Top 20 Books of 2022 That Are Guaranteed to Keep You Reading
With a wide collection of thriller, romance, fiction, non-fiction, adventure, and lots more, you are bound to be spoilt for choice. The feeling of anticipation and not being sure of exactly what to expect in a new book drive one’s mind to try and make a wild guess on the possible direction the book will take. A good read is bound to give a reader the effect they crave. Be it to escape from a stressful work routine, to seek inspiration, or simply to get an insight into what it would feel like to experience what a character goes through.
The cream de la cream of 2022 is sure to keep you reading and blow your mind. With several readers seeking the latest releases from their favorite authors, many new authors and books have debuted as well making the competition tough this year as the stellar reads will make you unable to let go instead leaving you wanting more.
Here are 20 books we have discovered with an appeal catering to different readers covering different genres and styles. Not every book can make this list as only 20 slots are allocated but not to worry, the year is not done yet and your favorite new book might just make it to the list.
#1 Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
When it concerns the sequel of a spectacular first novel which doesn’t come much more spectacular than Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winner Shuggie Bain which leaves the author with two options. Either they try to establish their variety by doing something completely different, or they build on their initial success by offering readers more of what they liked the first time around. Stuart chose the latter path: Young Mungo is set in the same universe and roughly at the same time as Shuggie Bain revolving around the same basic conflict: a young guy growing up in severe poverty who, because of skill, temperament, and sexuality, is especially unsuited to the hard-edged environment of the Glasgow schemes.
Mungo and James are born in a Glasgow housing estate, Mungo being a Protestant and James a Catholic are stereotyped to be sworn foes if they are to be considered as men at all. Despite this, they become the best of friends after seeking refuge in the pigeon dovecote that James has erected for his prize racing birds. They aspire to find a place where they belong whilst falling in love, but Mungo tries hard to hide his true personality from everyone around him, especially his elder brother Hamish, a local gang boss with a terrible reputation to preserve.
#2 The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
A thrilling, deeply poignant novel about the fight for originality, privacy, and purpose in a society where our recollections are not exclusively our own, from one of our time’s most fascinating and renowned authors and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Egan weaves the ramifications of Own Your Unconscious across the lives of many individuals whose paths span over several decades in captivating connected storylines.
The Candy House is a daring, beautiful fantasy of a future that is only seconds away, both intellectually and emotionally. With a concentration on social networking, gaming, and parallel universes, it’s almost as if you’re playing a role-playing game. Egan is a ferocious and exciting monument to the resilience and endurance of human yearning for a meaningful relationship, privacy, love, family, and atonement.
#3 Either /Or by Elif Batuman
Turkish American Elif Batuman’s second novel, Either/Or, is set in the United States. The book is a bildungsroman that follows Selin, a character presented in Batuman’s debut novel The Idiot, in her sophomore Harvard University year.
Selin is fortunate to have been born in America and was able to attend Harvard. Selin’s second year is 1996, so she understands she needs to make the most of it. The first item of priority is to figure out what the heck occurred during the summertime. Selin comes to conclusions regarding the universal relevance of parties, booze, and sex, led by her literary curriculum and her more experienced and confident friends, and vows to put them into practice regardless of the cost.
Either/Or is a remarkable masterpiece by a gifted author, unraveling with the driving logic and passion of adolescence. Its riveting tale will hit you with probing issues that will linger long beyond the last page, making it humorous, enlightening, and memorable.
#4 Constructing A Nervous System by Margo Jefferson
Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist, creates a neurological system out of fragments of varying durations and tones, combining arts writing (poem, music, performance) with life narrative (history, psychology). The framework of the novel is defined by significant events in her life, both those that distress her and those that excite and rejuvenate her.
Negroland’s author, astonishing for her bold uniqueness, presents us with “a passionate autobiography” made of emotional, personal shards that merge critique and reminiscence.
Jefferson smashes herself into fragments and reassembles them in Constructing a Nervous System, splicing the criticism she is recognized for, remnants of the family members she mourns for, but also signal instances from her life, as well as the words of the people existent in her past and supported her in her quiet contemplation, brought to life sensationally.
#5 In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom’s stunning memoir is an insightful account of two people whose love drives them to discover a brave way to part as well as a woman’s struggle to move forward amid loss.
