo Mbue
Honey Girl, by Morgan Rogers
The Magnolia Palace, by Fiona Davis
Luckiest Girl Alive, by Jessica Knoll
We Are the Brennans, by Tracey Lange
Mistletoe and Mr. Right, by Sarah Morgenthaler
Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo
The Fortunes of Jaded Women, by Carolyn Huynh
Carrie Soto is Back, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult
Where the Dead Sit Talking, by Brandon Hobson
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Mystery & Thriller
The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware
State of Terror, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny
The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton
The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
Girl, Forgotten, by Karin Slaughter
Police, by Jo Nesbo
Stargazer, by Anne Hillerman
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
The Sacred Bridge, by Anne Hillerman
Fantasy & Sci Fi
Wild Seed, by Octavia E. Butler
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel
The Perishing, by Natashia Deon
When We Were Birds, by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Clay’s Ark, by Octavia E. Butler
Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold, by Umar Turaki
Memoir & Autobiography
Letter to a Young Female Physician: Notes from a Medical Life, by Suzanne Koven
Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
Notes on Grief, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement, by Tarana Burke
Inside Out, by Demi Moore
Beautiful Country, by Qian Julie Wang
Poet Warrior: A Memoir, by Joy Harjo
One Life, by Megan Rapinoe
Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
Finding Me, by Viola Davis
Broken, by Jenny Lawson
One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, by Scaachi Koul
I’m Glad my Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
Raising a Rare Girl: A Memoir, by Heather Lanier
Hello, Molly!: A Memoir, by Molly Shannon
Nonfiction
Fodor’s In Focus Turks & Caicos Islands, by Fodor’s Travel Publications, Inc.
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sherri Fink
The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness, by Susannah Cahalan
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, by Anna Malaika Tubbs
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles
The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs, by Greil Marcus
How To Window Box: Small-Space Plants to Grow Indoors or Out, by Chantal Aida Gordon
National Geographic Traveler: Piedmont & Northwest Italy, with Turin and the Alps, by Tim Jepson
Venice, Verona, Lake Garda & the Dolomites with Kids 2022, by Ariela Bankier
Blue Guide Trentino & the South Tyrol with Trento, Bolzano, Roverto, Merano, Bressanone and the Dolomites, by Paul Blanchard
Glam Italia! 101 Fabulous Things to Do In Venice: Fantastic Finds in the Most Unique City on Earth, by Corinna Cooke
Fodor’s Venice & the Best of Northern Italy, by Fodor’s Travel Publications, Inc.
Easy Italian Phrase Book: Over 1500 Common Phrases For Everyday Use and Travel, by Lingo Mastery
The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt
The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach, by Sarah Stodola
Catholic Bioethics and Social Justice: The Praxis of US Health Care in a Globalized World, by M. Therese Lysaught and Michael McCarthy
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor
Poetry
Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur
Time is a Mother, by Ocean Vuong
Play
The Merry Wives of Windsor, by William Shakespeare
Disgraced, by Ayad Akhtar
Graphic Novel
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman
Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman
Fine: A Comic About Gender, by Rhea Ewing
Short Stories or Essays
Afterparties, by Anthony Veasna So
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
These Precious Days: Essays, by Ann Patchett
Dogs of Summer, by Andrea Abreu
Five Tuesdays in Winter, by Lily King
Kids’ Chapter Books
Betsy-Tacy, by Maud Hart Lovelace
Betsy-Tacy and Tib, by Maud Hart Lovelace
Meet
Addy: An American Girl, by Connie Rose Porter
Addy Learns a Lesson, by Connie Rose Porter
Meet Kit: An American Girl, by Valerie Tripp
Addy’s Surprise: A Christmas Story, by Connie Rose Porter
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