literary fiction books 2022

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The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2022

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T he best fiction released this year reminded us to value our relationships with one another, no matter what form they take. These books emphasized how we are shaped by the people who surround us, as well as those who are no longer physically present but whose memories we continue to carry. They are stories about friendship and love, growing up and growing older, loss and living, all centered on characters reckoning with how their people do and do not show up for them. There’s a bruising portrait of grief told through an adult daughter remembering her mother, a gritty account of a young woman who forms a community at the depths of her loneliness, a celebration of friendship between two creative geniuses, and more. Here, the top 10 fiction books of 2022.

10. Signal Fires , Dani Shapiro

Signal Fires , Dani Shapiro ’s first novel in 15 years, begins with a horrible ending. It’s 1985 and three intoxicated teenagers go for a car ride that proves fatal. The details of the accident are kept secret—and will haunt one family forever. Decades later, the doctor who ran to the scene of the accident befriends his 11-year-old neighbor, right near the spot where it happened. As Shapiro draws connections between seemingly disparate threads, she creates a moving portrait of guilt, grief, and fate. And she shows, in aching terms, how life is made up of random moments—missed opportunities and curious circumstances—and that it only takes a second for everything to change.

Buy Now : Signal Fires on Bookshop | Amazon

9. Trust , Hernan Diaz

In 1920s New York, everyone who’s anyone knows Benjamin and Helen Rask, the wealthy couple sitting pretty at the top of the financial world. But how exactly did they accumulate so much power and wealth? That question is the driving force of the immensely popular 1937 novel Bonds —one of four distinct texts within Hernan Diaz’s Trust . The story of the Rasks (or the Bevels, depending which book-within-the-book you’re reading) contains mysterious multitudes. Their relationship and their privilege are undermined, examined, and rewritten as Diaz spins a dazzling story about subjectivity and greed.

Buy Now : Trust on Bookshop | Amazon

8. Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century , Kim Fu

The 12 stories that make up Kim Fu’s bold collection feature characters dealing with scenarios that border between reality and fantasy. In the spaces where lines blur, Fu reveals quietly profound commentary on the intersections of technology, love, and loss. In one narrative, a girl mysteriously sprouts wings, a development that forces her friend group to consider their ever-changing adolescent bodies. In another, an insomniac grows dependent on sporadic visits from a strange man made of sand who might be the secret to her finally falling asleep. And in a wildly twisted tale, a couple kills each other, over and over again, to keep their relationship alive. These stories, surreal and clever, all point to crises that sit below the surface. Fu brings magical realism to exciting heights, positioning her characters’ relatable emotional battles within wonderfully constructed worlds.

Buy Now : Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century on Bookshop | Amazon

7. Young Mungo , Douglas Stuart

Douglas Stuart’s follow-up to his 2020 Booker Prize-winning debut Shuggie Bain is every bit as crushing as his first novel. Young Mungo is another visceral depiction of 20th-century working class Glasgow, this time centered on the impossible first love between two teenage boys. Homophobia and violence surround them, and the sensitivity that the young men possess is not welcome in their world of hostile masculinity. Through rich dialogue and rhythmic prose, Stuart brings to life a captivating portrayal of 1990s Scotland and the struggles faced by queer men who are learning how to live in the face of it all.

Buy Now : Young Mungo on Bookshop | Amazon

6. If I Survive You , Jonathan Escoffery

The first entry in Jonathan Escoffery’s lyrical and kaleidoscopic debut If I Survive You introduces the character at the short story collection’s center: Trelawny, the sole American-born member of a Jamaican family. In the seven linked narratives that follow, Escoffery follows Trelawny as he grapples with his identity as the son of Black immigrants living in Miami, where he never feels Black enough. Escoffery writes with urgency and heart as he illustrates his protagonist’s struggles to fit in, especially as his family falls apart in the wake of a devastating hurricane and recession. If I Survive You , longlisted for a 2022 National Book Award, is a timeless story of a young person wrestling with big questions about race and class, captured in intricately drawn scenes of everyday life.

Buy Now : If I Survive You on Bookshop | Amazon

5. Vladimir , Julia May Jonas

The protagonist of Julia May Jonas’ electric debut novel , an unnamed English professor, is grappling with the public fallout of her husband’s past affairs with students at the college where they both teach. The narrator is more annoyed than anything else—she and her husband had an open marriage—and she is quite preoccupied with an extramarital activity of her own: crushing hard on her department’s latest recruit. As the professor grows closer to her young new colleague, her desire festers into gnawing obsession. Jonas’s explosive novel asks timely questions about power and campus politics.

Buy Now : Vladimir on Bookshop | Amazon

4. All This Could Be Different , Sarah Thankam Mathews

In Sarah Thankam Mathews’ tender debut novel All This Could Be Different , a finalist for a 2022 National Book Award, recent college graduate Sneha has just moved to Milwaukee and started an awful job as a corporate consultant. Though the work is soul-crushing, there’s a recession swirling and the money keeps Sneha afloat. Plus, she can send some of it to her parents in India. But Mathews’ contemplative protagonist is desperately lonely in this new life, despite a burgeoning romance with an older ballet dancer named Marina. As Sneha questions why she finds it so difficult to open up to others, she is forced to confront the inescapable trauma that she’s buried deep inside. Mathews explores this tension, and the community that Sneha builds for herself in the Midwest, in an incisive and surprising coming-of-age narrative.

Buy Now : All This Could Be Different on Bookshop | Amazon

3. The Book of Goose , Yiyun Li

Agnès has just heard the news that her childhood best friend, Fabienne, is dead. Now an adult living in America, Agnès reflects on growing up in France with Fabienne by her side and a decision Fabienne made that changed both their lives: when they were kids in the war-ravaged countryside, Fabienne wrote a fictional account of their experiences, and published it under Agnès’ name. The move catapulted Agnès to literary fame—and to a London finishing school where she suffered tremendously without Fabienne nearby—and now, she’s finally ready to tell her version of the events that defined her adolescence. Yiyun Li dissects the girls’ achingly intimate and, at times, unsettling friendship, and asks if Agnès ever really knew the person she was so devoted to. In detailing the answer, she unveils a cutting portrait of girlhood.

Buy Now : The Book of Goose on Bookshop | Amazon

2. The Hero of This Book , Elizabeth McCracken

An unnamed writer arrives in London for a trip. She feels her recently deceased mother’s absence—and presence—everywhere she goes. As she walks around the city, she’s reminded of her mother’s complicated life, the memories they shared, and the curious, ever-evolving relationship between child and parent. But, the unnamed writer repeats, even though she’s constructing a deeply felt tribute to her mother, this is, in no way, a memoir. Her mother hated those. And so goes Elizabeth McCracken’s latest work of fiction, poking holes in the very idea of fiction itself as the story unfolds. The prolific author, whose own mother shared many similarities with the one described in the book, delivers a potent meditation on processing loss. Along the way, she makes startling revelations about what it really means to write, and how fiction can help us understand the most challenging parts of life.

Buy Now : The Hero of This Book on Bookshop | Amazon

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow , Gabrielle Zevin

In his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur runs into Sadie Green on a subway platform. They’ve known each other since childhood, when they first bonded over a shared love of video games, but a rift set them apart. In Gabrielle Zevin’s inventive and sweeping novel, the estranged friends reconnect and rebuild their relationship, becoming creative partners on a video game that shoots them to fame before they turn 25. As Sam and Sadie wrestle with their growing ambitions over the years, they cultivate a friendship much more meaningful than any romance. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a celebration of the narratives, in video games and in life, that reinforce just how important connection really is. In following Sam and Sadie’s journey from Massachusetts to California and into the imagined worlds of their games, Zevin writes the most precious kind of love story.

Buy Now : Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on Bookshop | Amazon

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Best fiction of 2022

Dazzling invention from Jennifer Egan, a state-of-the nation tale from Jonathan Coe and impressive debut novels and short stories are among this year’s highlights

The best books of 2022

S ome of the year’s biggest books were the most divisive. In her follow-up to A Little Life, To Paradise (Picador), Hanya Yanagihara split the critics with an epic if inconclusive saga of privilege and suffering in three alternative Americas: a genderqueered late 19th century, the Aids-blasted 1980s, and a totalitarian future degraded by waves of pandemics. I was impressed by its vast canvas and portrayal of individual psychic damage set against seismic historical change.

There were mixed reactions, too, to Cormac McCarthy’s jet-black brace of novels The Passenger and Stella Maris (Picador), his first in 16 years; and to Ian McEwan’s Lessons (Cape), seen as both baggily self-indulgent and richly humane. Setting the protagonist’s life against the arc of postwar politics from the cold war to Brexit, and grappling with issues from the nature of creativity to the legacy of sexual abuse, it can be read as an indictment of the boomer generation who “ate all the cream”.

Also asking how we got here is Bournville by Jonathan Coe (Viking). With his third novel in four years, Coe is on a roll; he tracks the fortunes of a family through snapshots of communal experiences, from the Queen’s coronation through the 1966 World Cup to pandemic lockdown, in a moving, compassionate portrait of individual and national change.

Ali Smith’s response to lockdown was typically playful and profound; Companion Piece (Hamish Hamilton) sees the outside world impinge on one woman’s careful isolation, in a novel about the importance of making connections between words, eras and people. Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House (Corsair), meanwhile, harnesses a near-future technological advance – the ability to upload and share memories – to reflect on current concerns around surveillance and privacy with dazzling inventiveness. Mohsin Hamid’s fable The Last White Man (Hamish Hamilton) interrogates race, community and the meaning of the other in a society where skin colour is changing. And I loved Joy Williams’s menacing and madcap Harrow (Tuskar Rock), set in a surreal future of environmental breakdown and human exhaustion, a kind of Alice in Wonderland of the apocalypse.

Radical invention characterises Percival Everett’s devastatingly absurdist The Trees (Influx): focusing on a string of gruesome murders in Mississippi, it weaponises the genres of horror, comedy and detective fiction to lay open the history of lynching. In her rambunctious satire of Robert Mugabe’s fall, Glory (Chatto), NoViolet Bulawayo braids the allegory of Animal Farm with an oral storytelling tradition and a social media chorus decrying dictatorship and repression around the world. Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho (Galley Beggar) is another novel that plays with form, reclaiming hidden lesbian stories by tumbling together biography, scholarship and poetic flights of fancy in sketches of modernist artists and writers from Virginia Woolf to Colette and Josephine Baker. This one-of-a-kind book channels a spirit of righteous anger as well as lyrical freedom and joy.

Other standout novels illuminating the past include Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses (Bloomsbury), set in Northern Ireland during the 70s. Based around a dangerous affair between a young Catholic woman and an older Protestant man, it combines gorgeously direct and acute prose with an incisive eye for social detail. Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker prize with The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Sort Of), a blistering murder-mystery-cum-ghost-story set amid the carnage of Sri Lanka’s civil war that similarly focuses on the effort to preserve ordinary life in the face of sectarian violence. Catherine Chidgey’s Remote Sympathy (Europa) is an excellent investigation of communal guilt and obliviousness to Nazi atrocities, while in Trust (Picador) Hernan Diaz deconstructs capitalist excess and the illusion of money through different perspectives on the story of a New York financier. Maggie O’Farrell’s follow-up to Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait (Tinder), is a glittering Renaissance fable of a girl caught up in Italian aristocratic intrigue, and Kate Atkinson is on deliciously acerbic form in Shrines of Gaiety (Doubleday), exposing the underbelly of London nightlife in the roaring 20s. Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter (W&N, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel), in which a “clinic for the past” treats Alzheimer’s patients, plays with ideas of history and nostalgia to explore Europe’s 20th century and current confusion with wit and warmth.

It was a good year for unhappy families. Charlotte Mendelson skewers narcissistic control in The Exhibitionist (Mantle), a darkly witty portrait of an artist on the slide who has spent decades squashing the life and creative energies out of his wife and children. Rebecca Wait’s I’m Sorry You Feel That Way (Riverrun) is a very funny, emotionally wise story of sibling rivalry and difficult mothers. There are no laughs, however, in Sarah Manguso’s chilling Very Cold People (Picador), an uncomfortable, deeply impressive account of how silence, snobbery and repression in a New England town allow the poison of abuse to trickle down the decades.

Ross Raisin has quietly become one of Britain’s most interesting novelists: A Hunger (Cape) explores the conflict between ambition and duty as a chef takes on a caring role when her husband develops dementia. Namwali Serpell’s second novel, The Furrows (Hogarth), brilliantly dramatises the psychic dislocations of grief over a lifetime through the story of a woman haunted by the memory of her younger brother, who died under her care in childhood. Douglas Stuart followed Booker winner Shuggie Bain with a tough and tender story of family dysfunction and first love in Young Mungo (Picador). And in Amy & Lan (Chatto), set on a ramshackle farm commune, Sadie Jones gives us a wonderfully achieved child’s-eye view of messy family interactions and the up-close life-and-death drama of the natural world.

Three hard-hitting debut novels shone out. An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie (Wildfire) portrays a young Black man’s struggle to define what success might look like in a Bristol neighbourhood in the grip of gentrification. The book delves deep into faith, violence, addiction, ambition and love with power and grace. Jon Ransom’s The Whale Tattoo (Muswell), focusing on a gay working-class man in watery rural Norfolk, is lyrical, atmospheric and brutal by turns. And Sheena Patel’s I’m a Fan (Rough Trade Books) punctures the bubbles of social media in a fierce tale of obsession and power dynamics.

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Set in the Pyrenees and giving voice to everything from mountains to storms, mushrooms to dogs, English-language debut When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà (Granta, translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem) is a playful, polyphonic triumph. Closer to home, poet Clare Pollard’s fiction debut, Delphi (Penguin), is an ingenious response to Covid, combining ancient Greek prophecy with the daily frustrations of lockdown to face up to our fears for the future. Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (Picador), a provocative post-MeToo morality tale about a female professor’s crush on a younger man, is sharp and deliciously readable; as is the huge hit Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday), which brings bite as well as charm to the tale of a super-rational scientist navigating sexism in early 60s America.

Three notable debut short-story collections introduced fresh, contemporary new voices. Saba Sams’s unsettling, full-throated Send Nudes (Bloomsbury) captures girls and young women on the brink of change; Jem Calder’s Reward System (Faber) smartly anatomises contemporary life in the relentless glare of the smartphone; and Gurnaik Johal’s We Move (Serpent’s Tail) delicately traces relationships and disconnections across a British-Punjabi community. Short-story virtuoso George Saunders returned to the form with Liberation Day (Bloomsbury), tragicomic allegories of try-hard regular folk caught up in hells beyond their understanding.

Emmanuel Carrère continues to spin his fascinating web of social observation and self-inquiry in Yoga (Cape, translated from French by John Lambert), charting personal and psychic upheaval in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. Yiyun Li’s richly mysterious The Book of Goose (4th Estate) marks a departure from her recent autofiction; but this tale of a passionate friendship between two young peasant girls in postwar France, and how they parse their shared will to create and to act upon the world, seems to hold many layers of truth about art, love and self-creation. Lastly, a small miracle from another genre-hopper: in Marigold and Rose (Carcanet), Nobel-winning poet Louise Glück presents the first year in the life of twin baby girls with formal and philosophical sleight of hand. This wry, read-in-a-sitting delight channels the myriad possibilities of fiction with a huge sense of fun.

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The best new fiction of 2022 so far, from fantasy sequels to highly anticipated thrillers

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• We gathered the top-rated and best-selling fiction books of 2022 so far.
• These picks include new historical fiction, romance, fantasy, and sci-fi books.
• For more great books, check out the best books of 2022 so far , according to Goodreads.

Every year brings new and amazing books to shelves everywhere, but it can be overwhelming to sort through hundreds of titles to find a book that truly stands out from the rest. Fortunately, with reviews from readers, bookshops, and editors, the most memorable new titles still rise to the top. 

To create this list of recommendations, we pulled readers' favorite new fiction books from a variety of sources including top-ranking titles on Goodreads , bestseller lists on Audible and Libro.fm , and books readers can't stop talking about on social media. From fantasy sequels to heart-pounding historical fiction, here is some of the best new fiction of 2022 so far.

The best fiction books of 2022 so far:

"black cake" by charmaine wilkerson.

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.81

Insightful, memorable, and masterfully written, " Black Cake " is a transportive and expansive novel that begins as Byron and Benny inherit a traditional Caribbean black cake and a voice recording in the wake of their mother's passing. In this story of heritage, memories, and history, the siblings must unravel their mother's story to create a new and deeper understanding of her, their family, and themselves.

