2022 Book Highlights
Another year, another chance for me to wax poetic about all of the books I enjoyed over the past twelve months. This year, I was surprised to see several themes emerge from my reading habits: mainly, earnest coziness and blatant horror. Many of the books on this list carry some level of optimism through their pages, whether it be through their themes, descriptions, or characters (Legends and Lattes, Howl’s Moving Castle); others are more unique, with metatextual storytelling elements, unique structures (hello, the Locked Tomb series and House of Leaves) and feelings of outright dread, moral ambiguity, and even some gore.
I’m not sure what that says about where I was mentally through 2022. Many of these books are ones that I had been meaning to read for a long time. Perhaps the post-pandemic want for simple escapism finally gave me the impetus to read them. Perhaps my tastes are changing away from run-of-the-mill fantasy to the more unique (I’ve never been much for regular sword and sorcery anyway). That being said, there of course were still some nonfiction favorites and left-field tales that made my final list.
Without further ado, the rundown:
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I started off the year with some heavy-hitting reading about the new caste system born from mass incarceration. In full transparency, I don’t know anyone who is incarcerated, or anyone who has been; I hadn’t thought much about the prison system because for most of my life, I haven’t had to. With the mainstreaming of police reform discourse reestablishing this book on best-seller lists, I decided it was time to educate myself. As a civil rights lawyer, Michelle Alexander offers a valuable insight into the prison industrial complex and the enraging history of the War on Drugs. Although it was published more than ten years ago, I believe this book is more relevant than ever, particularly in the wake of drug decriminalization.
Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
The full title of this book is Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. And before I lose anyone who has no interest in trans issues or anything resembling feminism, I want to advocate for this book as a foundational text for anyone hoping to gain more insight into transgender politics (ugh I hate that phrase) and our deep-rooted notions regarding femininity in all its forms.
Serano is a biologist and a skilled writer. She shares her perspectives both pre- and post-transition, uses her expertise in an accessible manner, and explains how cultural ideas about femininity shape how trans women are viewed by society. Although it may sound like a complex or niche topic, I promise this book will provide valuable insight on how we perform, live, and embody gender, as well as the ways in which we carry inherent bias as a result of our conditioning. I would also recommend Julia Serano’s other work, while we’re at it.
No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Le Guin’s fiction, but before this year I hadn’t gotten around to reading many of her essays. I was gifted her Conversations on Writing last Christmas by a friend, and found it to be incredibly insightful and fun. No Time to Spare is Le Guin’s final collection of essays, detailing her daily life as an aging women with her husband, her perspective as a writer who has lived through tremendous world events and cultural shifts, and her general philosophies (to say nothing of her incredibly funny interjections her newly adopted cat). If you’re looking for short, impactful essays, I would highly recommend this book.
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
I was sold on this book as soon as I heard the synopsis: Legends and Lattes: A Novel of Low Stakes and High Fantasy tells the story of an orc adventurer named Viv who retires to start her own cafe. Cozy, beautiful, endearing, delightful - despite its low stakes, this book truly made me care about all of the characters and the success of Viv’s cafe. If you’re looking for escapism or simply a unique fantasy read, I would 100% recommend this book.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Studio Ghibli adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle ranks among one of my favorite movies from Miyazaki. Although I have seen the movie version several times, I hadn’t gotten around to reading the book until this year. The book diverges rapidly from the movie (or I suppose the movie diverged from the book), but I found that even with several additional characters, plot points, and slight world-building differences, the main themes and heart of the story are identical. The book allows the reader to gain more insight into minor and major characters alike, and in my opinion provides a much greater understanding of both Sophie and Howl. At the risk of spoiling the book, there are several key plot points that are very different in the book, and I’m glad they were changed for the sake of simplicity in the movie, but they provide a fun, fantastical read. (Not to mention, I think the book does the wizard duels much better)
If you’re a fan of the movie, I would highly recommend checking out the book for a cozy, fun, heart-warming fantasy read.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik is rapidly becoming an instant-buy author for me. After reading His Majesty’s Dragon and hearing wonderful things about Spinning Silver (still TBR), I decided to pick up A Deadly Education after seeing hype for the series on different fantasy forums. While I’m calling out this first book in the Scholomance series on this list, I read all three books (A Deadly Education, the Last Graduate, and the Golden Enclaves) that have been published so far, and would highly recommend all of them.
