The approaching end of the month means it’s time for me to look ahead to my most anticipated books publishing in February of 2023. I’m kind of relieved it’s a short list, I have so many ARCs for March and the following few months so maybe I can get ahead a bit. I have early copies of a few of these but haven’t gotten to them yet. Others I’ll have to wait for the publication date to get from the library.
I’m excited to bring you my list of my top ten favorite books of 2022. Making top ten book lists is a tradition of mine dating all the way back to 1999! In the early years, I just e-mailed my list to a small group of friends and family - then added more and more recipients over the years, then started posting to facebook, then on this blog, and a few years ago I started a bookstagram account and started posting my list on there too! So clearly more and more people have seen my list as the years went on.
And it’s not just the audience that has increased - so has the amount of books I read a year. Back in 1999, I read just 53 books, which means my top 10 represented almost 20% of books I read that year. Well, this year I read an astounding 217 books, which means my top ten represents less than 5% of the books I read this year! No wonder this list was so darn hard to narrow down! I had three books this year which I gave 5 stars to, so those were automatic selections for this list. But I also had 20 books which I awarded 4.5 stars. So to choose between those, it was a combination of how the books affected me, how much they have stayed with me, and how much I have recommended them to other people, and a little dash of gut feeling. And just like last year, choosing the final book was the most painful part!
As a reminder, these are books I read in a particular year, not necessarily books which were published that year - though most of these were in fact published in 2022.
Without further ado, my ten most favorite of the year, listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name:
