Year-End Lists

Esquire: The Best Books of 2022

[see also The 25 Best Books of 2024 • The 20 Best Books of 2023 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The 50 Best Books of 2021 • The Best Books of the 2010s • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

1. Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta
   James Hannaham
2. Harry Sylvester Bird
   Chinelo Okparanta
3. Young Mungo
   Douglas Stuart
4. Time Is a Mother
   Ocean Vuong
5. Trust
   Hernan Diaz
6. Liarmouth

   A Feel-Bad Romance
   John Waters
7. Butts

   A Backstory
   Heather Radke
8. Fight Like Hell

   The Untold History of American Labor
   Kim Kelly
9. Overdue

   Reckoning with the Public Library
   Amanda Oliver
10. Woman, Eating
    Claire Kohda
11. The Passenger
    Cormac McCarthy
12. Fen, Bog and Swamp

    A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
    Annie Proulx
13. Because Our Fathers Lied

    A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today
    Craig McNamara
14. A Ballet of Lepers

    A Novel and Stories
    Leonard Cohen
15. Lost & Found

    A Memoir
    Kathryn Schulz
16. Less Is Lost
    Andrew Sean Greer
17. Fairy Tale
    Stephen King
18. The Furrows
    Namwali Serpell
19. The Book of Goose
    Yiyun Li
20. Liberation Day
    George Saunders
21. The Pink Hotel
    Liska Jacobs
22. Nuclear Family
    Joseph Han
23. Night of the Living Rez
    Morgan Talty
24. Phasers on Stun!

    How the Making (and Remaking) of Star Trek Changed the World
    Ryan Britt
25. Raising Lazarus

    Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis
    Beth Macy
26. Tracy Flick Can't Win
    Tom Perrotta
27. Cult Classic
    Sloane Crosley
28. The Angel of Rome and Other Stories
    Jess Walter
29. Dirtbag, Massachusetts

    A Confessional
    Isaac Fitzgerald
30. Sea of Tranquility
    Emily St. John Mandel
31. The Candy House
    Jennifer Egan
32. The Immortal King Rao
    Vauhini Vara
33. Scoundrel

    How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free
    Sarah Weinman
34. The Invisible Kingdom

    Reimagining Chronic Illness
    Meghan O’Rourke
35. True Story

    What Reality TV Says about Us
    Danielle J. Lindemann
36. Anthem
    Noah Hawley
37. Olga Dies Dreaming
    Xóchitl González
38. To Paradise
    Hanya Yanagihara
39. How Civil Wars Start

    And How to Stop Them
    Barbara F. Walter
40. How High We Go in the Dark
    Sequoia Nagamatsu
41. Notes on an Execution
    Danya Kukafka
42. South to America

    A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
    Imani Perry
43. Vladimir
    Julia May Jonas
44. The Employees
    Olga Ravn
45. Thank You, Mr. Nixon
    Gish Jen
46. Moon Witch, Spider King
    Marlon James
47. Groundskeeping
    Lee Cole
48. Trust the Plan

    The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Reshaped the World
    Will Sommer
49. How to Take Over the World

    Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain
    Ryan North
50. Ancestor Trouble

    A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
    Maud Newton