"All My Rage" by Sabaa Tahir

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.99

Salahudin and Noor were more than best friends until a terrible fight destroyed their bond, leaving each of them to face their familial and personal challenges alone. As Sal tries to hold his family and their business together after his mother's passing and Noor attempts to avoid her uncle's wrath as she applies to college against his wishes, the two must decide the value of their friendship and what they need to move forward.

"Book Lovers" by Emily Henry

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.82

Emily Henry's latest beach-read romance follows Nora Stephens, an NYC literary agent whose own love life is far from perfect. When her sister, Libby, suggests a trip for just the two of them to a storybook-like town in North Carolina, Nora agrees in the hopes of becoming the heroine of her own story but almost immediately runs into Charlie Lastra, a brooding book editor — and her greatest rival. 

"Violeta" by Isabel Allende

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $22.84

" Violeta " is an epic new historical fiction novel about Violeta del Valle, born in 1920 in South America to a family of sons. Told in the form of a letter, Violeta's life spans a century of extraordinary events, from personal heartbreak and great triumphs to the fight for women's rights and two terrible pandemics.

"True Biz" by Sara Nović

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.91

At the River Valley School for the Deaf, Charlie is a new transfer student, Austin is the school's "golden boy," and February is their headmistress, fighting to keep the school open while juggling personal challenges of her own. " True Biz " follows the students and the school as they are rocked by personal, political, and familial unrest over a tumultuous year that will change their lives forever.

"House of Sky and Breath" by Sarah J. Maas

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.74

" House of Sky and Breath " is the highly anticipated sequel to Sarah J. Maas' " House of Earth and Blood ," both of which are loved by readers for the spellbinding magic systems, their deep care for the characters, and the exhilarating, suspenseful plot that keeps them invested for 800 pages. In this sequel, Bryce and Hunt have saved Cresent City and are looking for a moment of peace but as the rebels slowly chip away at the Asteri's power, the two know they cannot stay silent while others are oppressed.

"Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.48

In this story set in 1960s California, Elizabeth Zott is a chemist whose male coworkers see her as little more than a woman in the way. When her career takes a sharp turn and she finds herself the star of a beloved American cooking show, people still aren't happy, as she not only takes a unique approach to cooking, but in many ways is teaching women to defy the status quo in this funny and feminist historical fiction read. 

"How High We Go in the Dark" by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.99

As humanity is challenged with rebuilding after a climate plague reshapes life on Earth, this science fiction novel bends to follow linked narratives of those affected in a vast variety of ways, from a scientist searching for a cure to a painter and her granddaughter looking for a new home planet. Loved for its intricate and imitate connections between characters, themes, and stories, " How High We Go in the Dark " is a tale of compassion, resiliency, and hope.

"Daughter of the Moon Goddess" by Sue Lynn Tan

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $23.49

Inspired by the legend of the Chinese moon goddess, Chang'e, " Daughter of the Moon Goddess " is about Xingyin, who grew up on the moon, unaware that she is being hidden from the Celestial Emperor until her magic reveals her existence and she's forced to flee her home and leave her mother behind. To save her mother, Xingyin disguises her identity, learns mastery and magic alongside the emperor's son, and sets off on a dangerous quest of magic, honor, and betrayal.

"Young Mungo" by Douglas Stuart

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $23.99

Born into different religions, Mungo and James should be sworn enemies yet find safety in each other as their close friendship blooms into love. When Mungo is sent on a fishing trip with two of his mother's friends from AA, darker intentions arise in this story of masculinity, queerness, division, and violence. 

"This Time Tomorrow" by Emma Straub

Available for pre-order on Amazon and Bookshop , from $21.99

When Alice wakes up on the morning of her 40th birthday, she seems to have been transported back in time to 1996 to relive her 16th birthday. Though her father is ailing in the present day, she's reunited with her younger, full-of-life dad and, armed with decades of experience, relives the day with a new perspective, bringing new meaning to memories and leaving Alice wondering if she could — or should — change anything about that day.

"Reminders of Him" by Colleen Hoover

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.57

" Reminders of Him " is a Colleen Hoover story of redemption as Kenna Rowan returns to her town after a five-year prison sentence, hoping to reunite with her young daughter, though all those who knew her determinedly shut her out. Turning to the local bar owner, Ledger Ward, Kenna finds a remaining link to her daughter, but when the two form a deeper connection, romance brings greater risk and Kenna must find a way to fix the past in order to solidify a better future.

"Memphis" by Tara M. Stringfellow

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.28

During the summer of 1995, 10-year-old Joan moves with her mother and younger sister into their mother's family home in Memphis, fleeing their father's violence, though the home is marked by a history of violence all its own. In her grief, Joan begins to create portraits of the women in North Memphis and unravels a past, present, and future of matrilineal tradition, healing, and curses from the stories of those she encounters.

"Sea of Tranquility" by Emily St. John Mandel

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.25

Part time travel epic and part pandemic literature, " Sea of Tranquility " is a science fiction novel that spans centuries from an airship terminal in the Canadian wilderness in 1912 to a moon colony 300 years in the future to tell a story of humanity and the many ways we are impacted by a pandemic world. Unique, profound, and memorable, this new novel combines speculative and literary elements to take readers on a fast-paced journey.

"Four Treasures of the Sky" by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.69

Though Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for which she was named, everything changes when she's kidnapped and smuggled from China to America. " Four Treasures of the Sky " is a story of self-discovery, Chinese history and folklore, and the ways in which Daiyu had to continuously change herself to survive.

"The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea" by Axie Oh

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.99

In Mina's homeland, the people believe the Sea God curses their land with terrible storms and war so they sacrifice a beautiful maiden in the hopes their choice will one day be his "true bride" and end their suffering. When Shim Cheong, Mina's brother's beloved, is chosen as the sacrifice, Mina throws herself into the water in her place and is swept away to the Spirit Realm. There, she sets out to wake the Sea God and end her home's suffering once and for all.

"Brown Girls" by Daphne Palasi Andreades

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.31

In Queens, New York, young girls and women of color are growing up in the center of vibrant culture, learning to balance their immigrant heritage with the American world around them. " Brown Girls " reads like a literary poem dedicated to the young women who experience this unique crossroads as they make their own place in the world, a story that continues to resonate with many readers.

"Peach Blossom Spring" by Melissa Fu

Lily desperately wants to understand her family's heritage, but her father refuses to speak about his childhood and his story of fleeing his family home with his mother in 1938 as the Japanese army encroached on their land. " Peach Blossom Spring " is a powerful story of war, migration, and heritage that jumps across continents and centuries to convey the importance of telling our stories.

"Don't Cry for Me" by Daniel Black

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $22.48

As Jacob lays on his deathbed, he knows there are many truths he must share with his son, Isaac, though the two have not spoken in many years. Through letters, Jacob reveals ancestral stories, long-buried secrets, and hopeful explanations for his reaction to Isaac's being gay. " Don't Cry for Me " is an emotional historical fiction novel about reckoning, reconciliation, and healing.

"Take My Hand" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.90

" Take My Hand " is a new historical fiction novel inspired by true events that begin with Civil Townsend in 1973 as she takes a job fresh out of nursing school at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic in Alabama. In her first week, she encounters 11- and 13-year-old sisters whose situation raises alarms for Civil. Decades later, Civil is ready to retire when history returns in this story of bravery, institutional racism and classism, and the ways Black communities have been targeted and attacked throughout history.

"The Diamond Eye" by Kate Quinn

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.87

Though Mila Pavlichenko's life in 1937 Ukraine revolves around her library job and her son, everything changes when Hilter invades and she's sent into war with a rifle, quickly becoming one of the deadliest snipers known to the Nazi regime. When her 300th kill makes national news, she's pulled from the war for a goodwill tour in America until an old enemy and new foe pull Mila into a battle deadlier than the war.

"Kaikeyi" by Vaishnavi Patel

Available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $21.99

" Kaikeyi " is a beautiful new retelling of "The Ramayana," an ancient Indian epic. In this retelling, Kaikeyi is raised in her father's kingdom, taught to revere and respect the gods yet never receives the help she needs. When Kaikeyi discovers the magic inside her, she transforms into a warrior and queen with the power to change the world for women until her past, destiny, and present collide and force her to weigh the consequences of resistance.

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All of the 2022 National Book Award finalists, read and reviewed

A look at this year’s best in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature.

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Every year, the National Book Foundation nominates 25 books to be eligible to win a National Book Award. The nominations highlight fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young adult books. For the past 9 years , the Vox staff has read them all, and we’ve shared our thoughts on what’s worthy.

The winners were announced on Wednesday, November 16. Our musings on the 2022 nominees and winners are below.

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty — WINNER

Tess Gunty’s debut novel features the misfit residents of an affordable housing complex in Vacca Vale, Indiana, a dying post-industrial city in the Midwest. At its center is Blandine Watkins, an ethereal child of the foster care system with a terrifying brilliance and an affinity for Christian mystics. Or maybe its true central character is Vacca Vale, with its crumbling infrastructure and its unspoiled park, under threat from a proposed economic revitalization effort. Over the course of a week, the residents intersect in ways that reveal the extent of their alienation.

While the story has elements familiar to a certain microgenre of literary fiction (the quirky child genius, the multi-character viewpoint, the build-up to a cataclysm, etc.), Gunty wields these elements with such freshness and sophistication that the book feels thrilling and new. As a daughter of the Rust Belt who’s read enough literary fiction about elite New Yorkers to last a lifetime, I couldn’t get enough of the world she built. Gunty’s writing is impressionistic and original — a technicolor kaleidoscope of the earthly and otherworldly. — Marin Cogan, senior correspondent

The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

Sometimes the sun warms, sometimes the sun stings, and sometimes the sun just flat-out burns. In this novel, Gayl Jones sweeps readers away to the isle of Ibiza and pours upon them all three of these sensations in the most artistic of ways.

Amanda, an older expat on the island of Ibiza and a “self-proclaimed” divorcee, is an erotic novelist turned travel guide writer. Jones colors the life of this peregrine traveler in a way that maintains her anonymity while providing slices of herself to the reader throughout the text. Gathered like little treats for later, Jones sweetly provides payoff for each inciting action in glorious and unconventional ways.

This novel takes a generous and sometimes scathing look at the various manifestations of an artist’s life, dreams, and liminal station. Kaleidoscoping from dreams into reality, to giving readers a choice in deciding the protagonist’s fate, you never know what’s coming next — but isn’t that just the thing to keep somebody going? —Tonika Reed, editorial coordinator

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is a book of shape-shifting. Kochai constantly experiments with form and voice, deftly stepping between photorealism and fantasy to create a vivid, surreal short-story collection that is both a modern parable of American imperialism and a testament to Kochai’s skill as a writer. Afghanistan — particularly the province of Logar, where Kochai’s family is from and his debut novel is also set — and the legacy of the War on Terror ripples through the background of this collection. Many of Kochai’s characters are Afghans or Afghan Americans who experience transformations of their own, whether they are Californian college students enduring months-long hunger strikes in solidarity with Palestine or an Afghan teen on the eve of her wedding.

Violence and upheaval are constantly apparent in the book, but so is a sort of fragile tenderness that seems to hold everything together. About halfway through the collection, I found myself catching my breath as I finally realized what Kochai had assembled. As Afghanistan fades into the background of American discourse, Kochai’s voice is essential. We may not wish to see what we have wrought; Kochai, it seems, will ensure we do not forget. —Neel Dhanesha, science & climate reporter

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

Sarah Thankam Mathews has written a character-driven novel that explores the power of friendship, navigating one’s sexuality, and being a young immigrant. It follows Sneha, a queer, first-generation Indian American who graduates from college during the Great Recession. Sneha miraculously lands an entry-level corporate job that takes her to Milwaukee, where she navigates new friendships, dating women for the first time and living in the shadow of her family.

I wanted to be totally immersed in the world that Mathews created, but for me, the door would not open so wide. The novel was somewhat of a slow burn, but radiant all the same. The plot trudged along very slowly. At times, I wanted to put it down completely, but knew I shouldn’t. And I really couldn’t. Mathews’ writing is daring, sharp, and authoritative. She’s a master in building rich characters that are imperfect and complicated, charismatic and lovable. At times, the prose felt luxurious and welcoming in the way that the scent of your favorite candle might slowly fill up an ever-expanding room. —Shira Tarlo, senior social media manager

The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

The Town of Babylon is a magnificent debut from Alejandro Varela. The novel tells the story of Andrés, a queer Latino American man who grew up in a small suburban town on Long Island. Andrés left his hometown for college and cut off contact with all his neighbors and friends, never looking back until 20 years later, when he visits to take care of his ailing father and ends up going to his 20th high school reunion. As Andrés reconnects with old friends, enemies, and first loves, Varela deftly chronicles several elements of the modern American experience that we rarely see represented in popular culture: the experience of being a child of immigrants who strives to move up in society, being a person of color in predominantly white spaces, being a queer person in predominantly straight spaces. It’s a beautiful story about community, friendship, and figuring out one’s place in the world. —Nisha Chittal, managing editor

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry — WINNER

In the opening of Imani Perry’s lyrically gutting travelogue, she asks us to remember the choreography of the French quadrille — a dance where two couples face each other in a square, a progenitor of American line dancing. Refrain, figure, refrain, figure. That rhythm haunts the history of the American South, she posits. S outh to America chronicles Perry’s journey across several notable places in the South, dissecting the politics, pop culture, and pressing yet occasionally unspoken rules that dictate life for Black Americans living below the Mason-Dixon Line. The underlying thread, beyond the thump-thump-thump of history, is the charge to bear witness. When no one is thinking beyond their God of Masters, who is thinking of those who time and time again are pushed to the margins? Perry weaves the narration of her own history beautifully alongside escaped slaves, prideful rappers, and architects of universities. From Appalachia to the Caribbean, Perry’s dutiful analysis brings a more honest perspective to the South. —Izzie Ramirez, Future Perfect deputy editor

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke

The Invisible Kingdom is a remarkably frustrating book to read, which I say as a compliment. This book is about the failures of the medical system in coping with chronic illness, about the number of patients who go to their doctor with symptoms and are roundly dismissed, ignored, and told that they’re lying or that their symptoms are all in their head. Reading about these issues should be frustrating.

Journalist and poet Meghan O’Rourke spent about a decade nearly incapacitated by a mysterious autoimmune disorder that wouldn’t be diagnosed for years. The first doctors she saw brushed aside her complaints when diagnostic tests failed to turn up any explanation. Perhaps the reason she had electric pains shooting up and down her limbs every morning, one suggested, was dry skin. As a defensive measure of sorts, O’Rourke began to research chronic illnesses and all the ways in which our siloed medical system is poorly equipped to deal with them — a major problem, she points out, as about 7.5 percent of American adults are facing down long Covid . The resulting knowledge O’Rourke has compiled into this lucid, at times lyrical, and always outrage-inspiring book. —Constance Grady, senior correspondent and book critic

Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus by David Quammen

Breathless is an apt name for David Quammen’s latest book. In what can only be described as a rapt, whirlwind tour of the scientific landscape behind the experts and professionals working to stop Covid-19, Quammen masterfully untangles the often mired narratives surrounding the virus. Quammen — best known for his 2012 book Spillover, which explains how viruses jump from animals to humans — homes in on the basic questions that haunt scientists today: Exactly where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?

When it feels as though the pandemic has been litigated, analyzed, and turned on its head in literature, Quammen brings a refreshing perspective that’s rooted in the technical. There’s little about lockdowns, politics, or social factors. Rather, Quammen breaks down the nitty-gritty in a way anyone can understand. Admittedly, in terms of prose and narrative, the book pales in comparison to his previous work (which benefited greatly from in-person reporting). But if you’re not afraid of getting elbow-deep in bat guano or genetic material, Breathless is an illuminating read. —Izzie Ramirez, Future Perfect deputy editor

The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ grandfather was a curandero — a spiritual healer who could cure ailments and converse with the dead. In Colombia, where the author was born, these powers, known colloquially as “the secrets,” were meant to be the purview of men. But after falling down a well and suffering amnesia as a child, Rojas Contreras’ mother uncovered that she was as supernaturally gifted as any man, capable of appearing in two places at once and able to see ghosts walking among the living.

Years later, after the family has fled political violence in their home country, Rojas Contreras crashes into a car door on her bicycle and temporarily loses her memory. As she attempts to reconcile the fragments of her memory post-accident, she discovers that she is more a part of the family lineage than she’d previously realized. After several family members report that her grandfather has been visiting them in dreams, asking for his body to be exhumed, Rojas Contreras and her mother travel to Colombia to honor her Nono’s final wishes. With gorgeous, dream-like prose, Rojas Contreras excavates a story about family secrets, colonialism and violence, magic and memory. —Marin Cogan, senior correspondent

His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

Things that happened last year, last month, can feel like events long past. Something that happened at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic might as well have taken place in ancient Rome. And yet, being reminded of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020 brings up the same shock, horror, and rage as though it were happening today.

His Name Is George Floyd presents a history of an ordinary life. Floyd wasn’t famous; he wasn’t known outside his small community. He was, in this account, just a Black man getting by, struggling to stay off drugs, trying to keep his life from falling apart. He certainly wasn’t a hero. But circumstances made his name, his life, and his death into something extraordinary.

Told with incredible attention to detail, the story covers Floyd’s life as well as the history of his family from slavery to the Jim Crow South to Minneapolis. We see Floyd attempting to get a rap music career off the ground; we watch him being hassled by police for minor drug offenses and for merely existing. The story dives sideways to talk about Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck. It continues into the aftermath of Floyd’s death, Chauvin’s trial, and the mingled outpourings of grief and activism that accompanied them. In all, the book takes the mundane and meticulous details of one man’s life and seems to make the argument that his experience is a microcosm of the Black experience in America. Whether it is or not, it’s a well-told story that brings nuance to the n ews. —Elizabeth Crane, senior copy and standards editor

Punks: New & Selected Poems by John Keene — WINNER

This collection from MacArthur genius John Keene is wide-ranging in all the ways — bringing together decades of work, rendered in a variety of poetic forms, examining the many facets of queer Black life in America. Keene’s description of the volume as a mixtape is apt, and the poems layer on top of one another to compose a picture of the poet in full.

Keene is never vague or coy, whether he’s expounding on the urgent (as in “Pulse,” dedicated to the victims of the 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre) or the meta (one poem is literally titled “A report on the ‘What’s American about American poetry?’ conference at the New School”). His work is so clear in its intentions and its language, though Keene never trades precision for lyricism.

Take this passage, which just about knocked me out: “You have smallish hands for a brother, he says,” starts a poem of the same name, “but beautiful. Manly; compact; soft as chamois, velvety but copper-woven, almost golden-red, the Indian blood glows in them; the veins so large they snake beneath the skin like fresh creeks; full nails, white-tipped, not nicotined, not streaked with melanin and fungus like his own, and pale half-moons in each thumb appear to be setting.” —Julia Rubin, editorial director, features & culture

Look at This Blue by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

For a person who can’t stand not knowing exactly what’s being discussed, this chronicle of the bygone or nearly bygone wonders of Native California might be best read with Google close at hand. Every page of Look at This Blue, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s lament for the state she loves, surfaces a tragedy or tragedies that our culture has largely written off, from catalogs of ravaged wildlife to the Camp Fire deaths to her own mother’s schizophrenia.

Take, for example, a list of 32 massacres. They’re all simply named, right in a row, starting with the Sacramento River Massacre and ending with the Kingsley Cave Massacre. The former, which happened in 1846, resulted in somewhere between 125 and 900 Wintu deaths; the latter, in 1871, saw a man named Kingsley murdering 30 of the remaining 45 Yahi tribesmen in a cave. Early in the poem, Hedge Coke invokes a man called Ishi (which is approximately Yahi for “man”), who was supposedly the “last wild Indian” and last of that tribe. Forty years after that massacre, Ishi spent the final few years of his life living in a San Francisco museum, only to have his brain pickled and put on display for white people to ogle. In 1999, it was returned to his closest possible relatives, the Yana people, as the Yahi were thought long gone.

Throughout, the poem is densely packed with allusions to the flora, fauna, and humanity decimated or near-decimated by colonization, corporatization, selfishness, and fear. One beautifully broken line at a time, Hedge Coke opens up a disappeared and disappearing world, a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding what we’re losing and what we’ve lost. —Meredith Haggerty, senior editor, culture

Balladz by Sharon Olds

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sharon Olds has assembled a collection of poems that ruminate in ways that will be familiar to any reader who spent quarantine lost in their own head. The works reflect thought patterns in the style of the early pandemic days, where there was much time to think about the painfully ancestral and familial, as in “What Came Next After Our Father’s Death (“my sister, with the power to ensure / that I would not know, during his life, / the worst of our father, that I’d never know him / until he was safely dead, so that for his / whole life I had been safe from the knowledge / of him, and he had been safe from the knowledge of him.”), the lucid morbid truths of reality, as in “Ballad Torn Apart” (“Now that I understand / that the world / as we know it / is going to end”) or inescapable awareness of the physical self, as in “Spotted Aria” (“just outside — I see myself, / spotted as a salamander, an / albino newt speckled with golden oval spots.”)

While the ballad poems she includes don’t feel particularly gripping to me, and her unpacking of race made me wince with exasperation (“I lay a curse on every person of no / color who had kneeled on the throat of a person / of color.”), Balladz is a worthy read that runs a silk thread through the lonely and joyous realizations that come with solitude. —Melinda Fakuade, staff editor, culture and features

Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves

Roger Reeves once said of his poetry that he was “interested in troubling my reader–nothing easy, nothing without a little blood and bleeding.” His new collection, Best Barbarian , often drops devastating, cold clarity on the reader about the stakes: “Empathy will not end / Genocide. It won’t / Even delay it.” He opens with an image of Beowulf’s Grendel seeking out human companionship, “Bringing humans the best vision of themselves, / Which, of course, must be slaughtered.”

But Best Barbarian also seeks out the best of humanity, tripping across a pantheon of Black cultural inspiration from Baldwin to Beyoncé. He enacts a familiar poetics within an epic tradition, with fixations on nature and small serendipitous moments drawn in a sharply imagist style. But in this performance, his attempt to deliver a Whitman-y, arms-outstretched view of America instead constantly constricts, doubling over from grief and PTSD. The death of Reeves’s father, acts of police brutality, slavery, generational trauma, and the climate crisis all become intrusive poetic thoughts. Sometimes this trauma verges on funny (“It turns out however that I was deeply / Mistaken about the end of the world”) but it often simply resides, acknowledged and lived with and directly observed.

But, still, a wry form of hope — for “what is not dead in your death” — persists in drowning out the despair. “Life, it is at every window,” he writes. “It’s what rots the Senators’ teeth.” —Aja Romano, culture writer

The Rupture Tense by Jenny Xie

Jenny Xie’s second collection, The Rupture Tense , prods at the silence of the Asian diaspora, attempting to glean meaning and memory from things that are seen but unseen, heard but not spoken, told but not shown.

With lyrical and devastating language, Xie begins The Rupture Tense with clear reflections on the photography of Li Zhensheng, a Chinese photojournalist who documented the Chinese Cultural Revolution. These sequences are more than just captions to frames missing from these pages, they are a guided tour; Xie beckons us from the foreground to the background of these important images, taking readers into time and place and depositing us into the yawning silences that have been left in the wake of our ancestor’s forging ever forward.

As readers leave the photographs, Xie examines her and her family’s history with the diaspora. What does it mean to be from a place? What does it mean to leave and to come back? All of this intertwines with the long gaze back to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the inheritance of generational trauma, and the poet’s familial history. Finally, The Rupture Tense concludes with an elegy for Xie’s grandmother, moving readers seamlessly from foreground to background to foreground once more, like a camera’s lens unfocusing and refocusing on a single point. —Jayne Quan, social media manager, video

Translated Literature

Seven empty houses by samanta schweblin; translated by megan mcdowell — winner.

Samanta Schweblin, a Berlin-based Argentinian writer who broke out in the US with 2017’s Fever Dreams , flourishes in the liminal space between the everyday and the uncanny. In the seven short stories that make up her new book Seven Empty Houses , no one does anything supernatural or unearthly, but they frequently behave in ways that feel confusing, unsettling, and just a little bit off.

That creeping, unsettling sense comes across most clearly in “Breath From the Depths,” the longest and richest story in the collection. There, an old woman engaged in a frenzied form of Swedish death cleaning spends her days boxing up all of her possessions so no one else will have to do it for her when she dies. She suspects, spitefully, that her husband is making friends behind her back, and she’s haunted by her own rasping breath, which seems to fill her house like a monster. With longtime translator Megan McDowell, Schweblin renders the old woman’s cramped and vengeful life into prose so precise it will haunt you when you close the book. — Constance Grady, senior correspondent and book critic

A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse; translated by Damion Searls

Jon Fosse is one of those writers who is a giant in their own language and little read in English. In Norway, Fosse is considered one of the country’s greatest writers. He taught Karl Ove Knausgaard, who considers him a major influence , and he’s a perennial favorite for the Nobel Prize . But in the Anglophone world, Fosse hasn’t had a breakout until now, with the final volume of his Septology .

In English, the Septology is also a trilogy, translated by Damion Searls into three parts. Each volume begins and ends the same way: The elderly artist Asle is trying to figure out how to complete a painting of one purple line and one brown line intersecting into an X to form a St. Andrew’s cross. After much reflection and memory, Asle falls into prayer, and each volume finishes in the middle of his Latin incantations. There are no periods, so the whole 800-page Septology is a single sentence.

In A New Name , some of Asle’s questions resolve themselves. He decides he will never finish his St. Andrews’s cross, and that in fact he is done with painting altogether. Art has brought him what it needed to bring him, which is the ability to get closer to God. Now, it gradually becomes clear, Asle is ready to die.

Fosse’s single sentence unspools in rhythmic, melodic waves, ebbing and flowing with Asle’s memories until it finally explodes into a virtuosic burst of images in the final pages. The sentence is a whole life, and it ends where a life ends. —Constance Grady, senior correspondent and book critic

Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga; translated by Mark Polizzotti

Kibogo is a fable of colonization and of what colonization does to fables. It concerns Kibogo, a Rwandan prince said to have volunteered to be struck by lightning in order to bring down a rain that would end a famine. Over the course of this spare, sly novella, we watch Kibogo’s story rewritten, revised, repressed, and resurgent.

In the 1940s Rwandan village where Kibogo takes place, Christian evangelizers don’t care for the story of Kibogo. They decry it as pagan nonsense, and since the village chief has converted to Christianity after being well paid for it, the villagers agree to forget Kibogo. Some of them express some skepticism as to the utility of Christianity, however, when the village is hammered by the twin blows of a vicious drought and a Belgian regime that forces farmers to redirect their crops and manpower to European wars. Kibogo, some villagers note, at least knew how to bring down the rain.

Meanwhile, some of the Europeans around them are trying to preserve the story of Kibogo. They’re writing it down so that, they explain, they can tell it back to the Rwandans later, when the villagers have become “civilized” enough to understand Kibogo’s story as a metaphor. But which version of the story are they getting? It seems to keep changing.

In an interview with Le Monde , Mukasonga referred to her books as “paper tombs” for a Rwandan way of life that has been crushed by colonization and genocide. In Kibogo , that lost world comes to vivid, sardonic life. —Constance Grady, senior correspondent and book critic

Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda; translated by Sarah Booker

If you’ve ever pondered the overlap between Catholic schools and weird queer horror, Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone was made for you. Ojeda’s swirling, nonlinear narrative, superbly translated by Sarah Booker, manages the paradox of feeling both sprawling and claustrophobic. On one level, it’s a classic dark academia tale of private school girls pushing one another to the psychosexual brink, this time set in present-day Ecuador; it’s also a sharp meta-study, replete with pop horror references, of the forces that create queer villainy.

Ojeda slowly composes a heated, cacophonous death dance between intimately entwined opposites: fear and desire, pleasure and pain, mothers and daughters. (“Fear was much like always being outside of a mother’s room.”) The enigmatic student Fernanda, her horror-obsessed frenemy Annelise, and their repressed teacher Miss Clara make a fantastic set of antagonists — an erotically charged trio of deranged queer gals in the grand tradition of mad lesbians. Uniting them all: a yearning for maternal acceptance, queer kinship, and — of course — a little blood-letting. —Aja Romano, culture writer

Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada; translated by Margaret Mitsutani

Pretty much the last things I want to read about right now are large-scale disasters and their aftermaths, and yet Yoko Tawada’s 2018 novel (translated and published in the US in 2022) is so wide-ranging in its interests and so light in its tone that I forgot that was precisely what I was doing.

The novel, the first in a trilogy, follows a handful of characters as they traverse the world in search of, among other things, language. Their driving force is a woman named Hiruko, who comes from a country never named as Japan, only ever referred to as “the land of sushi,” which we come to realize has been permanently lost or destroyed, likely in some sort of climate catastrophe (it’s clear that this is a world that has been rocked by recent major events). As such, Hiruko’s native language has been cast asunder, and so while living in Norway she’s cobbled together an entirely new dialect she refers to as Panksa (which comprises “pan” and “Scandinavia”). She meets a number of other finely drawn characters, including Knut, a boy who loves her and hates being tailed across greater Europe by his overbearing mother; Akash, a trans student from India who loves Knut; and Tenzo, whose name is not really Tenzo.

They form a ragtag band in search of someone who will be able to speak Hiruko’s native language, and in the process raise questions about what language is and is not for, what limitations and possibilities it can contain, and what constitutes “native” speaking in the first place. The book is told from almost every named character’s point of view, switching off from chapter to chapter, and while that could become exhausting or hard to follow in a different context, in a novel so concerned with speech and words and expression, it feels paramount to be able to see just how each character deploys their own. Now all I can hope for is that the next book in the trilogy doesn’t have to wait four years for a US release. —Alanna Okun, senior editor, culture & features

Young People’s Literature

All my rage by sabaa tahir — winner.

Having shot to the top of the bestseller list with her fantasy series An Ember in the Ashes , Sabaa Tahir’s latest is her first contemporary YA novel. The book is inspired by her own experience growing up in a motel “in the barren wasteland of the Mojave”; last year, she wrote an essay for Vox about her difficult childhood in the desert.

All My Rage finds its protagonists Salahudin (whose parents also run a motel in the Mojave) and Noor nearing the end of high school, uncertain about their individual futures, as well as their collective one. Are they in love? Are they just friends? What happens if they want different things? But the will-they-won’t-they — that most delicious of teen romance tropes — is overshadowed by the almost unimaginably bleak family histories and current circumstances of the pair.

Tahir weaves their stories in alternating chapters, also inserting some from the point of view of Salahudin’s mother Misbah, who immigrated to California from Pakistan with her husband following one of the book’s many tragedies. All My Rage is a difficult read with much-substantiated content warnings, but Tahir’s tenderness for her characters shines through. — Julia Rubin, editorial director, culture & features

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill

“Listen,” as the long-unidentified narrator of The Ogress and the Orphans might say. This is not a tale — fairy in both nature and spirit — that breaks terrifically new ground. That’s the point, though. Instead, it says a lot of things very worth saying again and again, in a lovely way.

From Newberry medal winner Kelly Barnhill, this fable about a little town called Stone-in-the-Glen and its community that isn’t a community anymore has some not entirely subtle parallels with modern life. We have a flashy, inexplicably beloved leader who says “I, alone, can fix it,” an untrusting citizenry locked away and apart in their homes, and a host of winning orphans reminding themselves and one another that “Facts matter.” It’s not simply a parallel to America circa 2020, but, as the book makes clear, it’s a terribly old story, one we tell again and again, in different ways and with different villains and heroes, but always the same vital lessons: that fellowship with our neighbors is invaluable, that libraries rule, that doing good is more important than any fuzzy idea of “being” good, and that you should not throw rocks at birds. — Meredith Haggerty, senior editor, culture

The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

This was a good year for the NBA and Latina lesbians in private schools (see also: Jawbone ). Yamilet, still reeling from being outed by her ex-girlfriend, views her new school — rich, white, and very Catholic — as a new start. With her Papi deported, her brother Cesar constantly getting into fights, and her mom trying to hold the family together, Yamilet’s goals are simple: “1. Find a new best friend. 2. Don’t be gay about it.” But that’s before she meets bouncy, adorable Jenna and badass Bo Taylor.

What Reyes’ sparkling, wry voice captures so well is the burbling feeling of a teenager who’s in love with love, newly awakened to the possibility of romance around every corner. Yamilet’s excited crush spills over and threatens to ruin all her efforts to stay closeted despite her best efforts. Watching her struggle to suppress her bold, exuberant love while trying to protect her family is a painful, relatable reminder that coming out is the ultimate trust fall. —Aja Romano, culture writer

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile

At the 1968 Olympics, the gold and silver medalists in the 200-meter event held up black-gloved fists as the US national anthem played to protest racial inequality. It’s a famous event given new life in Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist For Justice, a graphic memoir by the gold medalist, Tommie Smith; writer Derrick Barnes; and artist Dawud Anyabwile.

