The 14 Best Books of 2022—Which Are Also Perfect for Gifting

I love a mystery/thriller book and will often pick one up and fly through it in a couple of days. This one had a really interesting premise that I hadn’t come across too much in my reading. A woman has been missing and the P.I. who is looking for her five years later ends up going missing too. There’s a mysterious, cult-y town deep in the woods, cut off from society, that becomes the focal point, and through the book, you switch perspectives between a few different characters. If you’re a mystery fan looking for a fun and twisty read, I highly recommend. —Amanda Bailey, associate art director

Jennifer Egan (author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning A Visit From the Goon Squad, of which I'm also a fan) published a new fiction novel this year: The Candy House, which takes place in the Goon Squad universe and stems from Bix Bouton, a social media mogul who is the creator of the company Mandala. The story takes place in past and present, as Bix rises to fame and as he dreams up his new product, Own Your Unconsciousness, which lets users upload their memories into an archive accessible to all other users. The book follows the implications of the feature on various characters, with echos of Dave Eggers’ The Circle and a dash of Black Mirror (without the creepiness). It’s funny at times, eerie at others, but overall one of those books that sticks with you in the context of our world now. —Malia Griggs, commerce editor

We’d be remiss to exclude the December SELF Well-Read Book Club pick, Rest Is Resistance, from this list. Artist, activist, and theologian Tricia Hersey’s diatribe on the importance of taking care of your mind and body with rest may totally shift your perspective. Hersey instructs readers how to create spaces to rest and dream and tells us why doing so is integral to your physical and emotional health. She writes in the introduction: “Sleep deprivation is a public health issue and a spiritual issue…. We will not be able to interrupt the machine of grind culture alone. We need each other in more ways than we are allowed to believe. This work is about radical community care.” We recommend this book to anyone who’s tired of hustle culture, who might be a busy parent or caregiver, and anyone else who simply has a tough time pressing “pause.” —H.P.

This is Jeanna Kadlec’s memoir of growing up in and eventually leaving the evangelical church. It’s really beautiful as a memoir, but I was also stunned at how much cultural and political history the author wove into the story. I think this is not only a great memoir but also a primer on how evangelical Christianity has shown up in and influenced politics, law, and culture in the US. I read it in about two days; I can’t say enough good things about it. —Sally Tamarkin, contributing editor

I love stories that center around family dysfunction, with generations of turbulence and characters thrown together, and The Family Chao delivers. Colorful, amusing, and devastating in turns, the book centers around a family that runs a Chinese restaurant in small-town Wisconsin. The patriarch of the family (who is not a lovable man) is found dead (murdered?), and a trial follows. The story follows the family’s three grown sons (and the characters in their orbit) as they grapple with loss, their fractured identities as Asian Americans, and how to forge their own futures. As a biracial Asian American myself, I really identify with that struggle to find your place as a “model minority" (vomit)—to succeed even if you’re not quite sure what that should ultimately look like. —M.G.

I never knew you could combine actual science with beautiful prose-y storytelling, but here we are. In these essays, microbiologist Osmundson explains how viruses work—how they actually, biologically work, but also how they work to impact our health, our social lives, inner lives, political systems, and more. I can’t believe I read something science-y and a) understood it and b) was moved to tears a couple of times, especially when the author talked about and reflected on the COVID-19 pandemic. —S.T.

I love romance novels, and Emily Henry’s previous book, People We Meet On Vacation, was such a treat that I was so excited to read Book Lovers. This is an enemy-to-lovers book that pokes fun at traditional romance tropes. Nora Stephens is the cutthroat, ambitious literary agent who travels to Sunshine Falls with her little sister, Libby, for the summer. However, when she gets there, she keeps running into her archrival, Charlie Lastra. The two have a whirlwind summer where they discover so much about themselves. It has all the fun Hallmark vibes without the cheesy lines; it’s funny, and the characters are super witty. If you love romcoms, this book has two lovable characters who you’ll be rooting for the entire time. —Jenifer Calle, senior commerce editor

Mercy Street is a character-driven contemporary fiction novel that centers around a women’s health clinic in Boston and the various people in its sphere, from the clinic’s counselor to the protestors outside to its online trolls. From Jennifer Haigh’s previous books, I expected fleshed-out characters, topics that make you think, and prose that simply flows, and I got just that with Mercy Street. I read this in two days—and immediately put one of Haigh’s past books, The Condition, on my library waitlist for a revisit. —Christa Sgobba, food and fitness director

If you’re a fan of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you might enjoy Lessons in Chemistry, which follows a brilliant chemist-turned-TV-chef named Elizabeth Zott during the ’60s. The tone is bluntly (at times uncomfortably) direct in its handling of sexism and depression, the overarching themes within the story, as you follow Elizabeth’s path to practice the chemistry career she loves and her unintended dip into celebrity, despite the brutish people (largely men) she encounters who are threatened by her and seek to squash her ambition. The light, quirky tone and on-the-mark observations at times make the story feel movie-level unbelievable, but in the wake of #MeToo, for me, the crushing mistreatment of Elizabeth rings all too true. —M.G.

Our November SELF Well-Read Book Club pick was Alison Désir’s Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport That Wasn’t Built for Us. The book is part memoir, part cultural critique, and part call to action: Désir shares her own story of becoming a Black distance runner in an unwelcoming white space while taking her readers through gut-wrenching accounts of what it means to be both Black and a runner at large, from national news stories like that of Ahmaud Arbery to troubling encounters and experiences she’s had throughout her life. The stories (and histories) Désir weaves together are captivating, eye-opening, and often even uncomfortable in their raw honesty and personal perspective. For fellow Black folks, Running While Black provides a way to feel seen and understood. For non-Black people, this book offers a window into a world they will never experience and an opportunity to inspire empathy and action. —H.P.

I remember reading Angela Davis’s Prisons Are Obsolete and being struck at one of her central ideas: Prisons and incarceration are so ingrained in our systems and our national psyche that Americans struggle to even envision or imagine what a world without prisons can look like. I have heard people say similar things when they hear about defunding the police—police are such a huge part of our institutions communities, cities, and states that it can be hard to imagine how things would work without them. Fortunately, Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie have written this book, explaining clearly and plainly why policing prevents safety rather than ensuring it and why “reforms” can never hope to end the harm that police cause individuals and communities. But most importantly to me, the authors invite the reader to imagine a world where it is really and truly possible to prevent and interrupt violence and to imagine transformative justice and safety. It’s a really wonderful primer on abolition and a handbook for abolitionist activism. —S.T.

I was in the mood for a thriller when I picked this one up, and it didn’t disappoint. Things We Do in the Dark swaps back and forth between timelines from two different murders: In the present day, Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom, covered in her husband’s blood and holding a razor. Twenty-five years prior, Ruby Reyes was convicted of a similar gruesome attack. In a lot of books that go back and forth, one story always seems more interesting that the other, but I was just as invested in both of these tales. The twist is so fun in this one, and the momentum continues even after it’s revealed. —C.S.