Year-End Lists

The San Francisco Chronicle: Favorite Books of 2022

[see also 100 Recommended Books of 2018 • Top 10 Books of 2018 • 100 Recommended Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2015]

Fiction

• On the Rooftop
  Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
• Be Brief and Tell Them Everything
  Brad Listi
• Little Rabbit
  Alyssa Songsiridej
• Properties of Thirst
  Marianne Wiggins
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
  Gabrielle Zevin
• Brother Sleep
  Aldo Amparán
• The Book of Goose
  Yiyun Li
• Animal Life
  Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
• Lucy by the Sea
  Elizabeth Strout
• The Passenger
  Cormac McCarthy
• Stella Maris
  Cormac McCarthy
• Run and Hide
  Pankaj Mishra
• A Woman Of Endurance
  Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
• The Presence of Absence
  Simon Van Booy
• The Hero of This Book
  Elizabeth McCracken
• Shit Cassandra Saw
  Gwen E. Kirby

Nonfiction

• The Klamath Mountains

  A Natural History
  Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood
• Essential Labor

  Mothering as Social Change
  Angela Garbes
• I'm Not Broken
  Jesse Leon
• Dirtbag, Massachusetts

  A Confessional
  Isaac Fitzgerald
• Inciting Joy

  Essays
  Ross Gay
• Crying in the Bathroom
  Erika L. Sánchez
• Shine Bright

  A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop
  Danyel Smith
• Solito

  A Memoir
  Javier Zamora
• The Method

  How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act
  Isaac Butler
• Still No Word from You

  Notes in the Margin
  Peter Orner
• Our Red Book

  Intimate Histories of Periods, Growing Changing
  Rachel Kauder Nalebuff (editor)
• Screaming on the Inside

  The Unsustainability of American Motherhood
  Jessica Grose

Traci Thomas: Best Books of 2022, as aired on The Stacks Podcast

• South to America

  A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
  Imani Perry
• His Name Is George Floyd

  One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
  Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
• Shine Bright

  A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop
  Danyel Smith
• Alive at the End of the World
  Saeed Jones
• The Swimmers
  Julie Otsuka

Andrew Limbong: Best Books of 2022, as aired on The Stacks Podcast

• Lapvona
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Elite Capture

  How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)
  Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
• Luda
  Grant Morrison
• Diary of a Void
  Emi Yagi
• Ducks

  Two Years in the Oil Sands
  Kate Beaton

Wired: The 12 Best Books of 2022

• The School for Good Mothers
  Jessamine Chan
• Sea of Tranquility
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Lambda
  David Musgrave
• Strangers to Ourselves

  Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
  Rachel Aviv
• The Value of a Whale

  On the Illusions of Green Capitalism
  Adrienne Buller
• Best Young Woman Job Book

  A Memoir
  Emma Healey
• The Employees
  Olga Ravn
• Cursed Bunny
  Bora Chung
• Tremors in the Blood

  Murder, Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector
  Amit Katwala
• Eating to Extinction

  The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them
  Dan Saladino
• Dr. No
  Percival Everett
• How Far the Light Reaches

  A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
  Sabrina Imbler

Electric Lit: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022

[see also Favorite Novels of 2022 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top Three Nonfiction Books of the Year

• Body Work

  The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
  Melissa Febos
• I'm Glad My Mom Died
  Jennette McCurdy
• The Crane Wife

  A Memoir in Essays
  C.J. Hauser

Other Favorite Nonfiction Books of the Year

• Bad Sex
  Nona Willis Aronowitz
• The Best American Essays 2022
  Alexander Chee (editor)
• Dirtbag, Massachusetts

  A Confessional
  Isaac Fitzgerald
• Ducks

  Two Years in the Oil Sands
  Kate Beaton
• Easy Beauty
  Chloé Cooper Jones
• Girls Can Kiss Now
  Jill Gutowitz
• Heretic
  Jeanna Kadlec
• High-Risk Homosexual
  Edgar Gomez
• How Far the Light Reaches