Tales from Smith’s childhood and early running career form the core of the book; they’re interspersed purposefully throughout a taut retelling of the gold medal-winning race. Challenges Smith faces in his dash summon memories that conclude with a lesson that helps spur him on to victory.

Those memories serve as poignant vignettes into Black life in the early 20th century; reminiscent of the Langston Hughes classic Not Without Laughter , they show how faith, family, and early experiences with racism shaped Smith into one of the greatest athletes — and activists — of his time.

It’s a compact, tightly written volume. The simplicity of its prose makes you feel as though you’re sitting with your eyes closed, imagining the past as you listen to Smith reflect. It’s an effect magnified by Anyabwile’s sharp and sinewy linework, and his deeply expressive faces, all rendered in crisp black and white.

Those looking for a deep dive into Smith’s life might be better served by his autobiography or other books about him. However, those seeking the highlights or a strong introduction to Smith’s work to give to young readers will be well served by this volume that is a brief look into a significant battle in the ongoing fight against white supremacy. —Sean Collins, news editor

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance by Lisa Yee

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance is a book I wish I had while I was growing up. Part mystery novel, part historical fiction, the book follows Chen, the 12-year-old protagonist, as she navigates a temporary move from Los Angeles, California, to Last Chance, Minnesota, where her grandparents own a restaurant called The Golden Palace. Geared toward younger readers, the novel offers an illuminating primer on Chinese American history, US immigration policy, and the rise of present-day anti-Asian hate crimes, providing an education that’s often missing from traditional textbooks.

The novel is far from a stuffy history lesson, however. It’s filled with vibrant characters including Maizy, an endlessly curious writer who’s eager to trace the origins of her family’s journey in the US, and Lucky, Maizy’s great-great-grandfather, who pursued his goals of working in and then owning a restaurant amid rampant discrimination in both California and Minnesota in the 1800s. By telling their stories in parallel, author Lisa Yee introduces readers to policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act while commenting on the enduring nature of anti-Asian sentiment, which Maizy experiences in the form of micro-aggressions from classmates in her grandparents’ predominately white Minnesota town.

Despite its weighty subject matter, the novel manages to strike a creative — and entertaining — balance that’s a nail-biter to the finish. When a hate crime takes place against her family’s restaurant, Maizy sets out to figure out who the perpetrator is, with unexpected and startling results. — Li Zhou, politics reporter

Updated November 17, 2022 , to reflect the winners of the 2022 National Book Awards.

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The Best Fiction Books » Best Fiction of 2022

Award-winning novels of 2022, recommended by cal flyn.

by the author

Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn

Any end-of-year list is necessarily partial; no one person could hope to read every novel published in the English language in any given year. That's why prize lists are so useful for guiding the casual reader's literary diet. Here, our deputy editor Cal Flyn offers a brief round-up of the books that ruled victorious during the 2022 awards season.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Book of Form and Emptiness: A Novel by Ruth Ozeki

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Deep Wheel Orcadia: A Novel by Harry Josephine Giles

1 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

2 the book of form and emptiness: a novel by ruth ozeki, 3 the netanyahus by joshua cohen, 4 the love songs of w.e.b. du bois by honorée fanonne jeffers, 5 deep wheel orcadia: a novel by harry josephine giles.

J udging panels will often read more than a hundred submissions before they settle upon the novels that make up their longlists, shortlists, and winners. Although literary preferences are subjective, and partly directed by the nature of the prize in question, we at Five Books feel these prize lists are very helpful for the casual reader looking for some guidance on what books are worth their limited reading time. We’ve compiled a brief overview of the fiction that won literary prizes in 2022 in case that might be of use to you.

British and Irish Literary Awards

Its sister prize, the International Booker Prize, seeks to award the best fiction translated into English over the previous year. It’s always, always worth paying attention to, because the shortlists highlight so many wonderful books from around the world that we might otherwise not come into contact with. I almost always discover my favourite books of the year via these shortlists. The winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize was Tomb of Sand,   a novel by Geetanjali Shree, as translated by Daisy Rockwell. The chair of the judges Frank Wynne, a noted translator in his own right (see below), told me in June that this book was “an extraordinary piece of fiction, [and] also an extraordinary piece of metafiction” of Indian partition.

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Other prizes of note include the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which was won in 2022 by Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness , a novel that gives voices to inanimate objects; the Goldsmiths Prize (for “fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”), which went to the collaborative novel Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams—a clever portrait of literary friendship and an experiment in political fiction; and the James Tait Black Prize, the UK’s oldest literary prize, which went to Keith Ridgway’s  A Shock , in which each chapter forms a series of interlocking stories about characters living in South London.

The International Dublin Literary Award, worth €100,000 is one of the world’s richest literary prizes, and is awarded to a novel published in the English language, or translated into English, that year. It was won this year by the French author Alice Zeniter for  The Art of Losing , as translated by Frank Wynne. The novel follows three generations of an Algerian family from the 1950s to the present day.

North American Literary Awards

Joshua Cohen’s  The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family   won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It’s a genre-bending campus comedy about the Jewish-American experience which has attracted rave reviews. Writing in  The Guardian , Leo Robson described it as “a comic historical fantasia” that reads “like an attempt, as delightful as it sounds, to cross-breed Roth’s  The Ghost Writer  and Nabokov’s  Pale Fire .”

The National Book Critics Circle Awards are organised by some of America’s most respected arbiters of taste. In 2022, the NBCC fiction prize was won by the noted poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers for her first novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois , a book that has won near-universal acclaim since its release in May. As Joshunda Sanders explained in  The Boston Globe, it’s “a sweeping matriarchal epic that leads readers through a majestic tour of race, family, and love in America… the Great American Novel at its finest.”

In Canada, Sheila Heti won the Governor General’s Literary Award for her wildly imaginative Pure Colour , in which she contrasts the wonder and joy of creation with our daily experience of frustration and disappointment. She’s one of my favourite writers—erudite, funny, intelligent, unpretentious. This latest work is unmissable.

Australian and New Zealand Literary Awards

Jennifer Down won Australia’s prestigious Miles Franklin Award for Bodies of Light,   which was praised for its “ethical precision” in its portrait of a young girl in care who is forced to reinvent herself again and again. Nicolas Rothwell has also just been announced the winner of the Australian Prime Minister’s award for his novel Red Heaven ,  set in 1960s eastern Europe. At the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, Whiti Hereaka won the 2022 fiction prize for  Kurangaituku , a subversion of the traditional Māori story of Hatupatu—as seen through the eyes of the monster.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Awards

The 2022 Arthur C Clarke Award was won by Harry Josephine Giles for their remarkable, boundary-pushing novel-in-verse Deep Wheel Orcadia , set on a space station and told in the Orcadian dialect (alongside a creative English translation). I spoke to the chair of the judges, Andrew M. Butler earlier this year, who noted that “it’s the sort of book the prize exists to draw attention to for die-hard sci fi readers, and to make non-sci fi readers question their assumptions about the genre.” Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace (which was also shortlisted for the Clarke Award) won the Hugo Award for best novel this year; its the second novel in her Teixcalaan sequence—you might want to start with  A Memory Called Empire ,  which started the series and was also highly acclaimed.

P Djèlí Clark’s  A Master of Djinn won the 2022 Nebula Award for best novel, along with a bunch of other awards including the Locus Award for best first novel—it’s a fun, magical whodunnit set in an alternate, steampunk Cairo, and it has found a passionate fanbase. At the World Fantasy Awards, the best novel winner was The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, an epic high fantasy described by Shelley Parker-Chan as a “feminist masterpiece.”

Mystery, Horror and Crime Awards

Stephen Graham Jones won the Bram Stoker Award for My Heart is a Chainsaw (described by the publishers as “ Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th “, which sounds fun); the Mystery Writers of America awarded the 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award to Five Decembers   by James Kestrel, a 1940s noir with a brilliantly pulpy cover; and the International Thriller Writers garlanded S.A. Cosby for the second year running for Razorblade Tears , described to me by Tosca Lee earlier this year as “a moody Southern thriller with fast-paced action, the story of two men—one black, one white, both ex-cons—who team together to solve the murder of their sons, who were married to one another. It’s a gritty tale that looks into questions of race, poverty, and other bias through the lens of both violence and compassion.” In the UK, Ray Celestin won the 2022 Golden Dagger for his novel Sunset Swing .

Historical Fiction Prizes

Scottish author James Robertson won the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for his latest novel,  News of the Dead . I spoke to judge Elizabeth Laird earlier this year, who said: “Behind the beguiling, interlinked narrative of three characters from different periods of history—an Iron Age hermit, a nineteenth-century literary conman, and a child thrown out into the world from war-torn Europe—is a profound appreciation of a landscape, the rocks, the rain, the streams, trees and mosses of the remote Scottish glen where these three lives are lived.” And in Australia and New Zealand, the $50,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize went to Thomas Keneally’s Corporal Hitler’s Pistol , described by  The Guardian   as “a compelling blend of historical crime thriller and intricate portrait of an Australian rural community.”

Romance Prizes

The UK’s Romantic Novelists Association highlights the best books in nearly a dozen romance sub-categories; we’ve heard great things about A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske, which topped the fantasy romance category. The Romance Writers of America did not run their Vivian Awards this year.

Part of our  best books of 2022  series.

December 13, 2022

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©Nancy Macdonald

Cal Flyn is a writer, journalist, and the deputy editor of Five Books . Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape , her nonfiction book about how nature rebounds in abandoned places, was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the British Academy Book Prize. She writes regular round-ups of the most notable new fiction, which can be found here . Her Five Books interviews with other authors are here .

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Awards: Best Literary Fiction of 2022

Every year thousands of our readers vote for their favorite books of the year in the She Reads Awards . Find out more about the books that were nominated and see which book was voted the Best Literary Fiction of 2022.

The winner of the Best Literary Fiction of 2022 is . . .

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Cara Romero assumed she’d be working at the factory of little lamps for the remainder of her life. But when she loses her job in the Great Recession when she’s in her mid-50s, she’s back on the hunt. Cara narrates her story to a job counselor, going over her stormy love affairs, financial problems, gentrification, loss, and the truth behind her estranged relationship with her son. Shedding light on her darkest secrets and regrets, Cara is a woman that life has not been kind to, but she’s determined to be a fighter.

The nominees for Best Literary Fiction of 2022 are:

Demon copperhead by barbara kingsolver.

Inspired by Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield , Demon Copperhead addresses issues of institutional poverty and its impact on children in the American South. A boy is born in a trailer to a single teenage mother in the mountains of southern Appalachia. As he grows, he faces the tribulations of foster care, child labor, poor education, addiction, tragic romances, and devastating losses. Armed with a fiery wit and a talent for survival, Demon Copperhead is a symbol for lost children who remain resilient against all odds.

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet

In this poignant novel by renowned author Lydia Millet, a man named Gil walks from New York to Arizona in attempt to heal his broken heart. Soon after he arrives, new neighbors move into the glass-walled house next door, and Gil finds his life blending with theirs. A tender, funny, and heartwarming story of one man’s commitment to do good, Dinosaurs is an exploration of hope, community, and the experiences that tie us together.

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

In the midst of a pandemic, Lucy Barton’s ex-husband uproots her life from Manhattan to a small town in Maine. For several months, Lucy and William isolate together in a little house by the sea, struggling with fear, uncertainty, and their complex past. Their story explores pain and suffering, loss, friendship, and the comfort of a long-lasting love. Fraught with emotion and hope, Lucy by the Sea encapsulates the beauty of human connection in the darkest of times.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

This journey through one woman’s life explores her adolescence, the experiences that made her who she is, and her struggle against a malevolent illness. After an unexpected diagnosis upends her world, Lia and her family must learn to navigate their new realities. Partially narrated by the disease that is changing the landscape of Lia’s body, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is tender, heartwarming, and life-affirming.

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

In an East Oakland apartment, siblings Kiara and Marcus are barely getting by. After multiple family tragedies, both of them dropped out of high school. Kiara looks for work, hoping to pay rent and keep the abandoned nine-year-old boy next door fed, while Marcus pursues a career in the music industry. But one night, a drunken encounter with a stranger leaves Kiara with a job opportunity she never expected or wanted. A job nightcrawling. Not long after taking on her new role does Kiara find herself involved in a shocking scandal within the Oakland Police Department. When Kiara is exposed as the key witness, everything changes.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner is lives with his father and knows that he shouldn’t stand out too much. The government enforces laws meant to preserve “American culture” and authorities are permitted to relocate children of dissidents, particularly those of Asian descent. Bird’s mother left the family when he was nine years old. A Chinese American woman, Margaret was a poet whose work is being removed from libraries alongside other books seen as unpatriotic. Bird knows nothing about Margaret’s work or where she went, but when he receives a cryptic drawing in the mail, he is drawn into a quest to find her.

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

In this captivating novel, Jennifer Egan plays with the bounds of technology and brings to life a world where all of our unconscious memories are accessible and even exchangeable. Tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton’s newest creation “Own Your Unconscious” immediately intrigues many—but not without consequences. Creatively narrating through different characters and time periods, Egan reveals the personal and social outcomes of introducing daring technology into personal psychology. In a world perhaps not so far out-of-reach to our own, there are Counters, those who take advantage of Bix’s latest work, and Eluders, who recognize it’s potential cost. The Candy House creatively speaks to relevant issues and moral trade-offs regarding privacy and technology, while simultaneously highlighting the ultimate importance of authentic human connection.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

In Florence during the 1550s, Lucrezia is the third daughter of the grand duke, perfectly content with her role in the palazzo. But when her older sister dies the night before her wedding to the Duke of Ferrara, Lucrezia is thrown into a new position as she takes her sister’s place and becomes a duchess. Barely a woman, this new world is unfamiliar and mystifying. Her new husband, Alfonso, is a puzzle as well and eventually, Lucrezia realizes her responsibility is to produce an heir—but until then her future is uncertain.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Frida Liu is having a very bad day, and because of one moment of poor judgement, she must prove that she can be a good mother or she will lose her daughter. She doesn’t have the support she needs: a career that is not worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices, and a husband that refuses to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Her daughter, Harriet, is the only thing that Frida has done right, and now she must risk it all to be redeemed. A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Sadie Green and Sam Masur are catapulted into stardom when they create a blockbuster called Ichigo . At twenty-four, Sam and Sadie are rich and successful, known for their brilliant work in the film industry. But things take a turn for the worse when betrayals and creative ambitions stand in the way of the life they just started to build. Their story takes place over thirty years, from Massachusetts to California, and explores notions of identity, disability, failure, redemption, and connection.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

In 1920s New York, everyone has heard of the powerfully wealthy Benjamin and Helen Rask, but no one quite understands how they acquired such immense fortune. The 1937 novel Bonds explores this mystery, but there are many versions of this intriguing tale. Trust is a compilation and study of these narratives, investigated by a woman determined to uncover the truth. Full of thrilling revelations, Trust flawlessly captures deceptive relationships, reality-warping wealth, and the manipulation of facts by those in power.

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50 notable works of fiction

The year’s best novels, short-story collections and works of fiction in translation

‘All the Lovers in the Night,’ by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd

The best-selling author of “ Breasts and Eggs ” tells the story of a Tokyo-based copy editor who buries a traumatic episode under a solitary, regimented existence. But when she discovers the liberating properties of alcohol, the past comes flooding back.

‘The Books of Jacob,’ by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

When Polish author Tokarczuk won the 2018 Nobel Prize for literature, the judges praised this hefty book. Finally, English speakers can see what all the fuss is about: a sprawling but consistently entertaining account of Jacob Frank , a real-life 18th-century mystic whose disciples believed he was the messiah.

‘City on Fire,’ by Don Winslow

Winslow, a crime fiction virtuoso, has designs on retiring after he completes the trilogy that this novel launched — a kind of Greek tragedy about organized crime in Providence, R.I. It all starts with Irish mobster Danny Ryan, who has to deal with the escalating fallout after his brother-in-law gets handsy with an Italian gangster’s girlfriend.

‘The Consequences: Stories,’ by Manuel Muñoz

California’s Central Valley in the 1980s and ’90s is the setting for most of the poignant stories in this collection. Muñoz, a three-time O. Henry Award winner, reveals the vastness of Mexican and Mexican American identity with tales of deportation, teen pregnancy, AIDS and the quotidian drudgery of farm work.