The story centers on a young woman (Galadriel “El” Higgins) during her time at the Scholomance, a magic school where there are no teachers, no holidays, no guarantees for safety or even making it to the much-feared graduation. Alliances are key to surviving through this high school, and at the start of her journey, El is without friends and destined to become the most powerful dark sorceress that has ever lived. The catch? She doesn’t want to. The story is told through El’s stream of consciousness as she navigates her coursework, new friendships, and saving the school without succumbing to her evil destiny. (I also give it bonus points for featuring a unique magic system and rational, smart, and realistic characters)
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Like for a Deadly Education, Gideon the Ninth is on this list as a placeholder for the whole Locked Tomb series. And to be honest, this book didn’t initially stick for me. I found the in media res storytelling difficult to follow; the world wasn’t fully explained, and some of the characters seemed unreliable, and even unlikeable. I also found the tagline for the book (“lesbian necromancers in space!”) to be kind of glib and misleading. The books feature basically no romance (except for some sapphic pining) and space is rarely explored. The story is much closer to a science-based fantasy tale. It just happens to be set in a necromancy-based world that is (some minor spoilers) the result of Some Guy (TM) declaring himself God and basing the whole society on what he could remember about Catholic school. I almost didn’t continue the series. But when I started the sequel, I realized that this was all the point.
As the story went on, and more of the world was explained, Muir drew me in with the complexity of the world and its morally grey villains, grief-stricken heroes, unique magic and hilarious narration. A book hasn’t made me laugh or cry this much in a long time, and with each book in the series it keeps getting better. I would highly recommend this whole series, and even if you’re so-so on Gideon, I would also recommend starting the sequel, Harrow the Ninth, to see if you like it better.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
This book has been on my TBR pile for about six years now. In my undergraduate writing classes, it was touted as ‘the most unique book' people have ever read, and I would say that this sentiment holds true. Part metafiction, part horror, this book tells three nested stories, the center of which revolves around a family who moves into a unique house in Virginia. The narrative weaves in and out of an in-text analysis of a documentary made by the father, a renowned photographer, and the journal entries of a man who finds this analysis but cannot find any evidence that this house - or its inhabitants - ever existed.
Structural uniqueness aside, House of Leaves features text that changes and waves around the page, morphing to the shape of the house as it changes and reveals the labyrinth inside. Filled with footnotes, appendices, and fictional (or not?) citations, this book has spawned hundreds (if not thousands) forum posts worth of discussions and theories, even twenty years after publication. I actually started reading this book last October, but had to put it aside after I got literal nightmares. I picked it up this year and read it with some friends, which made for some great conspiracies and discussions. This is quite possibly the most unique book I have and will ever read, and for that I would recommend it.
The Codebreaker by Walter Isaacs
I’m usually not a huge fan of biographies, but the Codebreaker is so much more than that. Centered around the story of Jennifer Doudna and her Nobel-prize winning work on the CRISPR gene-editing technology. The depth of Isaacs’s research is clear, as is his ability to communicate complicated scientific ideas accurately and clearly to a general audience. Although I had been at MIT during the patent battle over CRISPR, I wasn’t aware of many of the details of the lawsuits and arguments over intellectual property that had ensued after the discovery. This account is worth reading solely to understand the commodification of discoveries as well as the politics of scientific advancement.
Peter Darling by Austin Chant
In my slow comedown from the high of watching Our Flag Means Death for the first time, I began searching for books that would fill the sword-shaped hole in my chest. Tor dot com beat me to the punch, with an entire article dedicated to pirate and pirate-adjacent books to read in the wake of the hit series, and Peter Darling was one of them. Written as a queer retelling of Peter Pan, this story follows Peter after he has left Neverland. Ten years later, he has found himself on the cusp of adulthood and unable to live the life his family wants him to, as Wendy Darling. And so he returns to Neverland to old friends and old foes, new adventure and new discoveries about himself and the people of Neverland. This book was creative, beautiful, and somehow soft in all the right ways - the perfect book to read on cold winter days. (I am, and will always be, a sucker for Peter Pan)
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Another book for the spooky-adjacent category, The Once and Future Witches tells the story of the three Eastwood sisters living in New Salem, where witchcraft has been outlawed, stamped out, and banished to the shadows. But when the three women join the blossoming suffragette movement, they begin to reclaim their lost magic in order to advance their cause.
Weaving a unique tale through themes of racism, sexism, sisterhood, love, and friendship, Harrow’s writing shines throughout this story. Each sister is unique, with her own motives, desires, fears, and agency. I thoroughly enjoyed this standalone fantasy book and would highly recommend it with a glass of mulled cider in the Fall, or any other time of the year.
Endurance: My Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly
I have a secret: I actually don’t instantly like most astronaut books. I find a lot of them to be poorly written or lacking story, or perhaps too cookie-cutter. Endurance was none of those things. Following Scott Kelly’s year in space, this book features both his humble beginnings and triumphant highs during his own flagship mission where he spent close to a full year aboard the International Space Station in order to study resulting genetic differences between himself and his identical twin, Mark. Scott’s account of his spaceflight is wholly and truly honest. It isn’t all roses; he describes the good, the bad, the ugly, the frustrating, the beautiful, and everything in between. I finished this book with a new appreciation for what our astronauts go through, what they sacrifice, and the immense bonds they form with other astronauts from around the world.
That’s a wrap for 2022! As always, reminder that you can support small bookstores through sites like IndieBound, buy used books through sites like Thrift Books, and get free digital copies and audiobooks from your local libraries using apps like Libby. Thanks for reading!