  A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
  Sabrina Imbler
• How to Read Now

  Essays
  Elaine Castillo
• I Came All This Way to Meet You

  Writing Myself Home
  Jami Attenberg
• In Sensorium

  Notes for My People
  Tanaïs
• Manifesto

  On Never Giving Up
  Bernardine Evaristo
• Solito

  A Memoir
  Javier Zamora
• Some of My Best Friends

  Essays on Lip Service
  Tajja Isen
• South to America

  A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
  Imani Perry
• The Invisible Kingdom

  Reimagining Chronic Illness
  Meghan O’Rourke
• The Man Who Could Move Clouds
  Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• The Tiger and the Cage

  A Memoir of a Body in Crisis
  Emma Bolden
• Virology

  Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between
  Joseph Osmundson
• When They Tell You To Be Good
  Prince Shakur
• You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays
  Zora Neale Hurston

Electric Lit: Favorite Novels of 2022

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top 3 Novels of the Year

• Little Rabbit
  Alyssa Songsiridej
• The School for Good Mothers
  Jessamine Chan
• Either/Or
  Elif Batuman

Other Favorite Novels

• All This Could Be Different
  Sarah Thankam Mathews
• Big Girl
  Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
• Briefly, A Delicious Life
  Nell Stevens
• Brown Girls
  Daphne Palasi Andreades
• Dinosaurs
  Lydia Millet
• Disorientation
  Elaine Hsieh Chou
• Foster
  Claire Keegan
• Greenland
  David Santos Donaldson
• If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
  Noor Naga
• Less Is Lost
  Andrew Sean Greer
• Lucy by the Sea
  Elizabeth Strout
• Nobody's Magic
  Destiny O. Birdsong
• Olga Dies Dreaming
  Xóchitl González
• Post-Traumatic
  Chantal V. Johnson
• Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion
  Bushra Rehman
• Scattered All Over the Earth
  Yoko Tawada
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• The Town of Babylon
  Alejandro Varela
• Thrust
  Lidia Yuknavitch
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
  Gabrielle Zevin
• True Biz
  Sara Nović
• Vladimir
  Julia May Jonas

Barack Obama: Favorite Books of 2022, noting that he's "a bit biased" on that first one

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017]

• The Light We Carry

  Overcoming in Uncertain Times
  Michelle Obama
• Sea of Tranquility
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Trust
  Hernan Diaz
• The Revolutionary

  Samuel Adams
  Stacy Schiff
• The Furrows
  Namwali Serpell
• South to America

  A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
  Imani Perry
• The School for Good Mothers
  Jessamine Chan
• Black Cake
  Charmaine Wilkerson
• Ducks

  Two Years in the Oil Sands
  Kate Beaton
• An Immense World

  How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
  Ed Yong
• Liberation Day
  George Saunders
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• Afterlives
  Abdulrazak Gurnah

The New Yorker: The Best Fiction and Poetry of 2022, a list of a dozen "essential reads" followed by a long list of further recommendations

[see also The Best Nonfiction of 2022 • The Best Books We Read in 2020]

• Afterlives
  Abdulrazak Gurnah
• The Book of Goose
  Yiyun Li
• The Books of Jacob
  Olga Tokarczuk
• Checkout 19
  Claire-Louise Bennett
• Chilean Poet
  Alejandro Zambra
• Continuous Creation

  Last Poems
  Les Murray
• Customs
  Solmaz Sharif
• The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
  Jamil Jan Kochai
• The Last White Man
  Mohsin Hamid
• Lessons
  Ian McEwan
• The Rabbit Hutch
  Tess Gunty
• Trust
  Hernan Diaz

The New Yorker: The Best Nonfiction of 2022, a list of a dozen "essential reads" followed by a long list of further recommendations

[see also The Best Fiction and Poetry of 2022 • The Best Books We Read in 2020]