‘Cult Classic,’ by Sloane Crosley

Crosley, already known for piercing observations in such essay collections as “ I Was Told There’d Be Cake ,” takes aim at social media and start-up culture . The novel’s protagonist, Lola, is thinking about settling down — if only she could get over the parade of exes whose accomplishments haunt her news feed.

‘Dr. No,’ by Percival Everett

Shortly after his novel “ The Trees ” was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, Everett released this very different book about a mathematician who specializes in the study of nothingness. As it turns out, that knowledge could be useful to an aspiring supervillain who will shell out millions in exchange for help in weaponizing naught.

‘Either/Or,’ by Elif Batuman

In this sequel to “The Idiot,” Batuman picks up the story of Selin Karadag as she begins her sophomore year at Harvard. After a summer spent pining over an unrequited love, the fledgling writer embarks on a series of sexual encounters in the hopes of uncovering some revelation — or at least inspiration.

‘Fencing With the King,’ by Diana Abu-Jaber

A Palestinian American woman, curious about her extended family, accompanies her father to a month-long birthday celebration for the king of Jordan. But when she begins piecing together puzzles of the past , she ends up at odds with her scheming uncle.

‘Forbidden City,’ by Vanessa Hua

In 1960s China, teenager Mei Xiang departs her small village to join Chairman Mao’s dance troupe, ultimately becoming his confidante and lover. Hua’s bestseller uses Mei’s decades-spanning story to consider the women who were used, then erased from the history of China’s Cultural Revolution.

‘The Foundling,’ by Ann Leary

A dark piece of history — the practice of incarcerating “feebleminded” women — inspires a twisting nail-biter with a caper of a climax . Protagonist Mary, an orphan, falls under the spell of the elegant doctor in charge of a home for women that turns out to be less altruistic than it appears.

‘Free Love,’ by Tessa Hadley

The year is 1967, and Phyllis Fischer embodies the suburban ideal : nice house, loving husband, two kids. But when a younger man she barely knows kisses her, Phyllis begins to question everything she thought she knew — and loved — about her life.

‘The Furrows,’ by Namwali Serpell

Serpell’s second novel is as stunning as her critically acclaimed first, “ The Old Drift .” Through this story of a woman whose brother disappeared when they were children, Serpell explores the disorienting, sometimes surreal effects of grief.

‘Glory,’ by NoViolet Bulawayo

Bulawayo’s second novel , and her second to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, was inspired by the autocrats who have ruled the author’s native Zimbabwe. But in this brilliant allegorical satire, the characters based on Robert Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa and others are stallions, goats and dogs.

‘Groundskeeping,’ by Lee Cole

You can choose your friends, but not your family. That’s one reminder in Cole’s emotionally rich debut about an aspiring writer who moves home to Kentucky, where his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather complicate his budding relationship with the liberal daughter of Bosnian immigrants.

‘The Hero of This Book,’ by Elizabeth McCracken

When is a memoir not a memoir? McCracken straddles the line between real life and fiction in this story of a narrator whose trip to London prompts a deluge of memories about her late mother.

‘Horse,’ by Geraldine Brooks

The Pulitzer Prize winner offers a lesson in weaving together disparate narratives with this novel inspired by a real-life 19th-century racehorse . In the 1850s, the horse is trained by an enslaved boy; generations later, a man becomes obsessed with a discarded portrait of the horse just as a zoologist finds the animal’s bones in an attic. Inevitably, but never predictably, their stories intersect.

‘How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water,’ by Angie Cruz

The fourth novel by Women’s Prize finalist Cruz finds Cara Romero, a New Yorker from the Dominican Republic, unburdening herself to a woman meant to provide employment assistance. Instead, the woman ends up with 12 enlightening, sometimes hilarious sessions with Cara, who reveals the highs and lows of an eventful life.

‘Invisible Things,’ by Mat Johnson

What at first seems like a work of science fiction involving a group of astronauts who land on Jupiter’s moon grows into something broader and more trenchant — an accomplished work of cultural and political satire that calls to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s “ The Sirens of Titan ” and “ Cat’s Cradle ” and Robert A. Heinlein’s “ Stranger in a Strange Land .”

‘Jackie and Me,’ by Louis Bayard

A charming story that captures our ongoing fascination with the Kennedy marriage, “ Jackie & Me ” focuses on the years when Jack and Jackie were still two distinct individuals, a young man and a younger woman navigating their ways through Washington.

‘The Latecomer,’ by Jean Hanff Korelitz

There’s a jigsaw-puzzle thrill to Korelitz’s tale of a wealthy New York City family. Part farce, part revenge fantasy, the book reads like a latter-day Edith Wharton novel , as Korelitz (“ The Plot ”) simultaneously mocks and embraces these upper-class combatants.

‘Less Is Lost,’ by Andrew Sean Greer

Arthur Less, the hero of Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Less” (2017), is back . He’s living happily in San Francisco when he learns he owes 10 years of back rent and has only a month to come up with it. Hilarity ensues as our lovable, hapless protagonist is befallen by a series of accidents and misunderstandings.

‘Lessons,’ by Ian McEwan

McEwan, winner of the 1998 Booker for “ Amsterdam ,” tells the story of an ordinary man whose personal experience is woven into the social and political developments that have shaped all our lives, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the coronavirus pandemic. Through the tale of this imaginary life, McEwan deftly explores the interplay of will and chance, time and memory.

‘The Lioness,’ by Chris Bohjalian

From the author of “ The Flight Attendant ” and “ Hour of the Witch ,” this propulsive tale perfectly marries glamour and horror, as a group of Hollywood notables sets off on a safari in the Serengeti in the mid-1960s.

‘Lucky Breaks,’ by Yevgenia Belorusets, translated by Eugene Ostashevsky

This story collection is the first new full-length work of fiction out of Ukraine since Russia’s war with the country began. Slim but meaty, these tales — whose main players are women displaced by war — are both unsettling and illuminating.

‘Lucy by the Sea,’ by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton returns , this time riding out the pandemic’s early wave with her ex-husband in Maine. Strout fans will delight in the appearance of beloved characters from previous novels, including Olive Kitteridge and Isabelle (“ Amy and Isabelle ”) as they struggle and hope — together but in isolation.

‘The Marriage Portrait,’ by Maggie O’Farrell

O’Farrell (“ Hamnet ”) drops us into the panicked mind of a teenage girl who knows that her husband is plotting to kill her. This is Florence in the 1550s — and the teen is Lucrezia de’Medici. In this masterful work , O’Farrell pulls out little threads of historical detail to weave the story of a precocious girl sensitive to the contradictions of her station.

‘Mercy Street,’ by Jennifer Haigh

Haigh’s restrained novel explores the precarious status of safe, legal abortion through the eyes of an experienced counselor at a reproductive-health clinic in downtown Boston, revealing the surprising ways lives intersect amid this divisive issue.

‘My Phantoms,’ by Gwendoline Riley

Bridget, the 40-something narrator of this quietly powerful novel, has, to put it mildly, a difficult relationship with her parents, particularly her mother. In deceptively simple prose, Riley delivers a compelling character study and an unflinching look at the complexity of family bonds.

‘Nightcrawling,’ by Leila Mottley

Inspired by a sexual exploitation scandal involving several police departments in the Bay Area , Mottley’s debut novel imagines the life of a 17-year-old African American high school dropout who is vulnerable to abuse. Mottley, who is 19, captures her narrator’s experience with painful, poetic beauty.

‘Olga Dies Dreaming,’ by Xochitl Gonzalez

Olga Isabel Acevedo is a 40-year-old dynamo from South Brooklyn who becomes an in-demand wedding planner — but she can’t seem to find romance herself. If you know anything about how romantic comedy works, you have some idea of how this story ends, but you’ll be completely surprised by how it gets there.

‘Our Missing Hearts,’ by Celeste Ng

As in her previous books, Ng (“ Little Fires Everywhere ,” “ Everything I Never Told You ”) explores race, family and belonging. Here the setting is a near-future dystopian America where 12-year-old Bird Gardner is searching for his estranged mother in a society where anti-Asian sentiment threatens his every move.

‘Our Wives Under the Sea,’ by Julia Armfield

Both a love story and a horror story, “ Our Wives ” follows a couple through some unusual twists in their relationship, as one spouse returns from a deep-sea expedition forever changed. There’s more than a drop of “ The Turn of the Screw ” in this exquisitely suspenseful debut novel.

‘The Passenger,’ by Cormac McCarthy

The first novel from McCarthy, now 89, since “The Road” in 2006 features Bobby Western, a contemplative, haunted salvage diver. What starts at the pace of a thriller — with a mystery surrounding a private jet on the ocean floor — becomes an extended rumination on subjects from atomic bombs (Bobby’s father helped create them) to the inappropriate, obsessive love between a brother and sister.

‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,’ by Shehan Karunatilaka

The winner of this year’s Booker Prize is a very unlikely combination: a murder mystery and a zany comedy about military atrocities. Narrated by a dead man. In the second person. Karunatilaka has said the combination of tragedy and absurdity was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, but his story drifts across Sri Lankan history and culture with a spirit entirely its own.

‘Salka Valka,’ by Halldór Laxness, translated by Philip Roughton

This newly retranslated novel by Laxness , the prolific Icelandic writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955, focuses on the fortitude and inner life of the title character, who has to make it on her own in a small village. Marxism vs. capitalism is one theme of the book as it charts the changing social and economic circumstances of the village over the course of about 20 years.

‘Sea of Tranquility,’ by Emily St. John Mandel

St. John Mandel’s follow-up to “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel” is a curious thought experiment that opens in 1912 before hopping ahead to 2203 and then 2401. This is science fiction that keeps its science largely in abeyance, as dark matter for a story about loneliness, grief and finding purpose.

‘Shrines of Gaiety,’ by Kate Atkinson

Atkinson sets out to evoke — with gusto and precision — a lost Roaring Twenties London that, perhaps, never was. This is a sprawling and sparkling tale overrun with flappers, gangsters, disillusioned war veterans, crooked coppers, a serial killer, absinthe cocktails, teenage runaways and a bevy of Bright Young Things.

‘Signal Fires,’ by Dani Shapiro

Shapiro’s novel , which balances grief with grace, starts in 1985, when 15-year-old Theo Wilf crashes his mother’s Buick into a huge oak tree in the family’s front yard. The story then hops through time to fill in the details of that event and how the secrecy surrounding it shaped, or deformed, the lives of the Wilfs.

‘The Singularities,’ by John Banville

Every page of Banville’s latest beautifully written novel is an enigmatic delight. A man named Felix Mordaunt, just released from prison, wanders onto the property where he spent his boyhood. But is that really his name? And is this his ancestral home? Unreliability runs throughout.

‘The Stone World,’ by Joel Agee

Agee has published acclaimed nonfiction about his boyhood in East Germany with his mother and stepfather after the family migrated from Mexico. (His father was the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer James Agee.) This new novel , written with wondrous simplicity and depth, is a kind of fictional prequel: Set in an unnamed Mexican town in the 1940s, it tells the story of a quiet, sensitive boy named Peter.

‘Thrust,’ by Lidia Yuknavitch

“ Thrust ” is part history, part prophecy and all fever dream. Its chapters ebb and flow across 200 years in and around the New York Harbor, moving from 19th-century laborers toiling to erect the Statue of Liberty to a drowned East Coast in 2079. This sometimes surreal book offers a mind-blowing critique of America’s ideals.

‘To Paradise,’ by Hanya Yanagihara

Seven years after her novel “ A Little Life ,” Yanagihara returns with another epic , this one made up of three novella-length sections set in the past, present and future. The final one is a blistering analysis of what an endless cycle of pandemics can do to a society. “To Paradise” demonstrates the inexhaustible ingenuity of an author who keeps shattering expectations.

‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,’ by Gabrielle Zevin

This novel about two childhood friends who reunite in college and design a successful video game together is not really a workplace romance; it’s a novel about the romance of work. It portrays a creative partnership as intense and as fraught as a marriage, and it draws readers into the pioneering days of a vast entertainment industry too often scorned by bookworms.

‘Trespasses,’ by Louise Kennedy

Kennedy’s captivating first novel manages to be beautiful and devastating in equal measure. It’s set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s amid the Troubles. The book’s protagonist, 24-year-old Cushla Lavery, lives with her mother in a small, “mixed” town outside Belfast, and she emerges as a flawed, bruised but ultimately defiant heroine.

‘True Biz,’ by Sara Nović

“ True Biz ” follows an eventful year in the lives of students and a headmistress at a residential school for the deaf. Nović is a thoughtful tour guide through her own deaf culture, careful to explain what people unaware of her world may be missing, and providing mini history lessons and illustrations of vocabulary words in American Sign Language.

‘The Unfolding,’ by A.M. Homes

Homes’s latest novel is very funny and often unsettling. The sharp satire begins after the election of Barack Obama, when a major Republican donor referred to only as the Big Guy assembles a group of advisers who devise a long-term plan for retaking control of American politics.

‘Vladimir,’ by Julia May Jonas

Jonas’s provocative debut novel revolves around the fallout from accusations of sexual misconduct against the unnamed narrator’s husband, who is chair of the English department at the college where they both teach. The narrator is filled with both desire and shame about aging, and has at least one foot on the wrong side of #MeToo.

‘We All Want Impossible Things,’ by Catherine Newman

Genuinely heartbreaking and hilarious is a tough combination to pull off, but Newman does it in her first novel for adults. Edith and Ashley have been the closest of friends for more than 40 years. When Edith’s ovarian cancer diagnosis becomes terminal, the women contend with Edi’s transition into hospice. Tears mix with laughter in everyday moments, showing the power of female friendship.

‘The Whalebone Theatre,’ by Joanna Quinn

Quinn’s richly imagined and energetically told debut novel , set mostly in England before and during World War II, focuses on a creative young girl named Cristabel and her stepsiblings. These spunky, somewhat benignly neglected children, with a pedigree stretching from Charles Dickens to Lemony Snicket, might seem familiar, but they have their own peculiar and particular charm.

‘Yonder,’ by Jabari Asim

Set on a Southern plantation in 1852, “ Yonder ” explores with great depth the intertwined lives of four enslaved people, alternating between the points of view of each character. The final section of the book follows their exodus, a bold and dangerous journey whose outcome remains uncertain until the very last page.

The best literary fiction books to read right now

Here we share the most exciting new literary fiction and the best literary fiction of all time. .

2023 was a remarkable year for literature and 2024 looks equally unlikely to disappoint. Here, we round up some of the most exciting new literary fiction of 2024, reflect on the best literary books of 2023, and recommend some of the best literary fiction of all time. 

For even more inspiration, don't miss our edit of the best fiction books.  

The best new literary fiction of 2024

By percival everett.

After escaping his slave owner’s plantation on The Mississippi River in 1861, James holes up on nearby Jackson Island, trying to formulate a plan to ensure his and his family’s freedom. Meeting Huck, a man running from his own troubled past, the pair start a treacherous journey up the river in the hope of salvation. A masterful retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that brings Jim’s story into the spotlight for the first time , Percival Everett’s James is one of 2024’s must-read novels. 

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The amendments, by niamh mulvey.

For Nell and Adrienne, the prospect of becoming parents is bittersweet. Adrienne is excited about the start of their new life, whereas, for Nell, their impending parenthood takes her back to a past she has long tried to bury, to finally confront her fractured relationship with her mother. A story of love, freedom, belonging and rebellion told through the stories of three generations of women from the same Irish family, The Amendments is a novel you won’t want to put down. 

by Elizabeth O'Connor

Growing up on an idyllic, albeit dull island off the coast of Wales in the 1930s, Manod dreams of a future full of colour and life but with war looming, her hopes of following her dreams seem too far off to fathom. That is, until the arrival of two anthropologists from the mainland arrive to study the island's secluded community, and Manod sees an opportunity to get off the island and discover the world for herself. As she entangles herself in their complicated relationship, will she get the future she's so desperate for? 

by Nathan Hill

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the 90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, but fast-forward twenty years to married life, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons. Moving from the gritty 90s Chicago art scene to a suburbia of detox diets and home renovation hysteria,  Wellness  is a powerfully affecting novel about how we change, grow and age. It is a story of a marriage, middle age, our tech-obsessed health culture, and the bonds that keep people together. 

‘ American storytelling at its era-spanning best . . . An immersive, multi-layered portrait of a marriage, Nathan Hill’s follow-up to The Nix is a work of quiet genius. ’ The Observer

How I Won A Nobel Prize

By julius taranto.

