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Hi everyone — if I’m reading something I love, I’m probably writing. If I’m reading something that’s just eh, or I’m not reading at all, I’m probably not writing.

Surely there’s also a connection between the substance of my reading and writing (i.e. if I’m reading absurdist fiction, my writing is more likely to be absurd), but at the most basic level, the relationship looks like this: if I’m reading something good, it makes me want to write.

Here are the 25 best books I read this year with a bit of improvised, stream-of-consciousness commentary on each. FYI, I tried to cut this list down to ten, but failed miserably (and you should see some of the gems left on the cutting room floor).

My 25 favorite books of 2022

Nonfiction

• Forty-One False Starts, Janet Malcolm — one of the best essayists the world ever produced takes us into the lives of visionary (and some not-so-visionary) artists, and meditates on the passion, creativity, compulsions, and pathologies that live within them.

• Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan — in the opening essay, “Upon This Rock,” an exposition of a Christian rock festival turns inward as the writer faces his own relationship with God.

• A Little Devil In America, Hanif Abdurraqib — an exploration of Black performance in America, ‘infused with the lyricism and rhythm’ that can only come from a poet of his caliber.

• Reign of Terror, Spencer Ackerman — a line is drawn from 9/11 through the War on Terror to the election of Trump. Extremely well-reported, illuminating, and chilling.

• Tribute to Freud, H.D. — a beautiful tribute to Dr. Freud by one of the last patients he treated, the poet H.D.

• Portrait of Hemingway, Lillian Roth — After landing at JFK, he insists on drinking two martinis at the airport bar before heading into the city. Two days in New York with Ernest Hemingway in 1949.

• The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber & David Wengrow — a very big book that challenges conventional beliefs about the development of human civilization. Graeber — a legendary activist and leader of Occupy — died suddenly right before publication.

• All About Love, bell hooks — a classic, of course, I reread this early in the year after hooks’ death. In my favorite parts, she explores ‘society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.’

• Illuminations, Walter Benjamin — Okay look I didn’t read this whole book, but I took an excellent class at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Benjamin’s Philosophy of History. I’m including this mostly to plug BISR and their incredible classes on philosophy, history, economics, literature, religion, etc. etc. etc.

• Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee — the writer takes us into the wild with an environmentalist and three of his ideological enemies—a miner, a developer, and a dam-builder—to watch their ecological arguments play out on the very ground that’s at stake. Never seen a narrative structure like this.

Fiction

• Train Dreams, Denis Johnson — I love this book, and try to read it every year. It’s a profound character study and a tale of love lost and an American epic rolled into one. All that in only 116 pages.

• Independent People, Halldór Laxness — another half-lie, I’ve just started this book about a sheep farmer in Iceland and his quest for independence, but it’s been recommended to me by 3 different people and I’m hooked after the first 100 pages.

• When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labatut — a fictionalized account of scientists throughout history who have been driven mad by the existential revelations of their own discoveries.

• The Door, Magda Szabó — a vivid story of the knotty relationship between a woman and her maid.

• The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante — A woman left by her husband goes into psychological free fall. Holy shit, this book packs a wallop.

• Cassandra at the Wedding, Dorothy Baker — I’m not sure exactly why, but this book from 1962 became very trendy this year, and it did not disappoint. Also, the hilarious John Early is turning it into a movie. I’ve told you nothing about the book I realize, but it’s good, I promise.

• The Trees, Percival Everett. One of the most prolific writers alive writes a dark and slapsticky tale about the ghost of Emmett Till haunting the descendants of his lynchers.

• Liberation Day, George Saunders — new collection by the best short story writer alive. Not sure what else I need to say.

• Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan — a gorgeous, moving little book that transports you to Christmas Eve in a rural Irish town.

• Death and the King’s Horseman, Wole Soyinka. A fascinating and tragic play about colonial forces intervening in a deadly Nigerian tradition.

• Outline, Rachel Cusk. A woman travels to Greece and has ten mesmerizing conversations.

• Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry — I don’t think this tale about Texan cowboys journeying to uncharted northern territory would have captured me quite so much if I wasn’t driving from Texas to Montana while reading it. I’m mostly including this to say — it’s really something to read a book while immersed in the world it takes place in.

• Simple Passion, Annie Erneaux — I put this in a similar category as the Ferrante book above. In this case, a woman is completely, hopelessly lost in a sexual affair. Erneaux won the Nobel Prize this year.

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley — I’d never actually read this before, and let me tell you, I loved it. Thrilling, beautifully written, and far more emotionally impactful than I’d have expected. Much of it takes place at the North Pole — who knew?!

• Mating, Norman Rush — this tweet from John Phipps captures my feelings about this book: “Reading ‘Mating’, by Norman Rush and really wondering why anyone talks about anything else, why everyone isn't always talking about this book, why we have not raised great statues of Rush and/or the unnamed protagonist in our parks and squares etc.”

If any of these catch your eye and you’d like to know more, give me a shout and I’ll provide extended commentary.

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Best,

Jasper