My Books of the Year
My special newsletter edition reading wrap up for 2022 - a year with an oddly high hit rate for good books!
We all know that year-end lists of Best Books and Favorite Books are very different. I always stress about which kind of list I should put together, so I usually create some sort of amalgamation of the two. That doesn’t even take into account the pressure of which books to include and which books to leave off. I picked 21 books I’d be happy to press into the hands of others and supplemented them with a some honorable mentions, any of which could have been at the top of the list on another day. What I’m saying is: whole lot of good books this year.
So, hereunder lies my list of books that I’d call The Books I’m Most Glad to Have Read This Year: A Mix of My Personal Favorites and the Very Best This Year Had to Offer, but that’s not very elegant, is it? (This is a long one - you’ll have to click that you want to see the whole message below!)
The Books I’m Most Glad to Have Read This Year (in no particular order)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - Probably my most recommendable book of the year, since it’s got something for everyone. It’s about creativity, purpose, friendship, and gaming, but I can say from personal experience that you don’t have to be a gamer to be moved by it. Most notably, I was impressed how seriously it treated platonic love among friends as capable of being life’s defining soulmate experience.
The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela - A queer man grapples with a trip home to help his mom take care of his ailing father while dealing with a past lover, a best friend in peril, a troubled marriage, and a high school reunion. It’s a clear-eyed examination of how queer folks can ever go home again post-Trump era.
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz - A well-do-to family in mid-20th century New York ends up having the world’s most caustic triplets who barely get along and acknowledge each other throughout their life. Then the titular Latecomer - from a fertilized egg the mom kept and froze - comes along 19 years later and upends everything.
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel - A gay man, near rock bottom, returns home to Illinois from LA after his father’s death and he and his mom deal with regrets and secrets. Chapters from dual points of view are set on a collision course for revelations between the two of them that change the course of their lives.
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman - Trenchant and lived-in cultural criticism about the peaceful and prosperous decade that not only analyzes major events from the decade but describes what it felt like to have lived through them. I’d love one of these from every decade, please.
My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson - A queer coming of age story about a man who encounters his own political awakening while running away from his home. A fascinating look at the early days of AIDS activism from an underserved point of view that manages to be entertaining without being didactic.
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang - Don’t let the YA vibes of the cover fool you. This is a complex meditation on how language, when employed in bad faith, can be a tool of oppressors. History and high fantasy are combined to great effect for a buzzy masterpiece.
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez - Olga is a high end wedding planner, her brother is (like a male AOC) a hip congress-member from NYC, and their mom, who abandoned them and has now returned, is a radical activist for Puerto Rican self-determinism. This family saga felt like a full meal.
True Biz by Sara Novic - An incredible and illuminating look at deaf culture, set in a flailing school for the deaf. I cannot believe how little I knew about the culture and how this novel wrapped up the world in a compelling coming of age story and romance.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan - There’s absolutely no reason that Jennifer Egan should have followed up A Visit from the Goon Squad, a lay-up of a crowd pleaser I recommend most to others and Pulitzer Prize winner. But she did, and it totally works, building on the themes of interconnection, technology, and memory.
Brother Alive by Zain Khalid - A never-not-fascinating acid trip that combines narratives from brothers adopted from different cultures, a queer Muslim coming of age, and Arabian futurism into a whole that’s even greater than the sum of its parts.
Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson - A bittersweet and hilarious look at how the moments and art we create during the most formative moments in our lives go on to affect and haunt us forever. It’s also a fun wink at the Satanic Panic of the 90s. Were we ever so innocent?
The Trees by Percival Everett - A mystery and slapstick comedy about lynching and revenge that manages to tell the story of how America was shaped by and continues to submit to its most violent impulses.
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews - A queer South Asian immigrant is on her own in a new city (Milwaukee) trying to make sense of her own and others’ queerness, entering the workforce, and straddling the poverty line. Maybe the year’s best narrator in a novel.
Trust by Hernan Diaz - A matryoshka doll of linked stories that explores how the richest and most privileged manage to grab the reins of the narratives that effect how history looks upon them and their influence. Formally inventive and exasperating when applied to the billionaires of today.
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka - The story of a serial killer, except told from the points of view of the women in his life he’s affected: his mother, a victim’s sister, a prison guard, and more. An incredible way to tell a crime story without centering the perpretrator.
Let’s Not Do That Again by Grant Ginder - A woman running for Senate in NY is a mess and her children are adrift and causing her (and her campaign) headaches galore. A serious look at family that manages to be very funny. (The son is writing a Joan Didion musical called “Hello to All That!”)
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel - I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to be living through a time with the Emily St. John Mandel Cinematic Universe. She brings back characters from her past novels to tell a story that soars in science fiction but is grounded in the realities of our current pandemic.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart - As the only gay person who wasn’t blown away by Shuggie Bain, I was thrilled that Douglas Stewart gave me what I was missing from Shuggie in Mungo. It’s bleak, but there’s a lot more action and revenge in this one. The UK cover is also pretty hot, if that matters to you.
Cyclorama by Adam Langer - There are no better places to mine drama than from the high school departments that literally produce them. This is a look back at a production of The Diary of Anne Frank that manages to affect the lives of everyone in it for decades to come. One of the better meditations on living through the Trump Era that’s I’ve read.
Husband Material by Alexis Hall - The sequel to Boyfriend Material about the pressures that gay men encounter when it’s time to upgrade (?) from boyfriend to husband. It’s a delightful look at the particularly queer ways we reckon with and define our own relationships in relation to and in spite of straighter expectations.
And finally, below are some Honorable Mentions, All of Which You Should Absolutely Read!
Infinite Country – Patricia Engel
When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut
Intimacies – Katie Kitamura
Anything But Fine – Tobias Madden
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Reed Jenkins
When You call My Name – Tucker Shaw
I Kissed Shara Wheeler – Casey McQuiston
Cult Classic – Sloane Crosley
Sirens & Muses – Antonia Angress
All the Women in My Brain – Betty Gilpin
The Winners – Frederik Backman
Less is Lost – Andrew Sean Greer
The Foghorn Echoes – Danny Ramadan
Until next year…Happy Reading!