• An Immense World

  How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
  Ed Yong
• Bad Mexicans

  Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands
  Kelly Lytle Hernández
• Constructing a Nervous System

  A Memoir
  Margo Jefferson
• G-Man

  J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
  Beverly Gage
• Getting Lost
  Annie Ernaux
• The Invisible Kingdom

  Reimagining Chronic Illness
  Meghan O’Rourke
• Magnificent Rebels

  The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self
  Andrea Wulf
• The Revolutionary

  Samuel Adams
  Stacy Schiff
• The Song of the Cell

  An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
  Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Stay True

  A Memoir
  Hua Hsu
• Strangers to Ourselves

  Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
  Rachel Aviv
• We Don't Know Ourselves

  A Personal History of Modern Ireland
  Fintan O'Toole

Esquire: The Best Books of 2022

[see also The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The 50 Best Books of 2021 • The Best Books of the 2010s • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

1. Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta
   James Hannaham
2. Harry Sylvester Bird
   Chinelo Okparanta
3. Young Mungo
   Douglas Stuart
4. Time Is a Mother
   Ocean Vuong
5. Trust
   Hernan Diaz
6. Liarmouth

   A Feel-Bad Romance
   John Waters
7. Butts

   A Backstory
   Heather Radke
8. Fight Like Hell

   The Untold History of American Labor
   Kim Kelly
9. Overdue

   Reckoning with the Public Library
   Amanda Oliver
10. Woman, Eating
    Claire Kohda
11. The Passenger
    Cormac McCarthy
12. Fen, Bog and Swamp

    A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
    Annie Proulx
13. Because Our Fathers Lied

    A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today
    Craig McNamara
14. A Ballet of Lepers

    A Novel and Stories
    Leonard Cohen
15. Lost & Found

    A Memoir
    Kathryn Schulz
16. Less Is Lost
    Andrew Sean Greer
17. Fairy Tale
    Stephen King
18. The Furrows
    Namwali Serpell
19. The Book of Goose
    Yiyun Li
20. Liberation Day
    George Saunders
21. The Pink Hotel
    Liska Jacobs
22. Nuclear Family
    Joseph Han
23. Night of the Living Rez
    Morgan Talty
24. Phasers on Stun!

    How the Making (and Remaking) of Star Trek Changed the World
    Ryan Britt
25. Raising Lazarus

    Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis
    Beth Macy
26. Tracy Flick Can't Win
    Tom Perrotta
27. Cult Classic
    Sloane Crosley
28. The Angel of Rome and Other Stories
    Jess Walter
29. Dirtbag, Massachusetts

    A Confessional
    Isaac Fitzgerald
30. Sea of Tranquility
    Emily St. John Mandel
31. The Candy House
    Jennifer Egan
32. The Immortal King Rao
    Vauhini Vara
33. Scoundrel

    How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free
    Sarah Weinman
34. The Invisible Kingdom

    Reimagining Chronic Illness
    Meghan O’Rourke
35. True Story

    What Reality TV Says about Us
    Danielle J. Lindemann
36. Anthem
    Noah Hawley
37. Olga Dies Dreaming
    Xóchitl González
38. To Paradise
    Hanya Yanagihara
39. How Civil Wars Start

    And How to Stop Them
    Barbara F. Walter
40. How High We Go in the Dark
    Sequoia Nagamatsu
41. Notes on an Execution
    Danya Kukafka
42. South to America

    A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
    Imani Perry
43. Vladimir
    Julia May Jonas
44. The Employees
    Olga Ravn
45. Thank You, Mr. Nixon
    Gish Jen
46. Moon Witch, Spider King
    Marlon James
47. Groundskeeping
    Lee Cole
48. Trust the Plan

    The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Reshaped the World
    Will Sommer
49. How to Take Over the World

    Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain
    Ryan North
50. Ancestor Trouble

    A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
    Maud Newton