Best Books 2022
STARRED REVIEW

December 2022

The Best Books of 2022

The editors of BookPage share their top titles of the year, across all genres and categories.

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Babel by R.F. Kuang

Set in an alternate Victorian Britain, R.F. Kuang’s standalone historical fantasy is an unforgiving examination of the cost of power.

Babel

Everywhere With You by Carlie Sorosiak, illustrated by Devon Holzwarth

Carlie Sorosiak and Devon Holzwarth’s flawless picture book rings with a tender truth: When you are with the ones you love, everywhere you go is home.

Everywhere With You by Carlie Sorosiak and Devon Holzwarth

Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola

This enemies-­to-lovers romance set on a British university campus hums with Bolu Babalola’s energetic, intelligent voice.

Honey and Spice jacket

An Immense World by Ed Yong

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong’s nonfiction study of animal senses is an immersive, page-turning reading experience.

An Immense World book cover

In Love by Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom is known for examining the dynamics of intimacy in her fiction, but she has never gotten closer to the flame than in this memoir of her husband’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

In Love book jacket

Lolo’s Light by Liz Garton Scanlon

Liz Garton Scanlon’s compelling middle grade novel glows with empathy and understanding.

Lolo's Light by Liz Garton Scanlon book cover

Man o’ War by Cory McCarthy

This YA novel’s exploration of queer identity ferociously resists the idea that coming out is a simple or straightforward process.

Man O' War by Cory McCarthy

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Despite its doomed Midwestern setting, Tess Gunty’s debut novel makes storytelling seem like the most fun a person can have.

The Rabbit Hutch book jacket

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Hernan Diaz’s second novel is a beautifully composed masterpiece that examines the insidious disparities between rich and poor, truth and fiction.

Trust book cover

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Dan Fesperman’s intense post-Cold War mystery savvily addresses both the personal and political pressures facing an East German spy.

Winter Work book cover

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2022 brought innumerable literary wonders, but as far as the year’s very best, we’ve narrowed it down to 10 outstanding titles.

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

The engrossing 10th novel from Nobel laureate Gurnah is filled with compassion and historical insight.

Afterlives book cover

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

Bitingly funny and sweetly earnest, Mathews’ debut is one of those rare novels that feels just like life.

All This Could Be Different

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

Not since Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend has a novel so deftly probed the magical and sometimes destructive friendships that can occur between two girls.

The Book of Goose

Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah

When your heritage and ancestry are the reasons for your oppression, to whom can you turn in order to survive, but to family? Hokeah’s exceptional debut novel follows a Native American man’s life through the many leaves of his family tree.

Calling for a Blanket Dance

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

Egan’s empathetic interest in human behavior is what drives The Candy House, making her companion novel to A Visit From the Goon Squad more than a literary experiment.

The Candy House

The Consequences by Manuel Muñoz

In this story collection, Muñoz forges a new Latinx narrative, wherein all aspects of Latinx life are displayed with richness and complexity.

Book jacket image for The Consequences by Manuel Munoz

Either/Or by Elif Batuman

Selin, the hero of Batuman’s The Idiot, returns with a voice that is more mature, reflective and droll.

Either Or book jacket

The Furrows by Namwali Serpell

Serpell’s award-winning debut novel, The Old Drift, was a genre-defying epic about three generations of Zambian families, and her purposely disconcerting follow-up will reinforce readers’ appreciation of her daring experimentation and keen talent.

Book jacket image for The Furrows by Namwali Serpell

How It Went by Wendell Berry

Taken together, the 13 stories in Berry’s How It Went create a tale that gently unwinds and doubles back on itself, not so much like a river but more like a flowering vine.

Book jacket image for How It Went by Wendell Berry

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

Escoffery’s connected stories offer an imaginative, fresh take on being a man and nonwhite immigrant in America.

If I Survive You book jacket

Lessons by Ian McEwan

This scathing, unsettling novel posits that knaves and heroes come in all guises.

Lessons cover

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Garmus’ devastating and funny debut novel blows the lid off simplistic myths about the 1950s.

Lessons in Chemistry book cover

Natural History by Andrea Barrett

The stories in Barrett’s dazzling collection demonstrate that while history distills events, fiction can bring messy humanity to life.

Natural History book cover

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Ng is undoubtedly at the top of her game as she portrays an American society overcome by fear.

Our Missing Hearts book cover

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Despite its doomed Midwestern setting, Gunty’s debut novel makes storytelling seem like the most fun a person can have.

