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Here are the Best Books of 2022, According to Buzzfeed

Here are the books on Buzzfeed's Best Books of the Year list, including some overlap with other Best Of lists and some that are unique.

Community Dec 5, 2022

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‘Tis the season for Best Of lists! We’ve discussed the top books of the year according to the New York Times, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more, and today Buzzfeed has released their own. It was chosen by nine Buzzfeed contributors, reporters, and writers, including our own Margaret Kingsbury! The list is divided into genres, with more picks in some genres than others. Here are their picks for the best books of the year.

Literary Fiction

If I Survive You: Stories by Jonathan Escoffery

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

The Boy With a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund

If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga

Historical

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen

Mystery/Thriller

A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

Romance

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

Fantasy

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Nonfiction

Easy Beauty: A Memoir by Chloé Cooper Jones

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

Finale: Late Conversations With Stephen Sondheim by D.T. Max

Crying in the Bathroom by Erika L. Sánchez

High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney

Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

Some of these picks are familiar from other lists: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin was Amazon’s Best Book of the Year and Babel by R.F. Kuang was also on Barnes and Noble’s list, for example. But many of these titles are unique to Buzzfeed’s list, and it also includes more diversity — more authors of color and queer books — than most of the other lists we’ve seen.

To see the full list, including why each title was chosen, check out the Buzzfeed article.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.