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Our Favorite Books of the Year

This year has been a boon for books, with reimaginings of pasts and futures, from Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise and Hernan Diaz’s Trust to National Book Award winners Imani Perry and Tess Gunty.

By , , and Carole V. Bell
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One of the pleasures of the holiday season is the pivot from past to future, as we take stock of the preceding 12 months and glimpse ahead to the coming year, just behind a shimmer of tinsel. Here Oprah Daily serves up its list of 45 Favorite Books of 2022, spanning fiction genres, including romance and suspense, to nonfiction standouts in memoir, science, and biography—a cornucopia of rich reads to captivate bibliophiles. They also make perfect gifts for friends and family.

This year's fiction enthralled us with daring techniques, wide-ranging themes, and gorgeous prose. Jonathan Escoffery's linked stories trace the arcs of one striving Jamaican family after they immigrate to Miami, their fates shaped by Hurricane Andrew. Bolu Babalola's rom-com drizzles honey and spice into modern love. Hernan Diaz packs not one but four books into his virtuosic Trust, thwarting our expectations and illuminating the chasm between the haves and have-nots. Suspense writer Deanna Raybourn delivers a page-turner featuring four older women, professional assassins on the cusp of retirement, confronting a new—and potentially deadly—threat. And in Demon Copperhead, an Oprah Book Club pick, Barbara Kingsolver beautifully transposes Charles Dickens's classic David Copperfield to present-day Appalachia.

Nonfiction dazzled as well. Hollywood icon Viola Davis recounts her road out of savage poverty in her raw yet beguiling Finding Me, also an Oprah Book Club selection. In her lush, candid memoir, Kathryn Schulz maps her journey from grief to joy. The oncologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Siddhartha Mukherjee sifts through our cells to divine the meaning of life, while Ed Yong guides us through the realms of animal senses. Even serious topics entertain in the hands of talented authors.

These books—and the others curated here--have lifted our spirits, nourished our hearts and minds, and taught us invaluable lessons. Dip into Oprah Daily's 45 favorites, and build your own reading list to savor as Father Time marches on.

1

Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah

<i>Afterlives</i>, by Abdulrazak Gurnah
1

Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah

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Gurnah, the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature—and the first Black writer to win the award since Toni Morrison in 1993—centers this sweeping epic in Tanzania when the country is under brutal German rule in the early part of the 20th century. And while this is a novel spotlighting the devastation wrought by colonization, it is the intimacy with which Gurnah renders his characters that makes it a heartrending and eye-opening standout.

2

All the Lovers in the Night, by Mieko Kawakami

<i>All the Lovers in the Night</i>, by Mieko Kawakami
2

All the Lovers in the Night, by Mieko Kawakami

From the celebrated author of Breasts and Eggs and Heaven comes her most accomplished novel yet. Kawakami’s tale dissects the ennui of Fuyoko, a 30-ish copyeditor and something of a social misfit: “Face down on the mattress, I pulled the covers over my head and squeezed my eyes shut,” she says, “waiting for the things swirling in my throat to pass, the breath dampening my cheeks and eyelids infinitely hot and painful.” Once Fuyoko resolves to transform herself, she sets into motion a chain of events that disturb the narrative in devious, electrifying ways. A contemporary Japanese master continues her meteoric rise into our literary firmament.

3

Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson

<i>Black Cake</i>, by Charmaine Wilkerson
3

Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson

In many ways, Black Cake is a tale exploring what could drive a parent to risk so much for the sake of a dish eaten at celebrations and holidays. Set between an unnamed Caribbean island (based on Jamaica), the United Kingdom, and the United States, the novel is a migration narrative about the ways civilian and state violence push Black people to leave behind their kin and their countries in pursuit of safety. It is also a story of traditions forged through difficulty, of exiles holding onto the past as it slips through their fingers, and of new generations misunderstanding their inheritance. Brilliant.