The Rabbit Hutch book jacket

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

It’s impossible to predict how, exactly, you’ll fall in love with this novel, but it’s an eventuality you can’t escape.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow book cover

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Diaz’s second novel is a beautifully composed masterpiece that examines the insidious disparities between rich and poor, truth and fiction.

Trust book cover

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Stuart’s follow-up to Shuggie Bain is a marvelous feat of storytelling, a mix of tender emotion and grisly violence.

Young Mungo book cover

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The year’s best fiction included a remarkable number of groundbreaking story collections—some deeply interconnected like Oscar Hokeah’s and Jonathan Escoffery’s, others bound mostly by theme and setting, such as Manuel Muñoz’s. We also reveled in several major releases from well-established authors, including Celeste Ng, Ian McEwan, Yiyun Li and Gabrielle Zevin.

Sophomore novels from Hernan Diaz, Namwali Serpell, Douglas Stuart and Elif Batuman surpassed the high bars of their debuts, and first-timers Tess Gunty, Sarah Thankam Mathews and Bonnie Garmus made a hell of a splash.

Also a Poet by Ada Calhoun

Calhoun’s biography of the poet Frank O’Hara unexpectedly transformed into an absorbing and insightful memoir about her father.


Free by Lea Ypi

Political scholar Ypi’s poignant, funny memoir views Albania’s journey out of socialism through a child’s eyes.


Half American by Matthew F. Delmont

Delmont provides a top-notch overview of the contributions of Black service members and civilians during WWII.

Book jacket image for Half American by Matthew F. Delmont

How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

Castillo brilliantly argues that being a good reader means learning how to interrogate the stories all around us.

Book jacket image for How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

An Immense World by Ed Yong

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Yong’s nonfiction study of animal senses is an immersive, page-turning reading experience.


In Love by Amy Bloom

Bloom is known for examining the dynamics of intimacy in her fiction, but she has never gotten closer to the flame than in this memoir of her husband’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

In Love book jacket

In the Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

Unlike mountaineering memoirs that celebrate the individual, Vasquez-Lavado’s is intimately collaborative.

book jacket for In the Shadow of the Mountain

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

Gay’s powerful and poetic sixth book asks: What incites joy? And more importantly, what does joy incite in us?

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

The Invisible Kingdom by Meghan O’Rourke

O’Rourke compassionately chronicles the rise of autoimmune disease alongside her own search for healing.


Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen

Historian Cohen brilliantly captures the complicated lives of America’s most influential interwar journalists.


The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Rojas Contreras makes the history of Colombia immediate and personal.


Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy

Macy’s follow-up to Dopesick ​​will radically change your opinions on the opioid crisis.

Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy

Red Paint by Sasha LaPointe

LaPointe offers a poetic narrative of trauma and healing through ancestral rites and punk rock.


The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Schiff vividly renders an essential Founding Father: Samuel Adams.


River of the Gods by Candice Millard

In this unforgettable history of the Nile, European explorers’ egos loom godlike, but East African guides save lives.


The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee

This captivating book from Pulitzer Prize winner Mukherjee explores how cellular engineering can reshape medicine.


South to America by Imani Perry

In a vibrant blend of travelogue, memoir and cultural history, Perry shows the South’s iniquity and beauty.


Stay True by Hua Hsu

Hsu’s remarkable memoir examines the reverberations of a friendship frozen in time by untimely death.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv

This stunning book profiles people whose experiences of mental illness exceed the limits of Western psychiatry.


Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse

Krouse’s compelling, highly personal account of a landmark Title IX case reads like a detective novel.


This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan

Carvan makes an excellent case for embracing what you like and the delight it brings—no shame allowed.

Jacket of This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan

Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa

Villarosa’s wonderfully written book makes stunning points about the health risks of racism.

Book jacket image for Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa

Virology by Joseph Osmundson

Sparkling prose, glittering insights and accessible writing make this one of the best science books of the year.


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This year’s best nonfiction books ran the gamut from timely to timeless. Meghan O’Rourke, Siddhartha Mukherjee and Linda Villarosa broke new ground in our understanding of illness. Memoirs by fiction writers including Amy Bloom, Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Erika Krouse told gripping true stories with a novelist’s flair. And beloved favorites such as Ed Yong, Ross Gay and Stacy Schiff rose to meet their fans’ high expectations.

Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild

Promising Young Woman meets “Dexter” in this highly suspenseful and strangely empowering thriller from an Emmy-nominated screenwriter.

Blood Sugar jacket

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler

Part locked-room mystery, part legal thriller, The Cage is tailor-made to be read in one breathless session.

