The Best Books I Read in 2022, Part 2
Nonfiction and Genre Fiction
Last week, in the first part of this series, I discussed the best works of literary fiction I read this year. If you haven’t yet read that post, you can find it here.
Every December I look forward to the lists of best books in the New York Times and other publications. But for the past few years—precisely when our spirits might need a bit of bolstering—yeesh have their picks been depressing. I get it. We’re facing polarization, climate change, war, pestilence . . . the whole catastrophe. And it is good to acknowledge and discuss these issues. In past years I might well have recommended an excellent but bleak book like The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells (whose opening sentence, “It is worse, much worse, than you think,”1 is the apotheosis of this kind of pessimistic thinking).
In spite of the many serious challenges we face, and as befits a writer who styles herself the Happy Wanderer, this year I have instead chosen favorite works of nonfiction and genre fiction that make the case that the world is pretty great, actually. Optimism is a crucial emotion for motivating us to continue working to improve the world. This perspective will be obvious in the nonfiction books below, but even crime fiction, which may seem cynical on the surface, shows us good people striving for justice in the face of daunting challenges. I hope that the recommended books below will bring some light into people’s lives. Lord knows we need it!
Nonfiction
Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
I think of this book as self-help for people who don’t like self-help. Instead of pep talks and woo, Stephens-Davidowitz uses hard facts and data to make recommendations for how we can improve our lives. As in his first book (also excellent), Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us about Who We Really Are, Stephens-Davidowitz shows how our internet searches reveal preferences we might like to hide from ourselves. He makes the convincing case that we will be happier with our lives if we are honest about what we want. He is his own guinea pig, telling the story of how he found true love through data—and offering suggestions for how readers can too. Entertaining and lively, this book would be great for anyone who wants to make smart decisions.
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Rosling became famous for his TED talks, in which he shared data showing that our despair and cynicism are misplaced, and that we have made commendable progress on multiple measures of human health, security, and happiness. Rosling and his co-authors use facts to combat our “negativity instinct,” “fear instinct,” and other glitches in our thinking that keep us from seeing and building on our achievements. I recommend this book not only for the upbeat, optimistic people in our lives, but also for those who tend to hold grim views of the world. Rosling’s work is an important and inspirational corrective!
The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World, by Joe Keohane
Think back to your most recent trip to the grocery store or afternoon running errands. If you’re like me, your encounters with friendly strangers lifted your spirits and left you smiling. Or think of the wonderful story of the thirteen strangers who got together to rent a van after their flight was cancelled. During their epic road trip home they had a blast and became buddies too. Keohane’s terrific book reminds us that we are wrong to believe that we ought to shun other people and stay in our shells. He discusses numerous studies that prove that casual, positive encounters with strangers bind us together and buoy us up. He includes personal experiences as well as exercises we can try in our own lives. This book is perfect for anyone who is interested in rebuilding our social connections after they were so grievously disrupted by the pandemic (in other words, everyone).
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around Us, by Ed Yong
This was the very best nonfiction book I read this year. Yong, an award-winning science writer for the Atlantic, has endless curiosity about the natural world and an entertaining way of making biology clear to the lay reader. Did you know that bees can see shades of ultraviolet that we can’t, and that flowers display these colors in a bulls-eye that leads the bees directly to their reproductive organs (and, from the bees’ perspective, to nectar)? Or that mosquitos are drawn not to light or heat but to the smell of carbon dioxide on our breath? Or that dolphins’ echolocation is so sensitive that they can detect a fetus inside a pregnant woman or shrapnel in the body of a combat veteran?
This book is absolutely packed with fascinating information about animal senses. Readers come away humbled and eager to observe the creatures around us, as well as tremendously grateful to the scientists who have devised clever experiments and devoted patient hours to unlocking the mysteries of how animals perceive the world. Refreshingly, Yong’s book doesn’t try to argue us into particular beliefs or positions (beyond a brief conclusion that exhorts us to treasure the natural world). Instead, Yong teaches us. This book would be perfect for nieces or nephews in high school or college, or for anyone who loves animals and nature.
