Looking Back
Although it’s a little late to be talking about some of the best books of 2022, here we go anyway–
“Book of the Month” best of the best for the year
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabriell Zevin
National Book Awards
Fiction–The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty
Non-fiction–South to America, Imari Perry
Book Browse Award Winners
best fiction–Horse, Geraldine Brooks
best non-fiction–In Love, Amy Bloom
best debut–Remarkably Bright Creatures, Tova Sullivan
from The New York Times, 11-29-2022
The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan. You don’t need to have read Egan’s Pulitzer-winning “A Visit From the Goon Squad” to jump feet first into this much-anticipated sequel.
Checkout 19, by Claire-Louise Bennett. Bennett, a British writer who makes her home in Ireland, first leaped onto the scene with her 2015 debut novel, “Pond.”
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver’s powerful new novel, a close retelling of Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” set in contemporary Appalachia, gallops through issues including childhood poverty, opioid addiction and rural dispossession even as its larger focus remains squarely on the question of how an artist’s consciousness is formed.
The Furrows, by Namwali Serpell. After losing her brother when she was 12, one of the narrators of Serpell’s second novel keeps coming across men who resemble him as she works through her trauma long into adulthood.
PEN/FAULKNER AWARD
Awarded to the author of the year’s best work of fiction by a living American citizen.
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine
(Grove)
“Alameddine’s spectacular novel is rendered through the refreshingly honest lens of Dr. Mina … Dr. Mina is the storyteller the refugees deserve: respected by the Europeans, but steeped in their traditions and history … This is the first novel I’ve read that gives ample room to the ugliness of certain camp volunteers (the bored, the coddled, those battling pangs of uselessness) and the many humiliations some inflict on the displaced. But calling out anyone who gave up a vacation to meet boats seems ungrateful, so the refugees smile for their rescuers’ camera-phones and keep quiet … Alameddine’s irreverent prose evokes the old master storytellers from my own Middle Eastern home, their observations toothy and full of wit, returning always to human absurdity …
Again and again, Dr. Mina cracks open the strange, funny and cruel social mores of East and West. She shows us that acceptance and rejection exist across borders and often manifest in surprising ways … Throughout the book, Dr. Mina addresses a blocked and disillusioned Lebanese writer who, having seen too much displacement and horror, finally breaks. I found this mysterious unnamed listener deeply poignant.”
*
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
Given annually to honor outstanding writing and to foster a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. Judged by the volunteer directors of the NBCC who are 24 members serving rotating three-year terms, with eight elected annually by the voting members, namely “professional book review editors and book reviewers.”
The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
(Harper)
“[A] sweeping, masterly debut novel … Jeffers has deftly crafted a tale of a family whose heritage includes free Blacks, enslaved peoples and Scottish and other white colonialists … Jeffers is an award-winning poet, and she is never doing just one thing with her text … Class and colorism are constant tensions in the novel, and Jeffers expertly renders a world of elite African Americans … The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is quite simply the best book that I have read in a very, very long time. I will avoid the cliché of calling it ‘a great American novel.’ Maybe the truest thing I could say is that this is an epic tale of adventure that brings to mind characters you never forget …
I will add a personal note about this book–COULDN’T AGREE MORE !! While reading The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, I dreaded having to stop reading it to take the dog out, fix food for myself, go to bed. Yes, I wanted to devour this book while wishing it would never end.