The Cage jacket

Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

Geiger is a truly excellent first novel: deeply researched, painstakingly crafted and thrilling on every page.

Geiger jacket

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

With unexpected twists, a paranoid atmosphere and a fascinating narrator, The Half Life of Valery K is a superb work of historical fiction and an excellent mystery.

The Half Life of Valery K jacket

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

Mystery lovers will be thoroughly entertained by this thoughtful noir that examines midcentury LGBTQ+ life through a cast of dynamic characters.

Lavender House jacket

Little Sister by Gytha Lodge

A teenage girl covered in blood interrupts Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens’ afternoon pint—and Gytha Lodge’s mystery only gets more unpredictable from there.

Little Sister jacket

Sometimes People Die by Simon Stephenson

Simon Stephenson’s darkly hilarious Sometimes People Die harks back to classic English satire a la Kingsley Amis or Evelyn Waugh—just with more murder.

Sometimes People Die jacket

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Dan Fesperman’s intense post-Cold War mystery savvily addresses both the personal and political pressures facing an East German spy.

Winter Work book cover

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Readers are treated to an inventive and expertly crafted mystery-within-a-mystery in Sulari Gentill’s The Woman in the Library.

The Woman in the Library jacket

You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa

This thoroughly satisfying and beautifully plotted thriller deconstructs the trope of the crazy ex-girlfriend.

You're Invited jacket

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2022 was a year marked by meta mysteries, Cold War thrillers and complicated women.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

The delightful Book Lovers both dismantles and celebrates the “career woman” archetype.

Book Lovers

A Curse of Queens by Amanda Bouchet

In her fourth Kingmaker Chronicles book, Bouchet continues to strike a perfect balance between world building and romance.

A Curse of Queens jacket

Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola

This enemies-­to-lovers romance set on a British university campus hums with Bolu Babalola’s energetic, intelligent voice.

Honey and Spice jacket

Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey

This fabulous friends-to-lovers rom-com feels authentic every step of the way.

Hook, Line, and Sinker jacket

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall 

The king of the rom-com conquers the Regency with an angsty historical romance.

A Lady for a Duke

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

The only bad thing about Kelly’s wonderful foodie romance is that after you’ve gulped it down, you’ll want more.

Love & Other Disasters jacket

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

Jimenez’s special blend of humor and angst is polished to perfection in the fairy tale-esque Part of Your World.

Part of Your World jacket

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

Subversive yet satisfying, Sebastian’s latest breaks new ground for historical romance.

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes jacket

The Redemption of Philip Thane by Lisa Berne

Berne’s Groundhog Day-inspired love story is a clever addition to the canon of “rake redemption” romances.

The Redemption of Philip Thane jacket

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

Emezi’s first romance novel is a hot and sultry exploration of love and grief.

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty

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2022 was a year of spectacular debuts, groundbreaking historical romances and, of course, HEAs aplenty.

All the Seas of the World  by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kay tells small stories of hope and resilience in an expansive fantasy world modeled on the Renaissance era.

All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Set in an alternate Victorian Britain, R.F. Kuang’s standalone historical fantasy is an unforgiving examination of the cost of power.

Babel jacket

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Dean’s deliciously dark debut is a haunting story that’s part fairy tale and part nightmare.

The Book Eaters jacket

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

Inspired by Eastern European history and folklore, this fantasy novel is a tender love story as well as a chilling tale of escape from abuse.

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid jacket

Leech by Hiron Ennes

Dark and horrifying, Leech is perfect for readers who wish that Wuthering Heights had been more like Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation.

Leech by Hiron Ennes jacket

The Maker of Swans  by Paraic O’Donnell

If you like beautiful things, read The Maker of Swans, an enthralling dance over the line between literary fiction and magical fantasy.

The Maker of Swans jacket

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

This dark fantasy starring a possessed chicken and a feminist avenger represents the burgeoning “hopepunk” ethos at its finest.

Nettle & Bone jacket

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

Marske’s second historical fantasy is a stunning, sensual love story wrapped in an exciting murder mystery.

A Restless Truth jacket

Sign Here by Claudia Lux

Sign Here is both a hilarious reimagining of Hell as a corporate nightmare and a painfully realistic exploration of morality in the modern world.

Book jacket image for Sign Here by Claudia Lux

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

Inspired by traditional tales of Baba Yaga, Nethercott’s Thistlefoot is a weird and wonderful triumph.

Book jacket image for Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

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There is probably no better way to sum up 2022 than to say it was a year dominated by both horror and hopepunk—sometimes even in the same book.

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