For the second year in a row, I failed to complete my Goodreads reading challenge. Sixty books seemed achievable in January, but then 2022 sped on with a vengeance throwing every sickness imaginable our way alongside adjusting to two-kid life and a new career. While I hope to break this streak in 2023, I wouldn’t trade this new season for a few extra books.
But before I get to the list, I want to say thank you to those of you who’ve kept up with The Foreword this year. I launched this newsletter as an excuse to write for fun and talk about books—two of my favorite things to do. In the process, I’ve been able to connect with authors and readers alike and begin building a small community here that I look forward to updating each month. So thank you for reading. I hope these posts have profited you in some small way and am excited for a new year filled with new books to discuss.
So, without further ado, here are, in no particular order, my ten favorite reads of 2022.
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher
I say this every year, so let me begin by repeating myself: every year a book stops me in my tracks, and this year it was Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine. Meticulously reported, Fisher details how technologies prioritizing user engagement (like the algorithms driving Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter) feed biases of fear, hatred, and anxiety, radicalizing users to political extremes and contributing to horrific ends like child pornography and even genocide. I’ve long struggled over whether or not the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to social media. Having finished this book, my struggle has ceased.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
A slim book with a big heart, and perfectly suited for a holiday read. Keegan takes readers to small-town Ireland where Bill Furlong, a local coal merchant, makes an unsavory discovery that forces him into choosing between silence and conviction. It’s a powerful story that will leave you feeling warm long after the winter months have passed.
The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas-Contreras
I’ve never read anything quite like Ingrid Rojas-Contreras’s memoir. It’s a book written on its own terms—a non-fiction work that reads at times like a magical realist novel as much as a family history and personal confessional. And it works beautifully.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Zevin’s The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry remains one of my all-time favorite comfort reads, and Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has made its place on that list as well. We need more stories about friendship, and this novel, which traces the friendship of Sam and Sadie from chance encounter in a hospital to developing world-class video games and facing the burdens of adulthood, is as good as it gets.
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
When Fathom columnist Aarik Danielsen described this title to me as “the saddest book I’ve ever read,” it shot to the top of my list. And he wasn’t kidding—it’s sad, but it’s also filled with beautiful writing. Surprisingly intimate the novel is a collection of stories post-2030 after global warming defrosts a long-frozen virus in the Arctic Circle. Together, the stories underscore the human drive to dream of a better future even when faced with apparent annihilation. Plus, just look at that cover.
Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church by Katelyn Beaty
Recent years have left us with too many moral scandals among church leaders. No denomination or tradition is immune, but Katelyn Beaty’s new book argues that evangelicalism is especially susceptible to spectacular failure due to its obsession with celebrity and platform. Celebrities for Jesus is an incisive critique of a church culture that needs exorcising.
The Winners by Fredrik Backman
Strap on your skates and take to the ice in this final installment of Backman’s Beartown trilogy. Two years after the events of Us Against You, the rugged, hockey-obsessed community of Beartown attempts to leave the past behind until a funeral, an investigation, and a pistol change it forever.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Loosely connected to her Pulitzer-winning novel, A Visit from the Good Squad, Egan returns with a captivating novel about a world where technology has made it possible for people to externalize and commodify their memories. She heaves a collection of seemingly unrelated stories into orbit and meticulously draws them into the same gravitational pull. Come for the story, stay for the brilliant prose of a rightly celebrated master.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Stretching from the Caribbean to the US and everywhere in between, Black Cake is a multigenerational family drama about two siblings who discover the secrets of their mother’s past upon her death. Wilkerson beautifully unspools the powerful tale of this family, especially highlighting the bravery of the women throughout and demonstrating how we are all shaped by the untold stories of those who come before us.
Secret Identity by Alex Segura
Set in 1975, an assistant at a third-rate comic publisher gets an opportunity to co-author a new run introducing a promising new female lead. But when the comic goes to print without her name, her co-author colleague turns up dead, leaving her without a byline or an explanation for his death. Segura works in plenty of nods to well-known comics lore in a tense detective tale as playful as it is absorbing.
Adding to my TBR list! Celebrities for Jesus is the only one I’ve read, but it was so good and I’ve been mulling over it ever since. For The Chaos Machine, you said your struggle over pros and cons re: social media has ceased. Can you say how, or is it something we’ll understand when we read it?