Top Reads For Your Consideration: 2022 Year in Books That You'll Love

 

Sure, it’s been a minute since my first book was featured at the top spot for a year-end, best-of-books list. Yet I can’t help but recall those thrills as I started this post about my year in books for 2022 as part of the Goodreads challenge. Lists matter!

It was an exciting year of reads ~ my "bookbag" was brimming/my bookshelves were sagging ~ with a great variety of books from classic authors I’d overlooked to new memoirs to great fiction. 

Check out the 31 books on my list ~ you’ll find some stimulating suggestions.

I like how Goodreads highlights the “superlatives:” 

The Shortest Book: Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

Average Book Length in 2022: 344 Pages

We Were Liars was the Most Shelved book (Loved this book!) ~ Now Goodreads tells me the Most Shelved book was Where the Crawdads Sing (! I very much liked this too)

The Highest Rated on Goodreads was Viola Davis’ Finding Me

I did very much try to reach out to genres I’m not usually drawn to, including more fiction and the classics.  

For example, after Bill and I visited the Morgan Library exhibit about James Joyce, I was embarrassed that I’d never read his work.  So I took a big gulp and dove head first into Ulysses.  

I indulged in a few Toni Morrison novels: Beloved, Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye.  Ahhhh, they were so good.

If you’ve been reticent to take on some heavy lifting in the literary world, I’m here to say, “no frets.”  It’s all so worth it.  You’ll be glad you took the plunge.

I also really enjoyed Anderson Cooper’s Vanderbilt (and thrilled to read of my ancestral Van Voorhees pedigree referenced!)  Every family has its own saga but these Vanderbilts are outsized. I do love Anderson’s style ~ he connects to his audience in a way that belies his monied lineage. Also, if you haven’t listened to his "All There Is" podcast dealing with grief, I recommend you do. It’s heartbreaking and thoughtful. 

I went for funny too: This Time Tomorrow, Lucy By The Sea, and The Unfolding, and Hell of a Book. All have superb characters that you can readily feel connected to ~ the authors serve up heavy helpings of empathy along with their great stories. The pace is quick, the writing is brilliant.

               

The Diamond Eye was a true thriller. The author Kate Quinn had me at female Russian sniper in World War II. I fancy mysteries and thrillers as my usual fare so I’m pretty hard to please but this was great. 

I have far too many garden books in my library (^:^) but could not resist my botanic garden friend UIi Lorimer’s The Northeast Native Plant Primer or American Roots from my new garden friends: Nick and Allison McCullough and Teresa Woodard. I am so honored to have both signed books happily ensconced on our book shelves where I can easily reference for inspiration. 

Remember that Cicero said, "If you have a garden and a library you have everything."

           

Also there are the books authored by my Ladies Who Lunch Conversations guests, including Marion Nestle’s latest, Slow Cooked

I also tried to follow as many of WNYC’s All of It Get Lit bookclub suggestions. The host Allison Stewart introduced me to On the Roof Top and Thank You For Listening. Thank you! 

 

I even plowed through Roald Dahl’s Matilda ~ in Spanish! 

Last Year I read Kenneth Oppel's Bloom. This YA novel is so intriguing and compelling, I couldn't wait for the second book in the trilogy: Hatch. The series' adventures are about plants :) and aliens and how the young heroes combat the earth invaders.

I just love, love, love this burgeoning genre of Eco-Fiction!

I also enjoyed some historical fiction and romance. Be sure to check out the Isabele Allende Mexican Gothic novels on the list. Very intriguing and transporting.

You can see my full list of books for 2022 and my Want to Read here

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How was your year in books? Did you vote in the Goodreads Choice Award? (I did :) What ignited your curiosity? Thrilled you? Frustrated you or made you cry? 

In related news, I’m picking up the threads of my fiction writing again. I've begun some fascinating research for one of works. I’m excited about that. Wish me luck?

Cheers.