Genre Fiction
Before I come to the books themselves, allow me to briefly step on my soapbox to defend genre fiction. I went through a snobbish phase in college and grad school, during which I refused to read the kinds of books I love best—mysteries, anything by Stephen King, historical romance, easygoing comedies—out of a misguided idea that these books were inferior. I now regret all the reading pleasure I denied myself and encourage other people not to make the same mistake. Any book that brings us happiness is a good book.
Nonfiction and genre fiction are great choices for kids too. My experience shelving books in four school libraries has made it abundantly clear which books kids and teens will choose to read for pleasure. Sadly for the English teachers in the room, it’s not literature they pick. It’s books about football and basketball (in the US) or soccer (in Europe), books about big machines, dinosaur books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, Warriors, Twilight, the sports novels by Matt Christopher, romance novels by Kiera Cass and others, and literally anything by Rick Riordan.2
Now that we have that sorted out, let us proceed to the recommendations!
Apples Never Fall, by Liane Moriarty
They say that there are two plots: A stranger comes to town, or a hero goes on a journey. In this novel, about a family of tennis champions and coaches, a young stranger named Savannah shows up on the doorstep and moves in. And then the mom disappears. The four adult children, all struggling with their own challenges, do not like Savannah one bit! Moriarty always writes suspenseful plots with profound psychological insights, and her latest book is no exception. My book club had a great conversation about this book, and yours will too!
The Babylon Berlin mysteries, by Volker Kutscher
Readers may be familiar with the Netflix series Babylon Berlin, whose production design is gorgeous, but whose plots are only glancingly similar3 to Kutscher’s outstanding mystery series. Instead of watching the show, read the books! I’m reading them in the original German, but the first five books in the series (of nine so far) have been translated into English.
Every book covers one year in German history, beginning with the first book, set in Berlin in 1929. While the police-procedural mysteries in the individual books are fascinating and skillfully done, the real strength of the series is how it chronicles the characters’ choices as their country descends into fascist evil. The hero, Gereon Rath, is a brilliant creation. A rebel and an occasional idiot (he gets ridiculously jealous), he’s ambitious, clever, stubborn in the pursuit of answers, and morally ambiguous; he is a flawed human being like all of us. If you have ever wondered what you would have done if you lived in Germany as the Nazis rose to power, Kutscher’s characters provide several possible answers. One heads-up: Appropriately for their setting and subject matter, the books can be violent and disturbing, so if this is not your cup of tea, see below for another recommended mystery series.
The Commissario Brunetti mysteries, by Donna Leon
Shortly after we returned from Venice this spring, a couple of friends told me about this mystery series, which is set in Venice. I have raced through a dozen of them already. Leon writes beautifully, and you will love watching her characters—the intelligent, upright Brunetti; his aristocratic, feminist wife, Paola; the beautiful and stylish secretary with a secret talent as a hacker, Signorina Elettra—fight for what is right. In every book Brunetti’s efforts to solve the crimes are thwarted by some form of corrupt institutional power, be it organized crime, the government, the church, or the elites who benefit from the status quo. Nevertheless he persists. Unlike the Babylon Berlin books, Leon’s books can be read in any order. They often show up as Kindle daily deals, so you can snap them up for $2 apiece. I call that a bargain!
Death in the Clouds, by Agatha Christie
I think Christie is just showing off in this Hercule Poirot mystery! Poirot, a dozen other passengers, and two stewards are in an airplane. Shortly after the plane takes off, Poirot falls asleep, and when he wakes up right before landing, he discovers that one of the passengers has been murdered. All the passengers have been able to see each other for the entire flight, and yet no one has any idea what happened. How is this possible? Fans of classic mysteries will enjoy this book, as will anyone who enjoys puzzles and brain games. Christie plays fair, and attentive readers can have the fun of trying to solve the mystery for themselves.
Desert Star, by Michael Connelly
The title to this police procedural, starring Harry Bosch and Renée Ballard (and featuring a brief cameo by Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer), refers to flowers that grow in the desert—“a sign of god” in a messed-up world. “They’re relentless against the heat and the cold, against everything that wants to stop them.” That line, from the final chapter, along with Bosch’s mantra, “Everybody counts, or nobody counts,” could serve as a fitting moral for all Connelly’s novels, which chronicle the indefatigable efforts of Bosch and Ballard to find some justice in an unjust world. In Desert Star, Ballard recruits Bosch for her cold-case team; Bosch agrees because he wants to solve the case that has tormented him for years, the murder of an entire family. Connelly, a former police reporter, includes fascinating details about police investigations that he has learned from the officers he has worked with over the years.