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4

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

<i>Demon Copperhead</i>, by Barbara Kingsolver
4

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

The Appalachian mountains are among the oldest on the planet, but their misty, mystical aura is timeless. Kingsolver’s ravishing ninth novel brilliantly reimagines David Copperfield among the region’s ridges and ravines and steely, poverty-stricken people. The novel’s first lines echo Dickens’s celebrated opening, but in a Southern register: “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.” Kingsolver’s hero captures our hearts and minds; his only weapons against the world are a handsome face and a savvy determination to prevail. She guides through the peaks and valleys of a saga whose empathy and gritty realism match the master’s epic.

5

Dinosaurs, by Lydia Millet

<i>Dinosaurs</i>, by Lydia Millet
5

Dinosaurs, by Lydia Millet

Nothing delights like a sublime novel cunningly crafted by a writer at the height of her powers. Gil is a wealthy, laconic white guy who, in the wake of a doomed romance, abandons his life in Manhattan for a “castle” in a normie Phoenix neighborhood. A picture-perfect family inhabits the glass house next door, gradually drawing him into the dramas of their lives. Millet’s previous novel, A Children’s Bible, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award; here she metes out, in terse, calibrated prose, a tale of menace and redemption and the wall that separates them like a clear pane.

6

French Braid, by Anne Tyler

<i>French Braid</i>, by Anne Tyler
6

French Braid, by Anne Tyler

In her 24th book, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author observes the Garretts from their first and last family vacation in the 1950s through the present day, examining the challenges and joys of our daily intimacies with those closest to us. Some of the novel's dynamics and themes will at first seem familiar to Tyler aficionados—and we are passionate about her work-—but subtly, gently, the iconic novelist nudges into new territory, pulling back from the quotidian and giving us an elegy to what falls away when our kids grow and we age and grapple with what remains, and what will never be.

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7

Homesickness, by Colin Barrett

<i>Homesickness</i>, by Colin Barrett
7

Homesickness, by Colin Barrett

Many a writer claims mastery of technique, but few deliver at the level of Colin Barrett, whose roving perspectives, lopped-off endings, and Kevin Barry-esque dialogue dazzle in his second collection, mostly set in Ireland’s County Mayo. Barrett harnesses his craft in service of his characters, mostly working- and middle-class folks from Ireland's County Mayo. "A Shooting in Rathreedane" mimics a police procedural, as a world-weary policewoman—think Nicola Walker in one of her indelible television roles—investigates a bizarre crime-that-isn't. In "The 10," a former soccer prodigy returns from Manchester to a dissolute life. The most boisterous piece, "The Alps," features three brothers snagged in a weird incident at a pub. Barrett is a doyen of the sentence; each snaps and sings like a bullwhip. We know these people because we hear and see them in perfect clarity—they're not homesick so much as sick of home.

8

Honey and Spice, by Bolu Babalola

<i>Honey and Spice</i>, by Bolu Babalola
8

Honey and Spice, by Bolu Babalola

The holidays are the perfect time to sink into this sweet and savvy mashup. Like a Gen Z meeting of Nora Ephron and Bernadine Evaristo, in her first romance novel, the author of the myth-inspired story collection Love in Color infuses the joy, pain, and laughter of young love with cultural insight and drama. Kikiola Banjo is a popular Nigerian British college deejay spitting feminist wisdom against a hip-hop and R&B soundtrack for the Black femme community at a predominantly white university. It’s the perfect niche for the aspiring international media mogul until a new arrival shakes up her world. Newcomer Malakai Korede is a fledgling filmmaker and Kiki’s only competition for the bragging rights and privileges that come from being her department’s star pupil. Though they spark instantly, Malakai’s behavior leads Kiki to tag him a “wasteman,” (i.e., a player). Only a forced, career-making collaboration can break through the static of that bad first impression. This swoony coming-of -age tale cements Babalola’s superlative status as a queen of romantic comedy and master chronicler of Black British life.

9

If I Survive You, by Jonathan Escoffery

<i>If I Survive You</i>, by Jonathan Escoffery
9

If I Survive You, by Jonathan Escoffery

In linked stories, this radiant debut, longlisted for the National Book Award, charts one Jamaican family’s fate before, during, and mostly after Andrew, a 1992 category 5 hurricane that levels entire Miami neighborhoods. Escoffery offers a master class in technique, twirling gracefully among his characters’ many conflicts and needs. Nevertheless, they persist: through demolished houses, painful divorces, and economic setbacks. In crystalline prose, Escoffery evokes the fluorescent textures of Miami, tapping Caribbean traditions, immigrant aspirations, and familial and communal bonds.