The story swings back and forth, recording Bloom’s difficulties and bureaucratic red tape, as well as the ethical concerns connected with mercy killing, all while painting a realistic portrait of her husband, architect Brian Ameche, with wit, sympathy, and black humor. The memoir bears witness to the couple’s “stickily intimate” and emotional bond.
Brian resolved to die on his feet rather than live on his knees after being forced to accept the truth of his illness and its implications for the future he had imagined. Brian and Amy made the impossibly difficult and heartbreaking commitment to go to Dignitas, a Swiss company that helps people to end their lives with dignity and serenity, to support each other during their final journey together.
Bloom’s painful and fascinating memoir shines a light on a facet of life that we frequently avoid confronting: its conclusion. In Love is a stunning depiction of a wonderful marriage as well as a borderless love, written in Bloom’s compelling, intelligent style, with her typical humor and honesty.
#6 Pure Color by Sheila Heti
Pure Color is a planet of a book: exploding, supernaturally dazzling, massive, and splattered with beauty. It’s a modern bible, an emotional atlas, and an incredibly amusing guide to the fantastic (and awful) things about living. Sheila Heti is a contemporary philosopher who has redefined what a book may contain.
A lady called Mira leaves her home to study in this initial draft of the world. She encounters Annie, whose incredible power unlocks Mira’s chest like a gateway to what she does not know of. Mira’s cherished father passes on when she is older, and his spirit enters her. They merge forming a leaf on a tree. Photosynthesis gets tedious, and being alive is a predicament that no leaf can fix. Mira must ultimately recall the human world she’s left behind, including Annie, and decide whether or not she will return.
#7 Memphis by Tara M Stringfellow
A captivating debut novel about three generations of a Southern Black family as well as one daughter’s realization that she possesses the ability to alter the family’s legacy.
Memphis travels back and forth in time through a collection of voices spanning seventy years to highlight how well the past and future are inexorably interwoven. Joan realizes that her life does not need to be defined by revenge only when she sees herself as a descendant of a long matrilineal tradition, and views the women in her family as her mentors to recovery. That the only instrument she requires is a paintbrush.
Memphis, the Black fairy tale Tara always sought to read explores the complexities of what we inherit, not only in our families but also in our country too: excessive use of force by the police and justice, helplessness and liberty, sacrifice and love, fate and forgiveness, doubt and faith.
#8 Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong explores life amongst ripples of his mother’s death in this highly personal second poetry collection, expressing the dichotomy of resting within loss yet striving to thrive beyond it. Vuong grapples with personal grief, the significance of family, and the consequence of being the offspring of an American war in America as he shifts through recollection and in tandem with the ideas of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Vuong’s poetry, at once vivid, daring, and energetic, circles fractured lives in search of both healing and the source of the rupture.
Vuong is the writer of the highly acclaimed poetry book Night Sky with Exit Wounds, recipient of the 2016 Whiting Award, 2017, T.S. Eliot Prize, as well as a 2019 MacArthur fellow. The poems offer a much more original and adventurous exploration with language and structure, illustrating how subjects we live in and question regularly are endless. Time Is a Mother is both homecoming and forging forward, bold and prophetic, as well as a monument to kindness in the face of cruelty.
#9 To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
A daring, beautiful novel comprising three centuries with three distinct variations of the American experiment, regarding lovers, family, and grief, as well as the elusive ideal of utopia, from the writer of the masterpiece A Little Life.
New York is part of the Free States, where individuals can live and love whomever they want. The frail young scion of a famous family rejects a good suitor in favor of an attractive music instructor of modest means. In an AIDS-ravaged Manhattan of 1993, a young Hawaiian guy lives with his far older, wealthier girlfriend, concealing his tragic background and the fate of his father.
To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel with wonderful literary qualities, in addition to being a work of emotional brilliance. Yanagihara’s awareness of the painful need to defend those we love including companions, friends, lovers, children, family, or even our fellow countrymen, as well as the sorrow that results when we can’t is at the heart of this masterpiece.
#10 How High We Go in The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
An after-plague tale, as opposed to a plague novel.” Sequoia Nagamatsu deftly navigates space, time, and species whilst pondering the dilemma, “Where do we go from here?” Thoughtful and hopeful; endlessly innovative, with a throbbing heart, this is my favorite cup of speculative fiction.”
