The Best Books I Read in 2022
Not counting the books in draft I read for author friends and contacts, I finished 168 books in 2022.
People often ask me how I read so much. I don’t make it a point of pride or bragging; it’s just that I’ll read at every opportunity, including while waiting in line at a store, brushing my teeth (yep), while on public transportation, in the morning, while eating, and if you give me a free hour to do whatever I like (which will be reading).
I’ve always preferred reading to every other type of sedentary entertainment. I don’t play games on a console, computer, or even my phone. I’ll sit through programs and series and movies if someone else wants to watch something as a social activity. I use social media rarely, mainly Twitter, and only on my computer browser as a break (or reward) between tasks—when reading would distract me for too long from what I need to get done that day.
So hey, if you read at all, even a handful of books each year, I consider you a hero. This world needs more readers.
My Best of the Best
Given the volume of my reading, I struggle to narrow down my quarterly favorites—on each quarter’s reading list, which you’ll find linked below, I bold my favorites from the three-month period—to three to five overall annual favorites.
I had a total of 38 books I loved in 2022 from the overall total of books read, so the narrowing required no small amount of thought and time.
As you’ll see via the alphabetized-by-author-last-name list below, I didn’t succeed in narrowing my list of the favorites of the favorites from 2022 down to three or five:
Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha
Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon
On Était des Loups, by Sandrine Collette (in French)
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, by Angie Cruz
Fellowship Point, by Alice Elliott Dark
The End of Vandalism, by Tom Drury
Deer Season, by Erin Flanagan
How did I make my selection of best of the best books I read in 2022?
Well, fortunately, I could mainly rely on the same parameters I used last year, with one addition: The mechanics of the books’ writing—the writing at the language level—needed to bewitch me.
The full set of criteria:
the writing at the language level needed to delight me
the book made me think via new perspectives, new considerations, new theses and themes
the overall whole stuck with me—that, even months later, I find my brain still returning to it
the reading provoked a visceral—not just an intellectual—response
If a book didn’t check all four criteria, no matter how much I enjoyed it on other levels, I’d still call it a favorite read from the year, though I couldn’t put it on my best-of-the-best list.
And no, I don’t know why all listed authors’ last names come from the first six letters in the alphabet.
Serious Contenders
As I did last year, I decided to list the books that hit hard all but one of the criteria (though I still encourage you to click through each quarter’s post to see the overall total set of the year’s favorites, which I bolded in each list):
The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
The Long and Faraway Gone, by Lou Berney
Confessions, by Kinae Minato
One-Shot Harry, by Gary Phillips
My Phantoms, by Gwendoline Riley
Night of the Living Rez, by Morgan Talty
All are in order by the author’s last name, as with the list above. Fortunately, this list is a little more alphabet egalitarian.
Quarterly Book Lists for 2022
To see my reading list for each of the four 2022 quarters, here’s the set of links:
As mentioned, you’ll see I bolded in each quarter my favorites for that period. I consider the bolded 38 books (across all four quarters) my favorites for the year.
Reading into 2023
If you’d like to see my best-of-the-best books lists for previous years, click through the below:
As for reading into 2023, I’ve already begun! And I’m always open to ideas and suggestions, so if you have books you loved that you think I’d love, too, let me know.