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10

Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn

<i>Killers of a Certain Age</i>, by Deanna Raybourn
10

Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn

In this unpredictable and propulsive romp of a thriller, after dedicating decades to eliminating the world’s most dangerous offenders, four female professional killers on the precipice of retirement find themselves in their agency’s crosshairs. Almost as maddening, no one can pinpoint the reason. In flashbacks, between thwarting their own assassinations and trying to ferret out why they’ve been targeted, we learn their stories—how this clandestine crew came into being, the challenges they faced, and how their spectacular success was finally turned against them. An inventive and distinctly feminist escapade.

11

Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

<i>Lessons in Chemistry</i>, by Bonnie Garmus
11

Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

Darkly funny and poignant, Lessons in Chemistry paints an extraordinary portrait of an unusual life in 1960s California. As a young woman, recognizing the hoops she must jump through as the lone female research scientist in an almost exclusively male dominated world, the awkward and brilliant Elizabeth Zott is fiercely focused on her career. Dating is nowhere on the agenda. True love finds her anyway, and for a while, it’s glorious. Elizabeth and her colleague Calvin are the perfect nerdy pair, and their coming together is deeply romantic. Then life intervenes, and the story takes another surprising turn. The result is irresistible, a gorgeous tribute to resilience and the many types of love that sustain us.

12

Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout

<i>Lucy by the Sea</i>, by Elizabeth Strout
12

Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout

Strout’s stalwart, engimatic heroine, Lucy Barton, is back in this gossamer novel set in the early days of the pandemic. As sirens wail across Manhattan, Barton, a writer, and William, her ex-husband and intimate friend, decamp to Maine, hoping to ride out the plague with a minimum of fuss. But as days turn to weeks, she grapples with an unprecedented emotional frailty, reflected in the people around her. A triumph of astute observation and elegant simplicity by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge.

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13

Liberation Day>, by George Saunders

<i>Liberation Day></i>, by George Saunders
13

Liberation Day>, by George Saunders

In his first collection of short fiction since 2013’s Tenth of December, one of our most inventive purveyors of the form returns with pitch-perfect, genre-bending stories that stare into the abyss of our national character. From brain-numb captives dramatizing Custer’s Last Stand to a vengeful writer to a boy trapped in a hellish amusement park, Saunders’s characters root around for redemption in the dark, “like stars, or a trio of folks falling from a great height.” An exquisite work from a writer whose reach is galactic.

14

Mr. B, by Jennifer Homans

<i>Mr. B</i>, by Jennifer Homans
14

Mr. B, by Jennifer Homans

For fans of Homans’s 2010 classic, Apollo’s Angels, the magic is back. Here she charts the life and times of arguably the 20th century’s greatest choreographer, from his modest origins as Georgiy Melitonovich Balachivadze in late czarist Russia to his flight from murderous Bolsheviks to stints with Paris’s Ballet Russes to his triumphs as the legendary artistic director of the New York City Ballet. Homans brings to life the sweat and strut of studio classes, the jumps and jolts of business deals, and the hushed thrills of a Manhattan theater’s dimmed footlights. Mr. B pirouettes and arabesques among a who’s who of cultural Olympians—Sergei Diaghilev, Lincoln Kirstein, Salvador Dalí, Maria Tallchief, and Fred Astaire—leavening her biography with sparkling anecdotes and trenchant analysis.

15

Night of the Living Rez, by Morgan Talty

<i>Night of the Living Rez</i>, by Morgan Talty
15

Night of the Living Rez, by Morgan Talty

A citizen of the Penobscot Nation, Talty plumbs the grit and grace of rez life, mishaps born of dim hopes and brutal marginalization. His "skeejins" are beset by drugs and booze and the force of their aspirations. Porcupine quills, card games, cans of beer, a beat-up iPhone: Talty deftly spins these details into totems of lives on the brink of ruin. There’s no medicine to cure what ails them, and yet some break free from the vicious cycle. A blazing talent in the vein of Tommy Orange and Junot Díaz.

