My Top Books of the Year: part uno

We made it, kids! # 102

Sure, you could read top books of the year from the New York Times, or eagerly wait for Oprah and Barack to post their favorite 2022 books in a crisply current and literarily self-satisfied victory lap of sober-minded rigor. Or … no, actually, that sounds pretty good and you probably should do that.

AND ALSO, since you’re here, I’ll tell you about my top reads of the year as well. Before we get to the good stuff - a few random observations, notes, explanations, and what have you re: My Top Books:

• Observation: This year, I read few excellent non-fiction books. I’d prefer to blame the empirically poor quality of non-fiction rather than my sloppy selection-making, but nevertheless, only one non-fiction choice made my year end list. Erik Larson, please set up an Amazon wish list so we can keep you hydrated, soothed, and primed to publish in 2023.

• Note: unlike most “best books of 2022” lists which refer to books actually published in 2022 (seems simplistic), my list has a, um, 66 year publishing range. Listen - if we restrict ourselves only to what BookTok, Reese Witherspoon, and Maureen Corrigan talk about, we will be missing out on some real gems. We embrace old titles!

• Explanation: Batten down your organizational hatches, babies: this list has neither a nice round number of books nor any conventional ordering system, you’re welcome. Instead, we’re once again ordering by Gentle Lamb countdown. For newbies, that means that while all of these books are great, a higher lamb rating means it’s an easier, gentler read than others. (get lamb-ducated here and prep your holiday reading accordingly.)

• What Have You: No, actually, what have you? Comment with your best books of the year!

Read on for part one, the lesser lamby books, and stay tuned for part two, next week!

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The Trees is a book unlike any other I’ve read this year, one that packs sneaky gut punches, over and over again. In plot, it’s a mystery about a series of murders in Mississippi. But in reality it’s part detective procedural, part magical horror, part satire and full social commentary. It’s all done in irrepressibly page-turning style and you’ll likely be thinking about it for a long time. Excellent.

The only non-fiction in my list, The Night of the Gun is a memoir by the outrageously talented late David Carr. He not only unsparingly recounts his history of addiction and single parenting, but also approaches it as the dogged journalist he was. The honesty, intellect and against-all-odds recovery make the brutal troughs bearable. (Read more here.)

Horse follows the stories of an enslaved groom and his horse, and two modern-day graduate students trying to solve a historical mystery. How can Geraldine Brooks write about art, and slavery, and justice, and science, AND history while still creating vivid characters and an urgent plot? Guess that’s why she’s a Pulitzer winner. Not a perfect book but I think its beauty far outweighs its problems. (read more here).

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is another “entwined histories,” following Black Southern heroine Ailey Garfield as she’s coming of age as well as her family lines back through the 1800s. Deeply substantive but with the crafted accessibility and brilliantly sketched characterization of a poet, this feels like a story of America. Also it’s 800 pages so like maybe don’t pack this one in the holiday carry on? (Fittingly, read a bunch more words about why I liked it here.)

What a weird, wonderful book this was. We meet Rosemary as an adult, telling us about a seminal week in her college years, underpinned by her unorthodox childhood. It’s solemn and thought-provoking, often sad in its beautiful storytelling, but wrapped with a wry wit and hopeful heart. Don’t read a summary of it beforehand, but do read it. (Loophole: you can read my summary here which does not give away the plot twist.)

The Change is the first real “beach” read on the list - a heart-pounding and original murder mystery in which a group of menopausal women uses every gift at their disposal (both conventional and mystical) to understand who’s killing young girls in their community. Yes, there are murders, but it’s entertaining, exciting, and deeply ferocious. So good. (Is it for you? I dunno, decide here.)

Oh man, Beartown. I loved this so much. It’s about a rural Swedish hockey town that’s confronted with a shattering event, and how they all rely on, break from, and come to terms with each other. Like Friday Night Lights with hockey. I am admittedly a full-throated Fredrik Backman stan and this book has everything you want from him: melancholy, dry humor, empathy, heartbreak, joy and deep humanity. (Read more here.)

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Remember: all links go to Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores. I imagine as Santa’s workshop full of elven, mission-oriented booksellers. You can see all my past recos here or in the newsletter archive if you want the full contextual shenanigans.