Helen, a graduate student on a quest to save the planet, is one of the best minds of her generation. But when her irreplaceable advisor’s student sex scandal is exposed, she must choose whether to give up on her work or accompany him to RIP, a research institute which grants safe harbour to the disgraced. As Helen settles into life at the institute alongside her partner Hew, she develops a crush on an older novelist, while he is drawn to an increasingly violent protest movement. Julius Taranto’s wickedly satirical and refreshingly irreverent debut , examines the price we are willing to pay for progress and what it means to be a good person.

Where There Was Fire

By john manuel arias.

Set in Costa Rica, 1968, John Manuel Arias’s debut novel  explores the aftermath of a devastating plantation fire that veils a huge scandal and alters Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family forever. Twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her estranged daughter Lyra are still grappling with the past. Lyra is determined to uncover that night's events, while Teresa is haunted by her lost husband and a resentful spirit. This powerful tale unfolds a mother-daughter journey toward understanding and forgiveness, amid a family mystery rooted in love, betrayal, and greed.

by Kaveh Akbar

Cyrus Shams has been grappling with his mother's death ever since her plane was shot down when he was just a baby. Now, newly sober, he embarks on a journey to uncover her true identity and the mysteries attached to her life, triggered by an encounter with a dying artist. As Cyrus pieces together clippings from his mother's life, he is faced with a shocking revelation that shatters his beliefs. Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound,  Martyr!  heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

The World and All That It Holds

By aleksandar hemon.

Rafael Pinto spends his days crushing herbs and tablets at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. While it's a far cry from his poetry-filled student days in Vienna, life feels peaceful. That is until a June day in 1914 when the world explodes and soon, finding himself in the trenches of Galicia, Pinto's fantasies fall flat. As war devours, all he has left is the attention of Osman, a fellow soldier who complements Pinto's introspective, poetic soul. Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches and find themselves entangled with spies and Bolsheviks. In this story of love and war, it is Pinto's love for Osman that will truly survive. 

‘ Alexsandar Hemon's new novel is immense. ... It contains almost as much as its title promises. By turns lyrical and sardonic, it is as emotionally compelling as it is clever. I'll be surprised if I enjoy a novel more this year. ’ Guardian

What You Need From The Night

By laurent petitmangin.

How can a father and son find common ground when everything seems set to break them apart? A father, forced by tragedy to raise his sons alone, releases they are taking two different paths. One plans for university in Paris. The other joins a far-right group. Initially seeking camaraderie, their activities lead him to a violent confrontation. Tense, sharp and ultimately heartbreaking, Laurent Petitmangin's first novel, What You Need From The Night , asks what acts can truly be forgiven.

Now I Am Here

By chidi ebere.

About to make his last stand, a soldier facing certain death at the hands of the enemy writes home to explain how he ended up there, a gentle man gradually transformed into a war criminal, committing acts he wouldn’t have thought himself capable. A profound reflection on how good people can do terrible things, this is a brave, unflinching and thought-provoking debut. 

by James Hynes

This vivid story set at the end of the Roman Empire, follows Sparrow – a boy of no known origin living in a brothel. He spends his days listening to stories told by his beloved ‘mother’ Euterpe, running errands for her lover the cook, and dodging the blows of their brutal overseer. But a hard fate awaits him – one that involves suffering, murder and mayhem. To cope he will create his own identity – Sparrow – who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. This is a book with one of the most powerfully affecting and memorable characters of recent fiction, brought to life through James Hynes' meticulous research and bold imagination. 

‘ Utterly engrossing, vivid, and honest, this coming of age story reaches across millennia to grab us by the throat. ’ Emma Donoghue on Sparrow

by Sarah May

Vanity Fair meets Succession as Becky Sharp works her way up the journalistic greasy pole in nineties tabloid-era London. Scoop after scoop, Becky's downfall looms as she becomes more and more involved in every scandal her newspaper publishes and cares less and less about the lives she ruins in the process. A sharply intelligent and funny interrogation of how far society has really come since Thackeray's nineteenth-century Becky Sharp, just like the stories broken by The Mercury , everyone will be talking about Becky .

by Sarah K Jackson

Five years ago, a toxic microplastics storm killed most of the population. Now Katie, a young mother, must forage and hunt for meat as she attempts to feed her little boy, Harry. At a time when stepping outside could kill you, Harry is kept indoors at all costs. Then, after years without human contact, Katie and Harry are terrified by the unwelcome arrival of another survivor. Katie realises she must undertake a previously unthinkable journey in search of a new life for her son. Perfect for fans of Room, Station Eleven and dystopian fiction in general, this gripping novel explores just how far a mother will go to save her child. 

An Honourable Exit

By eric vuillard.

From the International Booker Prize shortlisted author comes a searing account of a conflict that dealt a fatal blow to French colonialism. 19 October 1950. The war is not going to plan. In Paris, politicians gather to discuss what to do about Indochina. In this gripping and shocking novel, Éric Vuillard exposes the tangled web of politicians, bankers and titans of industry who all had a vested interest in France’s prolonged presence in lands far from Paris. At just 192 pages, what this book lacks in length, it certainly doesn't lack in drama - short, sharp and brutal, An Honourable Exit is a journey behind closed doors to witness how history is really made.

The best literary fiction of 2023

By hernan diaz.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2023

This literary puzzle about money, power, and intimacy challenges the myths shrouding wealth, and the fictions that often pass for history. Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth — all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune?

Everything's Fine

By cecilia rabess.

When Jess first meets Josh at their Ivy League college she dislikes him immediately: an entitled guy in chinos, ready to take over the world, unable to accept that life might be easier for him because he's white, while Jess is almost always the only Black woman in their class. But as a tempestuous friendship turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both, Jess begins to question who she is and what she’s really willing to compromise. Can people really ever just agree to disagree? And more to the point, should they? This hugely funny and deeply moving love story offers no easy answers.

Western Lane

By chetna maroo.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Exploring themes of grief and sisterhood, this debut coming-of-age story packs a lot of emotion into just 176 pages. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash for as long as she can remember. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a brutal training regimen. Soon, the game has become her entire world, causing a rift between Gopi and her sisters. But on the court, governed by the rhythms of the sport, she feels alive. This novel beautifully captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty as we follow a young athlete's struggle to transcend herself. 

Young Mungo

By douglas stuart.

Mungo is a Protestant and James is a Catholic, both inhabiting the hyper-masculine world of two Glasgow housing estates, split violently along sectarian lines. The two should be enemies but, finding sanctuary in the doocot James has created for his racing pigeons, they grow closer and closer. Dreaming of escape and under constant threat of discovery, Mungo and James attempt to navigate a dangerous and uncertain future together.

The story behind the Young Mungo cover

Five tuesdays in winter, by lily king.

With Writers & Lovers , Lily King became one of our most acclaimed writers of contemporary fiction. And now, with Five Tuesdays in Winter , she gathers ten of her best short stories. These intimate literary stories tell of a bookseller who is filled with unspoken love for his employee, an abandoned teenage boy nurtured by a pair of housesitting students and a girl whose loss of innocence brings confident power. Romantic, hopeful, raw and occasionally surreal, these stories riff beautifully on the topic of love and romance.

Roman Stories

By jhumpa lahiri.

Inspired by the city she’s lived in for the past two decades, Jhumpa Lahiri's new work of fiction turns her gaze towards those who call Rome home. Weaving each character’s story around a set of steps they encounter daily, and examining how the city is constantly evolving and changing, Lahiri masterfully  illuminates the joys and tragedies of daily life. From a man mourning the person he once was to a couple coming to terms with loss and a family trying to make a new city home, the rich characters she has created will stay with you long after you finish reading. 

by Ashleigh Nugent

Aeon is a mixed-up and mixed-race teenager from a leafy Liverpool suburb, trying to understand the Black identity foisted upon him by his friends and his community. To his growing shame, the only Black people in his life are his dad and his cousin, who he's decided don't count. Desperate to find his Black roots he travels to Jamaica. Mugged, stabbed and arrested, he's beaten unconscious in a detention centre for being the 'White Boy'. And then things really start to go wrong. 

Stone Blind

By natalie haynes.

As the sole mortal in a family of gods, Medusa begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt, and the only one who lives with an urgency that her family will never know. Then, when the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can – and Medusa is changed forever. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. Unable to control her new power, she is condemned to a life of shadows and darkness. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest. At last, Medusa's story is told.

Open Throat

By henry hoke.

A queer mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. The lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma and grappling with the complexities of their own identity. When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city. As they confront a carousel of temptations and threats, the lion takes us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful,  Open Throat  is a marvel of storytelling that brings the mythic to life.

A Time Outside This Time

By amitava kumar.

A writer called Satya visits a high-profile artists' retreat, and soon finds that the pressures of modern life are hard to shed: the US president pours out vitriol, a virus threatens the world, and the relentless news cycle only makes things worse. Satya realises these pressures can inspire him to write, and he begins to channel presidential tweets, memories from an Indian childhood, and his own experiences as an immigrant into his new novel. A fascinating exploration of memory in a post-truth world, Amitava Kumar's A Time Outside This Time is a beautiful and necessary novel.

Maps of our Spectacular Bodies

By maddie mortimer.

Something is moving in Lia's body, learning her life with gleeful malevolence and spreading through the rungs of her larynx, the bones of her trachea. When a shock diagnosis forever changes Lia's world, boundaries in her life begin to break down as buried secrets emerge. A voice prowling inside of her takes hold of her story, merging the landscape within her body with the one outside. A coming-of-age at the end of life, Maddie Mortimer's compelling debut novel is both heart-breaking and darkly funny, combining wild lyricism with celebrations of the desire, forgiveness and darkness in our bodies. 

‘ Compelling and uplifting . . . undeniably impressive: Mortimer is clearly a talent to watch ’ The Telegraph on Maps of our Spectacular Bodies

Other Women

By emma flint.

Based on a real case from the 1920s, Other Women tells the story of Beatrice, one of the thousands of nameless and invisible unmarried women trying to make lives for themselves after the First World War, and Kate, the wife of the man Beatrice has fallen in love with. When fantasy and obsession turns to murder, two women who should never have met are connected forever.

To Paradise

By hanya yanagihara.

This amazing new novel from the author of A Little Life begins in the nineteenth century, and spans stories of love, family, loss and promised utopia over the following three centuries. In 1893, New York is part of the Free States, and a gentle young member of a privileged family falls for a charismatic and impoverished music teacher. In 1993 Manhattan is being swept by the AIDS epidemic, and a young Hawaiian man with a wealthy older partner must hide his difficult family background. And in 2093 in a world where plague and totalitarian rule is rife, a young woman tries to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances. 

by Julia May Jonas

The narrator of this provocative and utterly readable novel is a much loved English professor, who finds that her charismatic professor husband is facing a flood of accusations from former students. The couple have long had an understanding about taking lovers, but suddenly life has acquired an uncomfortable edge. And things get even more twisted when the narrator finds herself in the grip of an obsession with Vladimir, a young and feted married novelist who is new to the campus. This explosive, edgy debut traces the tangled contradictions of power and lust.

by Gina Chung

Stuck in a rut, Ro faces the challenges of her thirties: a strained relationship with her mother and a boyfriend who left for a Mars mission. Her days are mundane at the aquarium, and her nights involve consuming sharktinis. With her best friend drifting away and Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus, as her sole connection to her vanished marine biologist father, Ro's world unravels when Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor. On the verge of self-destruction, Ro must confront her past, rediscover her purpose, and embrace the evolving world to heal her childhood scars and rebuild her life.

by André Dao

Anam takes us on a poignant journey from 1930s Hanoi to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne, and Cambridge, exploring memory, inheritance, colonialism, and belonging. The narrator, born into a Vietnamese family in Melbourne, grapples with his grandfather's haunting tale of imprisonment in Chi Hoa prison under the Communist government. Straddling his Australian upbringing and Vietnamese heritage, he faces the impact of his grandfather's death and the birth of his daughter on his own life's trajectory. André Dao artfully weaves fiction and essay, theory and personal experience, revealing forgotten aspects of history and family archives. 

Learned by Heart

By emma donoghue.

In 1805, at a boarding school in York, two fourteen-year-old girls cross paths. Eliza Raine, an orphan with an Indian heritage, feels isolated due to her differences. Anne Lister, a rebellious spirit, defies societal norms for women. Their love story blossoms, creating a profound bond that transcends time and shapes their lives forever. Learned By Heart is the heartbreaking story of the love of two women – Anne Lister, the real-life inspiration behind Gentleman Jack, and her first love, Eliza Raine – from the bestselling author of  Room  and  The Wonder.

The complete guide to Emma Donoghue's books

Briefly, a delicious life, by nell stevens.

It's 1838, and Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and her children are en route to a Mallorcan monastery. They are in recovery from life in Paris, seeking a more simple existence. The unexpected witness of their new life is Blanca, a ghost who has been at the monastery for more than three hundred years, her young life having been cut short. And when George Sand arrives, a lovely woman in a man's clothes, Blanca is in love. Meanwhile, the village is looking suspiciously at the new arrivals, as a difficult winter closes in . . . 

by Hannah Kent

It's 1836 in Prussia, and teenage Hanne is finding the domestic world of womanhood increasingly oppressive. She longs to be out in nature, and finds little companionship with the local girls. Until, that is, she meets kindred spirit Thea. Hanne is from a family of Old Lutherans, whose worship is suppressed and secret. Safe passage to Australia offers liberty from these restrictions. But a long and harsh journey lies ahead, one which will put the girls' close bond to a terrible test.

The House of Fortune

By jessie burton.

A glorious, sweeping story of fate and ambition, The House of Fortune is the sequel to Jessie Burton’s bestseller  The Miniaturist . Amsterdam, 1705. Thea Brandt is about to turn eighteen and she can't wait to become an adult. Walter, her true love, awaits Thea at the city's theatre. But at home on the Herengracht things are tense. Her father Otto and Aunt Nella bicker incessantly and are selling furniture so the family can eat. And, on her birthday, the day her mother Marin died, secrets from Thea's past threaten to eclipse the present. Nella is feeling a prickling sensation in her neck, which recalls the miniaturist who toyed with her life eighteen years ago.

Very Cold People

By sarah manguso.

Growing up on the edge of a wealthy but culturally threadbare New England town, Ruth goes under the radar. Nobody pays her attention, but she watches everything – recording with precision the painful unfurling of her youth and enduring difficult and damaging parenting from the mocking, undermining adults in her life. But as the adults of the book fail to grow up, Ruth gracefully arcs towards maturity in a story that grapples with many of life's ugly truths. 

Concerning My Daughter

By kim hye-jin.

A mother lets her thirty-something daughter – Green – move into her apartment, with dreams that she will find a good job and a good husband to start a family with. But Green arrives with her girlfriend Lane, and her mother finds it hard to be civil. She is similarly unaccepting of her daughter's entanglement in a case of unfair dismissal from her university employers, involving gay colleagues. Yet Green's mother finds that she has her own moral battle to fight, defending the right to care of a dementia patient who has chosen an unconventional life and has no family. Translated from Korean by Jamie Chang, this is a universal tale about ageing, prejudice and love.

‘ An admirably nuanced portrait of prejudice . . . one that boldly takes on the daunting task of humanizing someone whose prejudice has made her cruel. ’ The New York Times on Concerning My Daughter

The Passenger

By cormac mccarthy.

A sunken jet. Nine passengers. A missing body. The Passenger  is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God. The first of two novels published in 2022 by literary great Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger is followed by Stella Maris  –  both are too good to be missed. 

The Women Could Fly

By megan giddings.

The Women Could Fly  is a speculative feminist novel for our times, set in a time where magic is reality, and single women are monitored in case they turn out to be witches. Josephine Thomas has heard a plethora of theories about her mother's death: that she was abducted, murdered and that she was a witch. This is a concerning accusation, because women who act strangely – especially Black women – can soon find themselves being tried for witchcraft. Facing the prospect of a State-mandated marriage, Jo decides to honour one last request written in her mother's will.

The Exhibitionist

By charlotte mendelson.

Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art – the first in many decades – and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good. His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, sensitive Patrick, and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has a momentous decision to make..And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. But Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice. 

‘ It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it. ’ Meg Mason on The Exhibitionist

The Dance Tree

By kiran millwood hargrave.

It's 1518 in Strasbourg, and in the intense summer heat a solitary woman starts to dance in the main square. She dances for days without rest, and is joined by hundreds of other women. The city authorities declare a state of emergency, and bring in musicians to play the devil out of the dancing women. Meanwhile pregnant Lisbet, who lives at the edge of the city, is tending to the family's bees. The dancing plague intensifies, as Lisbet is drawn into a net of secret passions and deceptions. Inspired by true events, this is a compelling story of superstition, transformative change and women pushed to their limits.

