Winter Reading 2022

Whether you’re looking to make a list for your family to buy for you, find something special for the readers in your life, or looking forward to being curled up cozily with an undetermined title, we’ve pulled together all the Best of 2022 book lists into one place. We’ll tell you it does seem to be banner year for books. It looks like writers made good use of the pandemic’s toll on their social lives.

NPR
Books We Love

We think this one is the best of all lists because it’s the prettiest database around and it’s extensive (over 400 total books). You can filter your list by a variety of styles and interests, and the cover images rearrange accordingly. If you’re a more practical type, just click over to view as an alphabetical list. It’s a joy to spend time if you’re a browser, and fast if you need to make a targeted purchase. And we love a lot of these books, too.

The Washington Post
Ten Best of 2022
50 Notable Nonfiction
50 Notable Fiction

We don’t know how anyone gets it down to just ten, but they do the hard work so you can just look like a very savvy book shopper. Even if your intended reader isn’t excited about one of these, books are easy to exchange, and these are all smart choices. (We can vouch for Trust and Demon Copperhead from the Top 10.)

The New York Times
Ten Best of 2022

Again, how can they pick only 10? And several overlaps with WaPo’s picks, including the two we seconded above. In this case, we’d just add The Candy House, also amazing. We’d second the end of the original review: Jennifer Egan’s Welcome to the Goon Squad and The Candy House will someday be published together in a single Library of America volume. She’s earned a spot in the American canon.

Time Magazine
The 100 Must-Read Books of 2022

We think Time and NPR, with longer lists, are much more willing to include some books that are just good fun, not great literature, and that can be just the right way to spend a long weekend. We’re not sure the title of their column is just right. Are there 100 must-read books in any given year? And if so, then there’s likely no time for anything else to be read, which seems a bit too narrow. To narrow your viewing of this list, we’d say to take a look at Dinosaurs, In Love, Lucy By the Sea, The Marriage Portrait, Mouth to Mouth, Shrines to Gaiety, and (previously noted in our last blast) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

And one TV show:

Let’s be honest, in our experience Amazon Prime has typically been one the weaker streaming channels—we have it only because it’s free with our existing Amazon Prime accounts. They may have hit their stride with more consistently strong showings, and we want to highlight The English. Not only fantastically beautifully shot (those skies, those clouds, with lots of lingering shots on faces, hands, and the details of hand-sewn wardrobe), the writing is top-notch. The show’s writer/director, Hugo Blick, also made An Honorable Woman, and you can see the themes the series share. Life is complicated, bad things happen, we’re all outsiders somewhere, and the pursuit of a mission may be as close to happiness as his characters can get. If you wanted a TV series to spark some family discussions, this is the one to pick.