Year-End Lists

Kirkus Prize: Fiction 2023

[see also Nonfiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2019 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2018 • Fiction 2018 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2015 • Fiction 2015 • Nonfiction 2014 • Fiction 2014]

Winner

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
  James McBride

Finalists

• Witness
  Jamel Brinkley
• Birnam Wood
  Eleanor Catton
• White Cat, Black Dog
  Kelly Link
• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Let Us Descend
  Jesmyn Ward

Kirkus Prize: Nonfiction 2023

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2019 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2018 • Fiction 2018 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2015 • Fiction 2015 • Nonfiction 2014 • Fiction 2014]

Winner

• Our Migrant Souls

  A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”
  Héctor Tobar

Finalists

• Red Memory

  The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
  Tania Branigan
• Mr. B

  George Balanchine's 20th Century
  Jennifer Homans
• How Not to Kill Yourself

  A portrait of the Suicidal Mind
  Clancy Martin
• How to Say Babylon

  A Memoir
  Safiya Sinclair
• Master Slave Husband Wife

  An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
  Ilyon Woo

Women's Prize for Fiction: 2023

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

Winner

• Demon Copperhead
  Barbara Kingsolver

Shortlist

• Black Butterflies
  Priscilla Morris
• The Marriage Portrait
  Maggie O'Farrell
• Pod
  Laline Paull
• Fire Rush
  Jacqueline Crooks
• Trespasses
  Louise Kennedy

Longlist

• Cursed Bread
  Sophie Mackintosh
• Children of Paradise
  Camilla Grudova
• The Bandit Queens
  Parini Shroff
• Homesick
  Jennifer Croft
• The Dog of the North
  Elizabeth Mckenzie
• Memphis
  Tara M. Stringfellow
• Stone Blind
  Natalie Haynes
• Wandering Souls
  Cecile Pin
• I'm a Fan
  Sheena Patel
• Glory
  NoViolet Bulawayo

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 Best Nonfiction of 2023 • Best Novels of 2023 • 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 Best Nonfiction of 2023 • Best Novels of 2023 • 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 2023 • 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