Once released, the Arctic Plague will transform life on Earth for future generations, rapidly crossing the planet and compelling mankind to discover a plethora of moving and imaginative methods to embrace the opportunity in the face of catastrophe. A skeptical employee falls for a mother wanting to keep her diseased kid at a theme park for terminally ill children. When one of his research subjects, a pig, gains the potential for human speech, a devastated scientist seeking a cure gets a second chance at parenting. A widowed painter and her adolescent granddaughter set out on a cosmic adventure to find a new home world.
#11 Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood’s magnificent collection of essays which are humorous and entertaining, smart, endlessly inquiring, and amazingly prescient seeks solutions to Burning Questions for like:
Why do humans tell tales everywhere, regardless of their cultures?
How much of oneself can you give out before it dries up?
How will we survive on our planet?
Is this true? Is it also fair?
What is the connection between zombies and authoritarian rule?
In approximately 50 articles, Atwood directs her vast intellect as well as mischievous wit toward the world, reporting back to us on what she discovers. This wild ride saw the end of history, a financial catastrophe, Trump’s ascension, and an epidemic. We have no finer guide to the numerous and various secrets of our world, from debt to technology, the climate problem to freedom.
#12 The School for Good Mothers by Jasmine Chan
In this tight and incendiary debut book, a young mother’s mistake in judgment puts her in a federal reform program placing the custody of her kid at stake.
The government is watching mothers like Frida. A slew of government bureaucrats will now decide if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-style institution that assesses the achievement or failure of a mother’s commitment.
The School for Good Mothers unveils Frida, in a harsh page-turner that is also a provocative novel of ideas regarding the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting. Chan has crafted a modern literary masterpiece by using dark wit to examine the difficulties and delights of the innermost bonds that unite us.
#13 Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Set in New York City in the months leading up to the most catastrophic hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming is a narrative that examines corruption in politics, familial conflict, as well as the concept of the American dream, whilst questioning what it entails to weather a storm.
In 2017, Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are well-known figures in their native New York. Prieto is a prominent congressman who represents Brooklyn’s gentrifying Latinx area, while Olga is a tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power players.
Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, deserted her children 27 years ago to pursue a violent political cause, forcing them to be raised by their grandma. Blanca returns to their lives as the hurricane rages.
#14 The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
The Exhibitionist is Charlotte Mendelson’s stunning sixth novel, a fascinating investigation of creativity, commitment, deadly family politics, gay desire, and personal independence.
Meet the Hanrahans, who have gathered for a significant weekend as a famed artist and infamous egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new show of his paintings, the first in many decades that he is confident would improve his reputation permanently
His three children are to be present: gorgeous Leah, who has always been her father’s greatest supporter; sensitive Patrick, who has ultimately chosen to venture out on his own; and apprehensive Jess, the youngest, who is facing her own life-altering choice.
#15 Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Black Cake is a debut novel about an African-American family of Caribbean heritage, as well as two siblings who are reunited after eight years apart after their mother’s death, where they get to know about their out-of-the-usual inheritance.
An omniscient narrator, dialogue, as well as flashbacks, propel the plot packed with not only “family secrets, deceit, terrific loves, bright colors, but also strong smells. Wilkerson’s scenes emerge as fast vignettes, indulging readers in the protagonists’ minds and ambiance. It takes the reader on a trip that compels them to consider how chance encounters as well as historical events, like the transatlantic slave trade and the Windrush migration, can change a family. The consequences reverberate for generations, and indeed the novel allows for a thorough examination of how one’s self-identity can shift instantaneously.
The origins of black cake are murky. The dense, rum-soaked, fruit-filled dessert is an Easter, Christmas, as well as wedding tradition in the Caribbean. It’s also a strong reminder of home for those who do not live on the islands anymore.
#16 Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
A witty, provocative, engaging, and cutting-edge debut about an elderly English literature professor who delves into female creativity exploring rage, and desire. Her professor-husband faces numerous accusations from former students and the situation gets even more complex when she starts to get her obsession.
Concerning their extramarital affairs, the pair have always had a common understanding, but with new accusations cropping up, life has become significantly less comfortable. And when the professor falls increasingly in love with Vladimir, an accomplished, married young novelist who’s just enrolled on campus, their love triangle threatens to explode.
