My favorite reads in 2022
In no particular order, here are the books I enjoyed most in 2022. I highly recommend each of them:
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah. “A moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction.” More.
Tell me an Ending by Jo Harkin. “Black Mirror meets Severence in this thrilling speculative novel about a tech company that deletes unwanted memories, the consequences for those forced to deal with what they tried to forget, and the doctor who seeks to protect her patients from further harm.” More.
Black Smoke by Adrian Miller. “In Black Smoke, Miller chronicles how Black barbecuers, pitmasters, and restauranteurs helped develop this cornerstone of American foodways and how they are coming into their own today.” More.
The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay. “An elegant, epic debut novel from an exciting new talent and Pushcart Prize-winner that follows one young woman’s search for a lost figure from her childhood, a journey that takes her from Southern India to Kashmir and to the brink of a devastating political and personal reckoning.” More.
The Pages by Hugo Hamilton. “One old copy of the novel Rebellion sits in Lena Knecht’s tote bag, about to accompany her on a journey from New York to Berlin in search of a clue to the hand-drawn map on its last page. It is the brilliantly captivating voice of this novel—a first edition nearly burned by Nazis in May 1933—that is our narrator.” More.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. “The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.” More.
Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson. “As the country grapples with race with anguish and anger at a level not seen since the 60s, one of America’s leading black voices speaks out honestly and provocatively to white America.” More.