Year-End Lists

Constance Grady: 16 Best Books of 2022, as published by Vox

[see also 2023 • 2020 • 2019]

Fiction

• When We Were Sisters
  Fatimah Asghar
• O Caledonia
  Elspeth Barker
• Either/Or
  Elif Batuman
• If I Survive You
  Jonathan Escoffery
• Vladimir
  Julia May Jonas
• Lessons
  Ian McEwan
• The Whalebone Theatre
  Joanna Quinn
• The Furrows
  Namwali Serpell
• The Immortal King Rao
  Vauhini Vara
• Joan Is Okay
  Weike Wang
• Now Is Not the Time to Panic
  Kevin Wilson

Nonfiction

• Ducks

  Two Years in the Oil Sands
  Kate Beaton
• The Method

  How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act
  Isaac Butler
• Shy

  The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers
  Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green
• Hotbed

  Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism
  Joanna Scutts
• Portable Magic

  A History of Books and Their Readers
  Emma Smith

People: Top 10 Books of 2022

1. Our Missing Hearts
   Celeste Ng
2. Trust
   Hernan Diaz
3. The Man Who Could Move Clouds
   Ingrid Rojas Contreras
4. Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
   Laura Warrell
5. The Hero of This Book
   Elizabeth McCracken
6. Lost & Found

   A Memoir
   Kathryn Schulz
7. The Rabbit Hutch
   Tess Gunty
8. If I Survive You
   Jonathan Escoffery
9. An Immense World

   How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
   Ed Yong
10. Vladimir
    Julia May Jonas

Entertainment Weekly: The Best Books of 2022

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
  Gabrielle Zevin
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• The Marriage Portrait
  Maggie O'Farrell
• Trust
  Hernan Diaz
• I'm Glad My Mom Died
  Jennette McCurdy
• All This Could Be Different
  Sarah Thankam Mathews
• The School for Good Mothers
  Jessamine Chan
• Heat 2
  Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner
• Book Lovers
  Emily Henry
• Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road
  Kyle Buchanan

Also on our list

• Stay True

  A Memoir
  Hua Hsu
• Vladimir
  Julia May Jonas
• Dinosaurs
  Lydia Millet
• The Hero of This Book
  Elizabeth McCracken
• If I Survive You
  Jonathan Escoffery
• Demon Copperhead
  Barbara Kingsolver
• In Love

  A Memoir of Love and Loss
  Amy Bloom
• Lessons in Chemistry
  Bonnie Garmus
• Lucy by the Sea
  Elizabeth Strout
• Dirtbag, Massachusetts

  A Confessional
  Isaac Fitzgerald
• Tracy Flick Can't Win
  Tom Perrotta
• The Rabbit Hutch
  Tess Gunty
• Young Mungo
  Douglas Stuart
• A Heart That Works
  Rob Delaney
• Ancestor Trouble

  A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
  Maud Newton
• The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

  A Memoir
  Paul Newman
• This Time Tomorrow
  Emma Straub
• Now Is Not the Time to Panic
  Kevin Wilson

Library Journal: Best Literary Fiction of 2022

[see also 2023 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2012 • 2011]

• Trust
  Hernan Diaz
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• Brother Alive
  Zain Khalid
• Demon Copperhead
  Barbara Kingsolver
• Lessons
  Ian McEwan
• If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
  Noor Naga
• Young Mungo
  Douglas Stuart
• The Town of Babylon
  Alejandro Varela
• Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
  Laura Warrell
• Properties of Thirst
  Marianne Wiggins

The Skinny: Books of 2022

• Our Wives Under the Sea
  Julia Armfield
• Children of Paradise
  Camilla Grudova
• There Are More Things
  Yara Rodrigues Fowler
• Time Is a Mother
  Ocean Vuong
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
  Gabrielle Zevin

Annabel Gutterman: The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2022, as published by Time Magazine

[see also The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021]

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
   Gabrielle Zevin
2. The Hero of This Book
   Elizabeth McCracken
3. The Book of Goose
   Yiyun Li
4. All This Could Be Different
   Sarah Thankam Mathews
5. Vladimir
   Julia May Jonas
6. If I Survive You
   Jonathan Escoffery
7. Young Mungo
   Douglas Stuart
8. Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
   Kim Fu
9. Trust
   Hernan Diaz
10. Signal Fires
    Dani Shapiro

USA Today: Best Books of 2022

[see also 2021]

• In Love

  A Memoir of Love and Loss
  Amy Bloom
• Star Wars

  Brotherhood
  Mike Chen
• Don't Know Tough
  Eli Cranor
• Booth
  Karen Joy Fowler
• Notes on an Execution
  Danya Kukafka
• Sea of Tranquility
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Lessons
  Ian McEwan
• Life's Work

  A Memoir
  David Milch
• Read Dangerously

  The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times
  Azar Nafisi
• A Thousand Steps
  T. Jefferson Parker
• Our Missing Hearts
  Celeste Ng
• Liberation Day
  George Saunders
• The Revolutionary

  Samuel Adams
  Stacy Schiff
• The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
  Ron Shelton
• The Summer Place
  Jennifer Weiner
• Properties of Thirst
  Marianne Wiggins
• Now Is Not the Time to Panic
  Kevin Wilson
• To Paradise
  Hanya Yanagihara