Disorientation

By elaine hsieh chou.

This raucous and heartwarming satire asks – who gets to tell our stories? And can we change the narrative if we get to write it ourselves?  PhD student Ingrid Yang can't wait to finish her dissertation on major poet Xiao-Wen Chou so she never has to read about ‘Chinese-y’ things again. Then she finds an enigmatic note in the Chou archive, which leads to an explosive discovery and a roller coaster of misadventures. Ingrid's gentle fiancé doesn't look quite the same in the aftermath, as she confronts her troubled relationship with white men and their institutions and, more importantly, herself . . .

Sea of Tranquillity

By emily st. john mandel.

It's 1912, and eighteen-year-old Edwin St. Andrew is on a journey across the Atlantic, having been exiled from society in England. Arriving in British Columbia, he enters a forest, mesmerised by the Canadian wilderness. All is silent, before the notes of a violin reverberate through the air. Two centuries later, and acclaimed author Olive Llewelyn is travelling over the earth, on a break from her home in the second moon colony. At the heart of her bestselling novel, a man plays a violin for spare change in the corridor of an airship terminal, as a forest rises around him. This compelling novel immerses the reader in parallel worlds, and multiple possibilities.

All of Emily St. John Mandel's books in order

Our wives under the sea, by julia armfield.

Leah is back from a perilous and troubling deep sea mission, and Miri is delighted to have her wife home. But Leah has carried the undersea trauma into the couple's domestic life, and it is causing a rupture in their relationship. The debut novel from the author of acclaimed short story collection salt slow , Our Wives Under The Sea is a rich meditation on love, loss and the mysteries of the ocean.

The best literary fiction of all time

White noise, by don delillo.

Possibly DeLillo’s funniest book,  White Noise  introduced his work to a wider audience than ever before and established his reputation as a master of postmodern fiction. Jack Gladney is the creator and chairman of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. The novel is a story about his absurd life; a life that is going well enough, until a chemical spill from a rail car releases an 'Airborne Toxic Event' and Jack is forced to confront his biggest fear – his own mortality. DeLillo's bestselling story effortlessly combines social satire and metaphysical dilemma, exposing our rampant consumerism, media saturation and novelty intellectualism.

Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart’s blistering, Booker Prize-winning debut is a heartbreaking story that lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty and the limits of love. Set in a poverty-stricken Glasgow in the early 1980s, Agnes Bain has always dreamed of greater things. But when her husband abandons her she finds herself trapped in a decimated mining town and descends deeper and deeper into drink. Her son Shuggie tries to help her long after her other children have fled, but he too must abandon her to save himself. Shuggie is different and he is picked on by the local children and condemned by adults as 'no’ right’. But he believes that if he tries his hardest he can be like other boys and escape this hopeless place.

Blood Meridian

Written in 1985, Blood Meridian is set in the anarchic world opened up by America’s westward expansion. Through the hostile landscape of the Texas–Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept up in the relentless tide of blood. But the apparent chaos is not without its order: while Americans hunt Indians – collecting scalps as their bloody trophies – they too are stalked as prey. Powerful, mesmerizing and savagely beautiful, Blood Meridian is considered one of the most important works in American fiction of the last century.

The Line of Beauty

By alan hollinghurst.

The Line of Beauty  is Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife Rachel and their children Toby and Catherine. Innocent of politics and money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens’ world and an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty. This is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires, and with a world he can never truly belong to. 

Middle Passage

By charles johnson.

Rutherford Calhoun, a puckish rogue and newly freed slave, spends his days around the docks of New Orleans, dodging debt collectors, gangsters, and a woman who seeks to marry him. When the heat from his pursuers overwhelms him, he cons his way onto the next ship leaving the dock: the Republic. Upon boarding, he discovers that he is on an illegal slave ship, looking to capture members of the legendary Allmuseri tribe. The Captain also has a secondary objective: securing a mysterious cargo that possesses an otherworldly power. A blend of allegory, black comedy, naval adventure and supernatural horror,   Middle Passage  is a true modern classic.

The Lamplighters

By emma stonex.

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week. Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on, when they are given the chance to tell their side of the story. Inspired by true events, this enthralling and suspenseful mystery is a beautifully written exploration of love and grief, perception and reality. 

A House for Mr Biswas

Written in 1961 and set in post-colonial Trinidad, this is the story of Mr Biswas, a man born into misfortune, and his quest to find a worthy home of his own. A House for Mr Biswas is a multi-faceted read that is all-at-once satisfying, lyrical and humorous.

by Raven Leilani

Raven Leilani is a funny and original new voice in literary fiction. Her razor-sharp yet surprisingly tender debut is an essential novel about what it means to be young now. Edie is messing up her life, and no one seems to care. Then she meets Eric, who is white, middle-aged and comes with a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. And as if life wasn’t hard enough, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s family. 

‘ In this cutting, hot-blooded book, the entanglements that unfold are as complicated as they are heartbreaking. ’ New Statesman on Luster

by Jamaica Kincaid

Much loved only child Annie has always had a tranquil life. She and her beautiful mother are intertwined and inseparable. But when Annie turns twelve, her life shifts. She questions authority, makes rebel friends and wonders about the culture assumptions of her island world. And the unconditional love between Annie and her mother takes an adversarial turn. A coming of age classic, narrated with wonderfully candid complexity.

A Little Life

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and celebrated as ‘the great gay novel’ , Hanya Yanagihara’s immensely powerful story of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance has had a visceral impact on many a reader. Willem, Jude, Malcolm and JB meet at college in Massachusetts and form a firm friendship, moving to New York upon graduation. Over the years their friendships deepen and darken as they celebrate successes and face failures, but their greatest challenge is Jude himself – an increasingly broken man scarred by an unspeakable childhood. This is a book that will stay with you long after the last page.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

By toshikazu kawaguchi.

First released in Japan in 2015, this bestseller has since been translated for English audiences. The story takes place in a small basement café in Japan, home to a very special urban legend: visitors can travel back in time. There are strict rules, however; you can only travel back to speak to people who have visited the café itself, you cannot leave your seat while in the past, nothing you do will change the present, and you must return before your coffee gets cold. Each character comes to the café with a new reason to time travel. As many of the patrons discover, you can’t change the present, but you can change yourself.

Breasts and Eggs

By mieko kawakami.

This literary debut, which Haruki Murakami called ‘breathtaking’, is a must-read for fans of contemporary literary fiction. Mieko Kawakami paints a radical picture of contemporary working-class womanhood in Japan as she recounts the heartbreaking stories of three women who must survive in a society where the odds are stacked against them.

‘ I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami’s novella Breasts and Eggs . . . breathtaking . . . Mieko Kawakami is always ceaselessly growing and evolving. ’ Haruki Murakami on Breasts and Eggs

Burial Rites

In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of her lover. Agnes is sent to wait out her final months on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed Agnes’s spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’s story begins to emerge and with it the family’s terrible realization that all is not as they had assumed.

In this episode of Book Break Emma shares her recommendations for the best literary fiction of 2023:

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The Award-Winning Books You’ll Actually Love

With so many books sporting metallic stickers, it can be hard to know which one to pick up first. We’ve got you covered with a list of this year’s crème de la crème.

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In a perfect world, we’d be able to read every single prizewinning book every single year. In a perfect world, we’d be able to read every single book, period! But in reality, time is short, and you can’t always count on a fancy sticker to guarantee a great read. That’s why we did the pre-reading for you and rounded up the absolute best award-winning books of the past year. Read on for the ones you really don’t want to miss.

Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips

The 2024 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction is a story of resilience and reinvention, set in a Civil War–era mental hospital. Born in 1861 (the same year of the confederacy’s secession), 12-year-old ConaLee has “not seen the War except in what it ruined.” Her father has been absent all her life. Her mother has gone mute in response to the relentless abuse of a violent veteran, who inserts himself in their lives before dumping them at a Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Within this West Virginian asylum, readers' assumptions about 19th-century mental healthcare are tested and secrets of ConaLee’s past are unveiled. Flashing between perspectives and timelines, Phillips traces the long tail of trauma through her characters’ lives and our nation’s history.

How to Say Babylon, by Safiya Sinclair

The winner of the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography is an intimate and ferocious tale of the author growing up under—and eventually, outgrowing— a father’s strict Rastafarianism. Sinclair spent her “early childhood in a wild state of happiness” on Jamaica’s achingly beautiful coast. But she soon learns that she is not simply a child on an island—she is a girl in a culture obsessed with female purity and obedience. As her father’s control tightens, her own creative passions grow; soon, she must choose between betraying the values that raised her and forfeiting the woman she desperately wants to become. While Sinclair’s story itself is deeply inspirational, it is her language that makes this book truly exceptional; her background as a prizewinning poet ignites every sentence.

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez, by Claire Jiménez

The heaven & earth grocery store, by james mcbride.

If you haven’t already read the latest, Kirkus Prize–winning novel from the author of Deacon King Kong (Oprah’s 85th Book Club pick ), what are you waiting for? This characteristically energetic read takes readers back in time to 1930s Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where Black and Jewish residents lived side by side in a neighborhood known as Chicken Hill, sharing apartment blocks and dark secrets. Though set up as a mystery—complete with a dead body—the story finds its footing in Dodo, the deaf, parentless boy hidden by locals from officials attempting to put him in a home for the insane. Heartwarming and heartbreaking, a feat of language, life, and imagination.

When We Were Sisters, by Fatimah Asghar

The first ever winner of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction—an award named for the late Canadian writer and aimed at addressing the “continued inequality of women in the literary world”—is a debut novel about three orphaned Muslim sisters raising each other and coming into their own in America. The children of Pakistani immigrants and the daughters of a mother who died years ago, Noreen, Aisha, and Kausar are “familyless in America” save for their beloved father. When he is senselessly murdered, they are sent to live an uncle, whose “care” ranges from brutally strict to utterly neglectful. While this may sound like a grim premise, the novel is illuminated by Asghar’s rich and inventive language, the book’s nuanced exploration of gender identity, and the girls’ ever evolving and death-defying bond.

A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat

While this National Book Award–winning graphic memoir is technically for children, adults and middle graders alike will see themselves in this story of self-discovery, international exploration, and first love. For many recent eighth-grade graduates, a three-week-long class trip across Europe would be a dream. For 13-year-old Dan—who has spent middle school dodging taunts from his classmates and doing his best to be invisible—it’s a nightmare. But as he makes his way across the foreign continent, he shares in humiliations, adventures, and some touchingly relatable tween-age romance with his once terrifying peers. Gradually, he begins to recognize the cracks in everyone else’s facade, and the bravery pulsing beneath his own protective shell. Santat’s luxurious illustrations give us a window into the narrator’s awe, allowing us to see the Eiffel Tower and the exotic European Fanta selection alike with fresh eyes.

The Hive and the Honey, by Paul Yoon

The winner of the 20th annual Story Prize, this collection of stories reckons with the Korean diaspora and the ties that bind. A North Korean maid, living in Barcelona, learns that the child she left behind may have grown into a Soviet middleweight boxing star. A samurai escorts a Korean orphan on a late winter voyage through 1608 Japan. The children of North Korean defectors build a new life for themselves in London—only to be pulled back into the past by an encounter with a strange child. With spare language and open questions, Yoon draws attention to the physical vastness of the world, and the emotional nearness of our experiences within it.

Charley Burlock is the Associate Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes, edits, and assigns stories on all things literary. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from NYU, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. Her work has been featured in the Atlanti c , the Los Angeles Review , Agni , the Apple News Today podcast, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a book about collective grief (but she promises she's really fun at parties). 

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Essential LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride (and All Year Long)

From graphic novel and romance, to nonfiction and memoir, there’s something for everyone.

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I started writing queer books because I couldn’t find stories that reflected the genderqueer/trans and gritty queer experiences of my communities. There have been few experiences more powerful for me as an author than visiting high school and college classrooms and hearing queer students reflect on how meaningful it was to see their lives and stories on the page. This is what makes the current wave of book bans targeting queer books even more dangerous. When we don’t see ourselves in books and other media, it’s hard to believe that we are valid and have a right to exist.

During Pride month , a lot of attention turns to LGBTQ+ culture, including its artists, creators and authors. For one colorful month, products as diverse as t-shirts and bagels are reimagined in a rainbow motif in a nod toward supporting (and earning money from) the LGBTQ+ community . But this largely corporate visibility during Pride month, known as rainbow washing , shouldn't be a 30-day limited engagement, especially as our rights are under attack. Instead of just reading gay books during Pride, challenge yourself to expand the diversity of books you read all year long.

This list contains books by gay, lesbian, trans and queer authors as well as fantastic reads with characters from across the LGBTQ+ rainbow of identities. These books inspire us, give us hope and show that our literary worlds can (and should!) be as beautifully diverse as the one we live in.

So whether you’re a fan of thrillers and crime, romance novels , humor, classics or new releases and literary fiction, we’ve got you covered. Add them all to your own TBR list, or pick up a handful as the perfect gift for the book-lover in your life. And once you're done here, head on over to the GH Book Club to check out even more feel-good reads.

Additional reporting by Lizz Schumer

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel by Ocean Vuong

In this poetic novel, a son writes a letter to his mother, who cannot read. It explores his love for her and unpacks the deepest secrets of masculinity, race and class. This tough but tender novel is about understanding yourself and queerly demanding to be heard.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

For anyone who has ever grappled with the complexities of sexual orientation within a religious context, this coming-out novel will feel all too familiar. The evangelical Jeanette considers herself one of God's children, but when she discovers her sexuality, it throws a wrench into her family's plans for her.

Valencia by Michelle Tea

This iconic punk dyke novel is a must-read every Pride season. The gritty novel takes you into the punk houses and bars of drama-filled queer San Francisco of the 90s. Tea brings readers into the urgency and joy of young queer love, heartbreak, community building and art. Whether you came of age, and came out reading this book, or you’re feeling some 90s nostalgia, be sure to add this to your to-read list.

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H

Did you come of age reading the queer classic Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg? This new story is a fresh take on the book that inspired so many of us. In this beautiful memoir, readers follow a queer Muslim immigrant coming to understand her own identity and sense of gender. The book also explores themes of desire and belonging.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

This best-selling and often-banned graphic novel follows comic artist Kobabe (pronouns: e/em/eir) in eir journey of self discovery and gender exploration. The book explores coming out to family, medical trauma that comes as existing as a visible trans person and coming out as asexual. Exploring your own identities or trying to explain who you are to friends or family? Consider giving them this book to read and let it open the conversation for you.

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The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill

A great Pride read pick for readers of all ages, including adults who enjoy curling up with a gentle fantasy. This graphic novel follows a blacksmith apprentice as she meets enchanting characters and begins to learn about the tea dragons. From gay mentors, to a soft crush, this beautifully illustrated book is sure to make you feel cozy and seen. It also makes a great coffee table book.

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

This stunning memoir plays with structure and form as it takes us through an abusive relationship and what that does to a person. In a world where many people still believe abuse only occurs when a man is involved, Machado's work is essential.

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein

The re-release of this foundational book on gender is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding transgender people better, or for anyone questioning their own gender. Bornstein takes readers through a fun, fantastical and complicated journey through gender exploration into self-actualization. A self-described nonbinary diesel femme dyke, Bornstein has and continues to pave the way for all of us to find the labels that fit us best.

Hush by Tal Bauer

A federal judge running from the truth, a U.S. marshal running from his past and the world on the brink of war — the stakes couldn't be higher in this political thriller. Bauer’s romantic novel is full of the kind of intense suspense that is sure to pull you in and keep you guessing, page after page, late into the night.

Loveless by Alice Oseman

The fan-fic obsessed romantic Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush. As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a new town far from home, she's determined to find romance. But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends in the Shakespeare Society, Georgia ends up in the middle of her own comedy of errors. This is a wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance, especially perfect for those who are exploring their own attractions.

How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones

Selected a best book of the year by The New York Times, this powerful memoir is a coming-of-age story about a Black, gay man from the South working through his hopes, fears and desires. Jones is a celebrated poet and his distinctive lyrical voice is beautiful and clear through this vulnerable examination of the intersections of race and queerness. In this book, Jones explores his place in his family and community on his challenging journey through his gay adolescence and how it shaped him into who he is today.

