Episode 561: The Best Books of 2022

We’re gettin’ down to the last few weeks of 2022. We hope your writing is going well and you’re hitting all your goals. If not, hey, a new year is about to dawn, more pots of coffee will be brewed, and your notebooks, laptops, tablets, and post-it notes await your next brilliant thoughts.

And, really, what better way to avoid your own writing at the end of the year than by reading other writers’ work? Daniel Ford provides all the books you need with the best books of 2022! As an added bonus, several hosts from around the Writer’s Bone Podcast Network share of their favorite reads from the past year, so if you get sick of Daniel's voice, don’t worry, you’ve got some literary friends just around the corner.

The list: 

• The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop by Jonathan Abrams

• The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan by Elliot Ackerman

• Brave Like Mom by Monica Acker

• At Midnight edited by Dahlia Adler

• Kismet by Amina Akhtar

• I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home by Jami Attenberg

• Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia

• Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

• Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter by E.B. Bartels

• The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays

• It Dies with You by Scott Blackburn

• Herrick's End by T.M. Blanchet

• The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

• Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono

• Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant

• Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports-Industrial Complex at Its Own Game by Craig Calcaterra

• Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor

• The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

• The Symmetry of Fish by Su Cho

• Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor

• The Prince of Infinite Space by Giano Cromley

• Let Me Be Frank: A Book About Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren't Supposed to Do by Tracy Dawson

• Wombat Said Come In by Carmen Agra Deedy and illustrated by Brian Lies

• Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont

• Trust by Hernan Diaz

• The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan

• If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

• Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer

• Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald

• Real Bad Things by Kelly J. Ford

• Jimmy the King: Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop by Gus Garcia-Roberts

• Like A Sister by Kellye Garrett

• Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

• More Than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez

• Free Love by Tessa Hadley

• Unlikely Animals by Annie Harnett

• Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks by Chris Herring

• The Secrets We Share by Edwin Hill

• Uphill: A Memoir by Jemele Hill

• Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho

• Hell and Back by Craig Johnson

• The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres

• His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer by Fred Kaplan

• Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe

• Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly

• What Meets the Eye by Alex Kenna

• Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War by Phil Klay

• The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. by Lee Kravetz

• Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen

• Little Bat Up All Day by Brian Lies

• Seasonal Work: Stories by Laura Lippman

• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

• Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner

• Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss

• All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

• Wahala by Nikki May

• Never Coming Home by Hannah Mary McKinnon

• Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow

• My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

• Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton

• Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

• Swing and a Hit: Nine Innings of What Baseball Taught Me by Paul O’Neill and Jack Curry

• How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories by Daniel A. Olivas

• Balloon Dog by Daniel Paisner

• Reservations for Six by Lindsey J. Palmer

• The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson by Jeff Pearlman

• Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry

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

• The Maid by Nita Prose

• The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series by Jessica Radloff

• Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild

• A Touch of Moonlight by Yaffa S. Santos

• How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur

• Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

• Secret Identity by Alex Segura

• The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

• Disappeared by Bonnar Spring

• The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

• This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

• Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

• Night of the Living Rez: Stories by Morgan Talty

• Half Outlaw by Alex Temblador

• The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

• After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher

• The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich

• The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories by Jess Walter

• Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free by Sarah Weinman

• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

• Scenes from My Life: A Memoir by Michael K. Williams

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

• No Land to Light On Yara Zgheib