Your FAVORITE BOOKS of 2022

Happy Almost 2023! What were your 10 favorite books read this year? Are you going to struggle to get your list down to 10? Are you going to struggle to come up with 10?

Tell us your best reads of the year, and if you're inclined, one line about why they made the list. Our TBR piles will continue to grow!

Best of 2006

Best of 2007

Best of 2008

Best of 2009

Best of 2010

Best of 2011

Best of 2012

Best of 2013

Best of 2014

Best of 2015

Best of 2016

Best of 2017

Best of 2018

Best of 2019

Best of 2020

Best of 2021

Happy list making!

Call The Nurse: True Stories of A Country Nurse On A Scottish Isle - Mary J. MacLeod
Nurse, Come You Here! More True Stories of Country Nurse On a Country Nurse On A Scottish Isle by Mary J. MacLeod
The Brown Chicken's Massacre - Maurice Possley
A Woman Of No Importance: The Untold Story of The American Spy Who Helped Win WWII - Sonial Purnell
Barnum: An American Life - Robert Wilson
Old Sparky- The Electric Chair and The History of The Death Penalty - Anthony Galvin

These are the books I gave 5 stars to.

the most satisfying audiobooks / as consumed

Woman in the White Kimono a novel by Ana Johns

The Second Mrs. Astor a novel by Shana Abe

Front Page Murder (A Homefront News Mystery, #1) by Joyce St. Anthony

The Butler: A Novel by Danielle Steel

Reminders of Him: A Novel by Colleen Hoover

The Joy and Light Bus Company (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #22)
by Alexander McCall Smith

Yours Cheerfully: A Novel (The Emmy Lake Chronicles, #2)
by AJ Pearce

A Sunlit Weapon: A Novel (Maisie Dobbs series, #17)
by Jacqueline Winspear

The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme, #12)
by Jeffery Deaver

Christmas Legacy
by Anne Perry
(a long-running annual fiction collection)

A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting: A Novel
by Sophie Irwin

My list has eleven books on it, whittled down from 15 or so. My list is in no particular order except for the first one.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is the perfect book. I'm sure it was written for a young adult audience, but this 59 year old loved every moment of the audiobook and cried when it was over.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
A Death in the Family by James Agee - such a beautiful book
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson - brilliant book
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane - powerfully written
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

Honorable mentions to all of Susan Hill's books in the Simon Serailler crime series; all of the books in Richard Osman's Thursday Club murder series; All the Light we Cannot See; All Quiet on the Western Front, and Ain't I a Woman? - Black Women and Feminism

Here are the top 6 although admittedly there were another 5 close behind

1) The Dawn of Everything by David Graeter and David Wengrow
2) The Promise by Damon Galgut
3) The Prodigal Son by Edward Villella
4) The Uninnocent: Notes on Violence and Mercy by Katherine Blake
5) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
6) The Death of the Artist by William Deresiewicz

Those close behind: Swann's Way, Roar of the Sea, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Piano Tuner, The End of Solitude

Of the 165 books I read in 2022, I rated exactly ten book with 5 stars.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
A History of Loneliness by John Boyne (re-read)
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (re-read)
The Turtle Warrior by Mary Relindes Ellis
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (re-read)
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
A Good American by Alex George

Thank you everyone for sharing your lists!

>4 ahef1963: I have to agree! I think House in the Cerulean Sea is my second favorite for the year, but it is probably my most recommended and gifted this year.

I had to narrow this down from a list of 16. It was a good reading year for me.
Here are my top ten(ish) of 2022 in the order I read them:

Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr - my favorite of the year
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder & Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson - counting as one since they're from the same series
Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts by Kate Racculia
The Institute by Stephen King
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Book of Extraordinary Tragedies by Joe Meno
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Change by Kirsten Miller

The House in the Cerulean Sea was one of my very favorite books the year it came out. More recently, I'm loving Becky Chambers's Monk and Robot books (last year: A Psalm for the Wild-Built; this year: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy). All very beautiful! They're outstanding in any year.

>8 reconditereader: Sounds interesting! Thank you for the recommendation.

Okay, I'm going to cheat and slip in 11 books. I wasn't willing to pull even one of them out of the list. I'm fighting the urge to add a twelfth book. You will obviously notice a theme for the year. I had someone ask me at work the other day if I was part Ukrainian.

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets - Svetlana Alexievich
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America - Timothy Snyder
The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine - Robert Conquest
Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine - Anne Applebaum
Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Geopolitics in the 21st Century) - Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy
The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News - Arkady Ostrovsky
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia - Peter Pomerantsev
Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches From Kiev - Andrey Kurkov
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
Ukraine's Maidan, Russia's War: A Chronicle and Analysis of the Revolution of Dignity - Mychailo Wynnyckyj
Black Sea - Neal Ascherson

>10 fredbacon: What a helpful list. Tell us your twelfth!

The twelfth book is The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution by Marci Shore.
The thirteenth would be The Fight of Our Lives by Iuliia Mendel.

My 2022 favorites:

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin
Sharks in the Time Of Saviors Kawai Strong Washburn
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Foster by Claire Keegan

and to get to ten, I’ll happily add:
The Office Of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
The Lewis Man by Peter May
And a Dog Called Fig Helen Humphreys
French Braid by Anne Tyler