Literary Hub: Our 38 Favorite Books of 2022, although I only count 37

[see also Our 48 Favorite Books of 2021 • Our 65 Favorite Books of 2020 • The 20 Best Novels of the 2010s • The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the 2010s • Favorite Books of 2018]

• The Marriage Portrait
  Maggie O'Farrell
• The School for Good Mothers
  Jessamine Chan
• Saint Sebastian's Abyss
  Mark Haber
• Elderflora

  A Modern History of Ancient Trees
  Jared Farmer
• Getting Lost
  Annie Ernaux
• Dinosaurs
  Lydia Millet
• Babel

  An Arcane History
  R.F. Kuang
• Scorched Earth

  Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World
  Jonathan Crary
• Patricia Wants to Cuddle
  Samantha Allen
• Haven
  Emma Donoghue
• My Three Dads

  Patriarchy on the Great Plains
  Jessa Crispin
• Fight Like Hell

  The Untold History of American Labor
  Kim Kelly
• Diary of a Void
  Emi Yagi
• Stay True

  A Memoir
  Hua Hsu
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• O
  Zeina Hashem Beck
• How High We Go in the Dark
  Sequoia Nagamatsu
• A Woman's Battles and Transformations
  Édouard Louis
• Also a Poet

  Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me
  Ada Calhoun
• The Bond King

  How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost it All
  Mary Childs
• The Disappearance of Josef Mengele
  Olivier Guez
• Fen, Bog and Swamp

  A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
  Annie Proulx
• The Rabbit Hutch
  Tess Gunty
• Our Wives Under the Sea
  Julia Armfield
• Vladimir
  Julia May Jonas
• Sea of Tranquility
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Weasels in the Attic
  Hiroko Oyamada
• Kibogo
  Scholastique Mukasonga
• The Swimmers
  Julie Otsuka
• Paradais
  Fernanda Melchor
• An Honest Living
  Dwyer Murphy
• Either/Or
  Elif Batuman
• The Red Arrow
  William Brewer
• Brother Alive
  Zain Khalid
• The Books of Jacob
  Olga Tokarczuk
• The Book of Goose
  Yiyun Li
• But for I Am a Woman
  Sophia Stid

Vulture: The Best Books of 2022, as published by New York Magazine

1. Manhunt
   Gretchen Felker-Martin
2. Easy Beauty
   Chloé Cooper Jones
3. The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On
   Franny Choi
4. Strangers to Ourselves

   Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
   Rachel Aviv
5. Siren Queen
   Nghi Vo
6. The Furrows
   Namwali Serpell
7. 2 A.M. in Little America
   Ken Kalfus
8. All This Could Be Different
   Sarah Thankam Mathews
9. Seduced by Story

   The Use and Abuse of Narrative
   Peter Brooks
10. X
    Davey Davis

Honorable Mentions (by U.S. release date)

• Fiona and Jane
  Jean Chen Ho
• Last Resort
  Andrew Lipstein
• Dilla Time

  The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm
  Dan Charnas
• Pure Colour
  Sheila Heti
• Vladimir
  Julia May Jonas
• Then the War

  And Selected Poems, 2007-2020
  Carl Phillips
• The Employees
  Olga Ravn
• Checkout 19
  Claire-Louise Bennett
• Run and Hide
  Pankaj Mishra
• Oedipus Tyrannos
  Sophocles
• The Doloriad
  Missouri Williams
• Glory
  NoViolet Bulawayo
• The Candy House
  Jennifer Egan
• Constructing a Nervous System

  A Memoir
  Margo Jefferson
• A Tiny Upward Shove
  Melissa Chadburn
• Love Marriage
  Monica Ali
• The Women's House of Detention

  A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison
  Hugh Ryan
• It Was All a Dream

  Biggie and the World That Made Him
  Justin Tinsley
• DJ Screw

  A Life in Slow Revolution
  Lance Scott Walker
• An Island
  Karen Jennings
• Avalon
  Nell Zink
• You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Fruiting Bodies
  Kathryn Harlan
• Mothercare

  On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence
  Lynne Tillman
• Afterlives
  Abdulrazak Gurnah
• My Phantoms
  Gwendoline Riley
• Bright Unbearable Reality

  Essays
  Anna Badkhen
• Toad
  Katherine Dunn

Annabel Gutterman: The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022, as published by Time Magazine

[see also The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021]

1. In Love

   A Memoir of Love and Loss
   Amy Bloom
2. South to America

   A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
   Imani Perry
3. Ducks

   Two Years in the Oil Sands
   Kate Beaton
4. The Escape Artist

   The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
   Jonathan Freedland
5. An Immense World

   How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
   Ed Yong
6. Constructing a Nervous System

   A Memoir
   Margo Jefferson
7. His Name Is George Floyd

   One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
   Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
8. How Far the Light Reaches

   A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
   Sabrina Imbler
9. The Invisible Kingdom

   Reimagining Chronic Illness
   Meghan O’Rourke
10. The Revolutionary

    Samuel Adams
    Stacy Schiff