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Let’s first address the proverbial elephant in the room — or on the page, rather: When it comes to art, “best” is entirely subjective. And yet, we love lists, and there’s undeniable value in learning which books have been widely adored and, maybe, awash in awards and critical praise this year. So here are my 10 picks for the best of 2022, with eight additional titles for good measure. Feel free to agree or disagree, and offer your own favorite reads of the year in the comments section below.
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
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Elizabeth Strout, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Olive Kitteridge, brings back Lucy Barton, the somewhat traumatized, sympathetic older woman readers first fell in love with in 2016’s My Name Is Lucy Barton, then more so in last year’s Oh William!, short-listed for the 2022 Booker Prize. Here Lucy and her ex-husband, William, flee their homes in New York City to isolate together in a seaside house in Maine, where she finds herself with the time and space to ponder aging, parenthood (she has two adult daughters with their own issues) and her evolving relationship with William. It’s thoughtful, wise and wonderful.
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
This is another brilliant, dark novel by the author of 2015’s weighty A Little Life, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Though it received mixed reviews, To Paradise is my personal favorite of 2022, a complex creation featuring three separate stories in different time periods and altered realities, with overlapping characters. The last section is the most searing, likely to stay in your mind for weeks for its vivid portrayal of a near-future — 2093 — pandemic-plagued, warmed-earth dystopian New York City that feels all too real.
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv
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Aviv first caught my attention with her eye-opening, rather frightening 2019 New Yorker story about how difficult it can be to withdraw from psychiatric meds. Her new book critiques the way mental health is treated by our health care system and society more generally, but it's by no means dryly academic: She uses the unique stories of people such as Bapu, an Indian woman who believes she’s a divine vessel, as well as her own (among many challenges, she was hospitalized for an eating disorder at age 6) to illustrate the complexity of the human mind and why it’s so necessary that every individual’s mental health be considered holistically and with compassion.
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Farrell already proved her mastery of the historical fiction genre in last year’s Hamnet, a story about Shakespeare’s family and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award (and my favorite book of 2021). Her latest is set in 16th century Italy, where the young duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici is wed to the mercurial ruler of another region for political purposes. It’s soon clear the marriage won’t end well. Like Hamnet, the novel is richly detailed and transporting.
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