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16

Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley

<i>Nightcrawling</i>, by Leila Mottley
16

Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley

Mottley began her astonishing debut novel when she was just 16. It has received raves from such luminaries as Dave Eggers, Kiese Laymon, and this one from James McBride: “Leila Mottley has an extraordinary gift. She writes with the humility and sparkle of a child, but with the skill and deft touch of a wizened, seasoned storyteller.”

17

Nobody Gets Out Alive, by Leigh Newman

<i>Nobody Gets Out Alive</i>, by Leigh Newman
17

Nobody Gets Out Alive, by Leigh Newman

From the winner of a National Magazine Award comes an austere, winning, atmospheric collection that broods on desperate lives amid Alaska’s “shiny flotsam of airplanes and speedboats and snow machines.” Newman navigates the emotional fissures in her characters—a distraught woman willing to drive thousands of miles from an abusive marriage; a wife caught in an affair, “her face a blur of panic”—but the 49th state is the real star, from oil-rich Anchorage to the solace of wilderness, landscape as destiny.

18

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

<i>Our Missing Hearts</i>, by Celeste Ng
18

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

Literary star Celeste Ng’s third novel advances a once unthinkable proposition: Americans racked by insecurity embrace authoritarian solutions. In a time not far in the future, in the wake of economic and political meltdown, discrimination, censorship, and fear run rampant under the guise of “peace-keeping.” As "challenging" books are removed from shelves, and dissidents are wrested from their families, a 12-year-old boy searches for his missing mother, an artist who might hold the key to a better future. With a chilling premise and frequently stunning prose, this dystopian drama is a jolt to the system and a booster of hope.

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19

People Person, by Candice Carty-Williams

<i>People Person</i>, by Candice Carty-Williams
19

People Person, by Candice Carty-Williams

The singular author of the bestselling Queenie—whose protagonist some dubbed the Black Bridget Jones—returns with a nuanced and endearing family saga featuring a hapless deadbeat dad, Cyril (he drives a shiny gold jeep!), and his five children with multiple baby mamas. One of his kids is the almost-famous social media influencer Dimple Pennington, who, like her four half-siblings, has Daddy issues that lead to a family crisis. Carty-Williams has said the idea for the book emerged from a conversation she had with her eldest half-sister about who would rescue her from trouble if push came to shove. From that chat Dimple sprung. And when she accidentally kills her boyfriend, she must figure out who, among the family members she hasn't seen for 16 years, will come to her rescue. Fresh, funny, poignant—of the moment.

20

Sacrificio, by Ernesto Mestre-Reed

<i>Sacrificio</i>, by Ernesto Mestre-Reed
20

Sacrificio, by Ernesto Mestre-Reed

During the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 90s, Cuba placed infected people in sanitariums isolating them from the general population in a bid to prevent the disease from spreading. In Sacrificio, as in life, some deliberately injected themselves with HIV in order to receive regular meals and the relative comfort of institutionalization. Set in a time of upheaval after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mestre-Reed’s protagonist, Rafa, moves from a rural area in Cuba to the capital, where he waits tables at a café owned by his boyfriend Nicolas's mother. Through these characters and their desperation to move their country forward, we witness a complex Cuban history rife with political intrigue and plagued by the long shadow of poverty.

Headshot of Leigh Haber
Leigh Haber

Leigh Haber is Vice President, Books, Oprah Daily and O Quarterly. She is also Director of Oprah's Book Club. 

Headshot of Wadzanai Mhute

Wadzanai is a Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she edits and writes about authors and books. She has written for various publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Essence Magazine among others. She is also a short story writer centering her work on women, Africa and the Diaspora. 

Headshot of Hamilton Cain
Hamilton Cain
Contributing Books Editor, Oprah Daily

A former book editor and the author of a memoir, This Boy's Faith, Hamilton Cain is Contributing Books Editor at Oprah Daily. As a freelance journalist, he has written for O, The Oprah Magazine, Men’s Health, The Good Men Project, and The List (Edinburgh, U.K.) and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He is currently a member of the National Book Critics Circle and lives with his family in Brooklyn.  

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