Rubyfruit Jungle: A Novel by Rita Mae Brown

Molly Bolt is the adoptive daughter of a poor Southern couple who makes her own way across America, finding love of all stripes in between. It's a true, slightly steamy celebration of being true to yourself, whoever that may be.

City of Night by John Rechy

Take a trip into the underground world of gay hustlers, drag queens, and sex workers in this book that scandalized the literary world when it first came out but went on to become a must-read. It's inspired musicians like the Doors and earned the author comparisons to authors like Kerouac, so if you like either of those, pick this one up.

With Teeth: A Novel by Kristen Arnett

Parenting is hard. Queer parenting is hard. Queer parenting when you feel like you aren't in sync with your partner? Even harder. This gorgeous, starkly honest novel pulses with struggle as well as the raw beauty of finding your way through it.

Hola Papi by John Paul Brammer

Fans of the popular advice column Hola Papi will recognize the unique voice in this hilarious coming-of-age memoir in essays about the "Chicano Carrie Bradshaw." You'll find yourself chortling and nodding along as you follow JP's journey, and you'll probably even learn something along the way.

Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page

Actor Elliot Page recounts his journey to understanding his gender in this New York Times bestseller. This book is full of intimate stories of his experience starring in the movie Juno , going to a queer bar for the first time, coming out as transgender and the backlash he experienced in Hollywood. This book is sure to inspire you to live authentically, regardless of what others say.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

The book that inspired the Tony-winning musical, this graphic novel is a powerful queer coming of age story you won’t be able to put down. In college, Bechdel comes out as a lesbian, at which time she realizes that her father was also gay. This is a book about self discovery, family secrets and overcoming family trauma and legacies to build your own life.

Top Priority (The Game Series) by Cara Dee

If you’re looking for a steamy read to heat things up this Pride season, look no further than Book 1 of The Game (and the rest of the 13 books so far in the series). This is a pick for those readers who enjoy well-written realistic BDSM — none of that “fifty shades” nonsense. This is a well-written novel centering beautiful consensual kink. With a full cast of compelling gay characters, this story is one that will pull you in, and leave you literally begging for the next books in the series.

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Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

When Sol falls for a widow when she brings her late wife's notes to the archive where he works, it kicks off a whirlwind romance. One that's complicated by Sol's vampirism, which means he can't go outside during the day. Oh, and he's been illegally living in his office, where some strange stuff has started happening. This darkly funny novel tackles grief, transphobia and love with a fiercely original touch.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

This accessible book takes readers on an engaging exploration into sexual attraction, and what happens if you don’t experience it. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, this book not only breaks down what asexuality is (and isn’t), it also encourages readers to think about what asexuality tells us about gender roles, consent and more — regardless of how you personally identify.

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The Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2022

Featuring bob dylan, elena ferrante, kate beaton, jhumpa lahiri, kate beaton, and more.

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction; Nonfiction; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; and Literature in Translation.

Today’s installment: Nonfiction .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing  by Elena Ferrante, trans. by Ann Goldstein (Europa)

12 Rave • 12 Positive • 4 Mixed

“The lucid, well-formed essays that make up In the Margins  are written in an equally captivating voice … Although a slim collection, there is more than enough meat here to nourish both the common reader and the Ferrante aficionado … Every essay here is a blend of deep thought, rigorous analysis and graceful prose. We occasionally get the odd glimpse of the author…but mainly the focus is on the nuts and bolts of writing and Ferrante’s practice of her craft. The essays are at their most rewarding when Ferrante discusses the origins of her books, in particular the celebrated Neapolitan Novels, and the multifaceted heroines that power them … These essays might not bring us any closer to finding out who Ferrante really is. Instead, though, they provide valuable insight into how she developed as a writer and how she works her magic.”

–Malcolm Forbes ( The Star Tribune )

2. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan (W. W. Norton)

14 Rave • 8 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Index here

“The cleverly punctuated title of Dennis Duncan’s book, Index, A History of the, should signal that this isn’t a dry account of a small cogwheel in the publishing machine. Instead, it is an engaging tale of the long search for the quickest way to find what you need in those big, information-rich things called books. It is indeed an adventure, and ‘bookish’ in the most appealing sense … Duncan goes into fascinating detail about all this—page numbers get an entire chapter of their own—with digressions into curious byways of booklore and literature … From ancient Egypt to Silicon Valley, Duncan is an ideal tour guide: witty, engaging, knowledgeable and a fount of diverting anecdotes. The book skews toward the literary, but anyone interested in the 2,200-year journey to quickly find what one needs in a book will be enlightened, and will never again take an index for granted. The well-designed book also includes nearly 40 illustrations. As might be expected, the index—created not by the author but by Paula Clarke Bain—is magnificent.”

–Steven Moore ( The Washington Post )

3. We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole (Liveright) 17 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan

“One of the many triumphs of Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is that he manages to find a form that accommodates the spectacular changes that have occurred in Ireland over the past six decades, which happens to be his life span … it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us … O’Toole, an agile cultural commentator, considers himself to be a representative of the blank slate on which the experiment of change was undertaken, but it’s a tribute to him that he maintains his humility, his sharpness and his enlightened distrust …

O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase … But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it. He embraces the contradictions and the confusion. In the process, he weaves the flag rather than waving it.”

–Colum McCann ( The New York Times Book Review )

4. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

14 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Super-Infinite here

“Rundell is right that Donne…must never be forgotten, and she is the ideal person to evangelise him for our age. She shares his linguistic dexterity, his pleasure in what TS Eliot called ‘felt thought’, his ability to bestow physicality on the abstract … It’s a biography filled with gaps and Rundell brings a zest for imaginative speculation to these. We know so little about Donne’s wife, but Rundell brings her alive as never before … Rundell confronts the difficult issue of Donne’s misogyny head-on … This is a determinedly deft book, and I would have liked it to billow a little more, making room for more extensive readings of the poems and larger arguments about the Renaissance. But if there is an overarching argument, then it’s about Donne as an ‘infinity merchant’ … To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness”

–Laura Feigel ( The Guardian )

5. Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh (Milkweed) 12 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Can the Irish border be described as a ‘thin place’? Never have I read such an eloquent description for the omnipresent border in our psyche … Readers will draw their own meaning from Ní Dochartaigh’s words, and she allows space for them to ponder … This debut is not a memoir in the traditional sense; nor is it simply a polemic about the sectarian violence that tore through the author’s childhood in Derry; instead, it combines both of these elements under the insistent gaze of the poet-writer who is always keen to draw our attention to nature … Readers may be surprised at the depths that  Thin Places explores. Do not mistake its appreciation of the natural world for anything twee or solely comforting … This is not for the faint-hearted …

Ní Dochartaigh’s writing is generous and she leaves little for the reader to surmise in those dark days she describes in startling detail … The darkness in her subject matter lends itself to the light, however. The natural world at large is a balm for her … It might sound incongruous to write about the beauty of the whooper swan and the enduring effect of Troubles in the same paragraph, but Ní Dochartaigh’s manages it … This is a book full of hope found in dark places and it confronts some of the realities of the Irish border and the enduring effect it has on our lives.”

–Mia Colleran ( The Irish Independent )

6. Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri (Princeton University Press)

8 Rave • 14 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Lahiri mixes detailed explorations of craft with broader reflections on her own artistic life, as well as the ‘essential aesthetic and political mission’ of translation. She is excellent in all three modes—so excellent, in fact, that I, a translator myself, could barely read this book. I kept putting it aside, compelled by Lahiri’s writing to go sit at my desk and translate … One of Lahiri’s great gifts as an essayist is her ability to braid multiple ways of thinking together, often in startling ways … a reminder, no matter your relationship to translation, of how alive language itself can be. In her essays as in her fiction, Lahiri is a writer of great, quiet elegance; her sentences seem simple even when they’re complex. Their beauty and clarity alone would be enough to wake readers up. ‘Look,’ her essays seem to say: Look how much there is for us to wake up to.”

–Lily Meyer ( NPR )

7. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

14 Rave • 4 Positive Watch an interview with Kate Beaton here

“It could hardly be more different in tone from [Beaton’s] popular larky strip Hark! A Vagrant … Yes, it’s funny at moments; Beaton’s low-key wryness is present and correct, and her drawings of people are as charming and as expressive as ever. But its mood overall is deeply melancholic. Her story, which runs to more than 400 pages, encompasses not only such thorny matters as social class and environmental destruction; it may be the best book I have ever read about sexual harassment … There are some gorgeous drawings in Ducks of the snow and the starry sky at night. But the human terrain, in her hands, is never only black and white … And it’s this that gives her story not only its richness and depth, but also its astonishing grace. Life is complex, she tell us, quietly, and we are all in it together; each one of us is only trying to survive. What a difficult, gorgeous and abidingly humane book. It really does deserve to win all the prizes.”

–Rachel Cooke ( The Guardian )

8. The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster)

10 Rave • 15 Positive • 7 Mixed • 4 Pan

“It is filled with songs and hyperbole and views on love and lust even darker than Blood on the Tracks … There are 66 songs discussed here … Only four are by women, which is ridiculous, but he never asked us … Nothing is proved, but everything is experienced—one really weird and brilliant person’s experience, someone who changed the world many times … Part of the pleasure of the book, even exceeding the delectable Chronicles: Volume One , is that you feel liberated from Being Bob Dylan. He’s not telling you what you got wrong about him. The prose is so vivid and fecund, it was useless to underline, because I just would have underlined the whole book. Dylan’s pulpy, noir imagination is not always for the squeamish. If your idea of art is affirmation of acceptable values, Bob Dylan doesn’t need you … The writing here is at turns vivid, hilarious, and will awaken you to songs you thought you knew … The prose brims everywhere you turn. It is almost disturbing. Bob Dylan got his Nobel and all the other accolades, and now he’s doing my job, and he’s so damn good at it.”

–David Yaffe ( AirMail )

9. Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)

14 Rave • 3 Positive Listen to Hua Hsu read an excerpt from Stay True here

“… quietly wrenching … To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice; nor is it mainly about being Asian American, even though there are glimmers of that too. Hsu captures the past by conveying both its mood and specificity … This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life … Hsu is a subtle writer, not a showy one; the joy of Stay True sneaks up on you, and the wry jokes are threaded seamlessly throughout.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

10. Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos (Catapult)

13 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed Read an excerpt from Body Work here

“In her new book, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative , memoirist Melissa Febos handily recuperates the art of writing the self from some of the most common biases against it: that the memoir is a lesser form than the novel. That trauma narratives should somehow be over—we’ve had our fill … Febos rejects these belittlements with eloquence … In its hybridity, this book formalizes one of Febos’s central tenets within it: that there is no disentangling craft from the personal, just as there is no disentangling the personal from the political. It’s a memoir of a life indelibly changed by literary practice and the rigorous integrity demanded of it … Febos is an essayist of grace and terrific precision, her sentences meticulously sculpted, her paragraphs shapely and compressed … what’s fresh, of course, is Febos herself, remapping this terrain through her context, her life and writing, her unusual combinations of sources (William H. Gass meets Elissa Washuta, for example), her painstaking exactitude and unflappable sureness—and the new readers she will reach with all of this.”

–Megan Milks ( 4Columns )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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17 New Books Coming in May

New novels from R.O. Kwon, Kevin Kwan and Miranda July; a reappraisal of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy; memoirs from Brittney Griner and Kathleen Hanna — and more.

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Chop Fry Watch Learn , by Michelle T. King

Once called “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking,” Fu Pei-Mei taught generations of Taiwanese people to cook through her long-running TV show and many cookbooks. King presents not just a biography of an indomitable woman, but a portrait of how cultures eat.

Norton, May 7

Coming Home , by Brittney Griner and Michelle Burford

In February 2022, Griner — arriving in Russia to play basketball in the off-season — was detained by Russian authorities, who claimed she had hash oil in her luggage. The W.N.B.A. star spent 10 months in a women’s penal colony before she was freed in a prisoner swap; this is the story of her ordeal.

Knopf, May 7

Free and Equal , by Daniel Chandler

If liberal democracy is to survive as a form of government, it needs a complete rethink. So argues Chandler, a British economist and philosopher, in this rousing homage to the political philosopher John Rawls, whose “realistic utopia,” the book contends, provides a blueprint for a society premised on both individual freedom and true equality.

Shanghailanders , by Juli Min

Min’s debut novel is a complicated family story, told in reverse. The novel opens in 2040 with a family simmering with secrets and tensions, and then the story works its way backward to 2014, revealing how each person got to where they are.

Spiegel & Grau, May 7

Whale Fall , by Elizabeth O’Connor

It’s 1938, and 18-year-old Manod has never known a life outside the harsh, sparsely populated confines of her remote and rocky home off the coast of Wales — until a pair of self-styled English ethnographers arrive to both document and disrupt the island’s residents.

Pantheon, May 7

All Fours , by Miranda July

How to survive the strains of middle-age marriage? The unnamed heroine of July’s comic novel plans a cross-country road trip, only to stop 30 minutes from home. There she lavishly redecorates a motel room and begins an odd, passionate but platonic affair with a younger man who works at a rental-car agency.

Riverhead, May 14

Another Word for Love , by Carvell Wallace

Wallace, an award-winning journalist, turns a thoughtful lens on his own grapplings with sexuality, intermittent homelessness and life as the son of a Black single mother fighting to stay afloat. But bleakness is not the operative mode of this debut memoir; the book turns as often toward joy and self-discovery as it does hardship.

MCD, May 14

Challenger , by Adam Higginbotham

The Challenger space shuttle disaster — in which millions of people watched, in real time, as the shuttle exploded, killing all on board — was a pivotal moment for American culture, and certainly its space program. Higginbotham, the author of “Midnight in Chernobyl,” tells the 1986 story in granular detail, using vivid reporting and new archival research to describe a true-life thriller with all-too-real consequences.

Avid Reader Press, May 14

Blue Ruin , by Hari Kunzru

A heady novelist with the instincts of a thriller writer, Kunzru brings his singular mix of dread and intrigue to his latest fiction, an intricate tale of artistic creation, greed and exploitation set in upstate New York under the specter of Covid.

Knopf, May 14

Fat Leonard , by Craig Whitlock

This is the story of a Malaysian high school dropout who bribed and extorted U.S. Navy personnel with gifts, favors and sex to make a steady profit as a military contractor servicing American ships in East Asia ports for inflated prices. As Whitlock, an investigative journalist for The Washington Post, makes clear, the bigger problem is that so many in the Navy decided to look the other way.

Simon & Schuster, May 14

Rebel Girl , by Kathleen Hanna

As the fiery front woman of the seminal alt-punk band Bikini Kill and later Le Tigre, Hanna was foundational to the ’90s riot-grrrl movement; she also famously inspired the title of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Her wide-ranging memoir offers a snapshot of that era, as well as the challenging childhood that shaped her.

Ecco, May 14

Skies of Thunder , by Caroline Alexander

When the Japanese military took control of a crucial road near the border of Burma in 1942, the Allies were left with no choice but to transport supplies to China by air over a dangerous stretch of the Himalayas. As the conflict drags on, Alexander matches immersive descriptions of perilous flights through blizzards and monsoons with the uneasy negotiations between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.

Viking, May 14

Exhibit , by R.O. Kwon

A photographer begins a clandestine relationship with an injured ballet dancer in Kwon’s second novel, which she recently described as “shot through with physical longing, queer lust and kink.”

Riverhead, May 21

Lies and Weddings , by Kevin Kwan

The author of “Crazy Rich Asians” returns with another beach-ready confection starring pampered people in designer clothing behaving badly — this time at a decadent Hawaiian wedding where secrets erupt with the force and heat of lava.

Doubleday, May 21

Once Upon a Time , by Elizabeth Beller

What do we know about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, aside from the fact that she was married to John F. Kennedy Jr.? Twenty-five years after their death in a plane crash, Beller asks this question, then fills in the blanks with a thorough examination of a life cut short.

Gallery, May 21

Wait , by Gabriella Burnham

In this coming-of-age novel, a pair of sisters reunite at their home on Nantucket, Mass., after their mother is deported to Brazil.

One World, May 21

The Editor , by Sara B. Franklin

A noted food journalist pays tribute to a mentor and role model — the former Knopf editor Judith Jones, who, over a six-decade career, published Julia Child, James Beard, John Updike and Sylvia Plath, and was instrumental in seeing Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” translated into English.

Atria, May 28

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

The complicated, generous life  of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

“Real Americans,” a new novel by Rachel Khong , follows three generations of Chinese Americans as they all fight for self-determination in their own way .

“The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of the most challenged books in the United States. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it .

Joan Didion’s distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here are her essential works .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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