How to Find Your Way in the Dark, by Derek B. Miller
Sheldon Horowitz becomes an orphan as a child. And yet, far from being a poor, Dickensian victim, he is one of the most resourceful and badass heroes you will ever meet. This novel, which would be perfect for dads, brothers, and uncles, is set in the 1950s in and around New York City and the Catskills. Is Sheldon’s best friend supposed to be a young Lenny Bruce? Read his comedy routines and see what you think!
Lights Out in Lincolnwood, by Geoff Rodkey
This book starts out as a simple story about a suburban family coping with ordinary troubles: The mom day-drinks; the dad has quit his lucrative job as a lawyer to follow his dreams and is discovering that his dream job is not so great after all; the twelfth-grade daughter worries about standardized tests and college applications; and the eighth-grade son deals with a bully next door. And then the lights go out—literally—and the story becomes a thriller. What sets this book apart from the usual thrillers, though, is its authenticity. Rodkey researched suburban life and teenagers’ struggles by interviewing kids and parents throughout the New Jersey suburbs. As a former suburban New Jersey mom myself (although not a day-drinker!), I can attest that these compelling characters ring true.
The Local, by Joey Hartstone
A small-town patent lawyer finds himself defending his client in a capital murder case. I enjoyed this book not only because it is a well-plotted, suspenseful courtroom thriller, but because I learned so much from it! Hartstone is skilled at explaining topics as diverse as the thinking process a judge goes through over whether to recuse him- or herself, the challenges ordinary people face in the gig economy, and why an entire region in Texas has no Apple stores.
The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn
Three women meet at Bletchley Park in 1941. Osla is the upper-class girlfriend of Prince Phillip (yes, that Prince Phillip) and longs to be taken seriously for her mind. Mab is working class and hopes to marry well so she won’t have to live in desperate poverty. Beth is an undiscovered genius whose witchy mother physically and emotionally abuses her. The three women become friends, and then enemies, and in the process they help to save their country. Plus there is intrigue, romance, and fascinating historical gossip (Osla and Beth are based on real women). This book would be perfect for a book club!
How about you, readers? What were your favorite mysteries, romances, book-club books, science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction books you read this year? Please share your recommendations in the comments!
The Tidbit
If we truly love music, we will love music in all genres,4 so long as it’s good. So, in the spirit of this post’s tribute to genre fiction, allow me to share “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” performed by Richard Thompson, who can lay claim to being the greatest guitarist in the world. Before seeing this video, I thought that Thompson played the song on a twelve-string guitar, because of how complicated, full, and lively the guitar part is. Nope. He plays it on a regular six-string, all by himself. Thompson is a wizard! I guarantee that you will be amazed and moved by this song.
Wallace-Wells has since revised the most despairing conclusions in the book and now argues that while we still have a tremendous amount of work to do to fight climate change, the worst prognostications of a few years ago now seem unlikely.
In all four libraries where I volunteered, books like these circulated so frequently that the librarians despaired of keeping them in perfect order and instead just designated, say, a dinosaur bin or a Rick Riordan shelf, where kids could rummage around on their own.
For example, the main female character in the books is a police officer and then an apprentice lawyer, but the show turns her into a former prostitute. Why do shows do that to female characters? Why!? WHY?!
Yes, even rap and country.
Thanks a LOT, Mari! You made all of these sound really good and my To Read list is just getting longer and more unmanageable....
I used to love Donna Leon’s books but after a while I got tired of their indefatigable cynicism. The system is always so rigged agains the good detective, Italy is always so fathomlessly corrupt, it ends up feeling like there’s no point to any of it. But the descriptions of food are excellent!
Re: genre fiction. Arguably the greatest (least appreciated) novelist of the 20th Century is Patrick O’Brian. I’ve read the Aubrey-Maturin series at least a dozen times. It never loses its luster!