Novelist Julia May Jonas leads us into heated terrain with this daring, edgy, and remarkably polished debut, where moral limits collide with human desires. Vladimir is a riveting, darkly humorous, and wonderfully fascinating novel that brilliantly portrays the emotional and political maze of our day, highlighting the intricacies and grey areas surrounding power and desire.
#17 All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author yet again delivers a brilliant, memorable, and heart-wrenching modern YA novel about family and forgiveness, love and grief, in an epic saga that spans generations as well as continents.
Misbah, a dreamer and storyteller newlywed in an arranged marriage to Toufiq soon after tragedy struck them in their youth immigrate to the United States where hoping for a new beginning open the “Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel.”
The new read delves into precisely what the title suggests: wrath, not just regarding racism but also concerning absent parents, how addiction uncovers relationships, as well as the sadness of losing the ones who count the most in one’s life. Noor and Salahudin in the final year of high school navigate a tumultuous friendship among other things while experiencing the meaning of being there for one another in their darkest hours.
All My Rage is a back-and-forth read between present-day California and Salahudin’s parents’ youth in Pakistan
#18 The Maid by Nita Prose
Unlike everyone else, Molly Gray misreads other people’s intentions and struggles with social skills. The world was often interpreted for her by her granma simplifying it for her to grasp.
Molly, 25, has been navigating life’s complications on her own since Granma passed a few months ago. Whatever the case may be, she dives headfirst into her job as a hotel maid. Her distinct personality, along with her intense love of cleanliness and correct manners, makes her a perfect candidate for the position. She enjoys wearing her neat uniform every morning, packing her cart with small soaps and bottles, and restoring the Regency Grand Hotel’s rooms to pristine condition.
Molly, a devout hotel cleaning lady becomes the prime suspect in a murder in a fancy hotel. Extremely passionate about her work whose passion only equated to her deceased grandmother being caught in a complex situation with a guest lying dead in the hotel.
The Maid, a Clue-like closed mystery and a heartfelt spiritual awakening, examines what it means to be like everyone else and yet entirely different, and demonstrates that all unanswered questions can be cleared up by connecting to the person’s heart.
#19 River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
From the author of the New York Times best sellers River of Doubt, the tale of one of history’s greatest explorations ever and the complexities attached to it.
The Nile River is the world’s longest. Its rich floodplain gave life to the great ancient civilization of Egypt, but the location of its headwaters remained veiled in mystery for centuries. The discovery and translation of the “Rosetta Stone” in the nineteenth century sparked renewed interest in ancient Egypt. Simultaneously, European countries dispatched waves of explorers to survey the undiscovered corners of the world and also to expand their colonial empires.
Two Britons, John Hanning Speke, and Richard Burton are sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Already infamous for being the first non-Muslim to travel to Mecca in disguise as an Arab chieftain, Burton spoke twenty-nine languages and was a highly decorated soldier. A young Aristocrat and Army Officer, Speke was determined to make a name for himself and was passionate about hunting in contrast to Burton who was atheist and mercurial.
Often clashing from the onset, Speke was displeased by Burton’s command, and Burton was wary of Speke’s lack of knowledge about the people and the lands through which they traveled. They encountered grave hardships, constant setbacks, and even life-threatening illnesses.
Candice Millard delivers a story of bravery, exploration, and adventure set against the background of the colonial powers’ scramble to exploit Africa in RIVER OF THE GODS.
#20 We Do What We Do in The Dark by Michelle Hart
A debut novel by Michelle Hart about a young woman’s life-changing relationship with a much older, married woman in a tale of a forbidden campus romance, Mallory, a freshman in college, still struggling to recover from her mother’s death, meets the woman. Setting her eyes on her for the very first time in the university gym, Mallory is instantaneously captivated.
Not long after, the two meet, getting drawn to each other sharing wounds from their pasts coupled with an electrifying tension, and start secretly sleeping together pretty soon. Everything Mallory craves and aspires to become, the woman is: brilliant, confident, and, successful. Mallory withdraws from the world, wanting the woman as well as the notion of who she is whenever they are together, consolidating a sense of loneliness that has hounded and consoled her since early life and thus will continue to do so for years long after the affair comes to an end.
