The Best Books We Read in 2022
Once again, the Fare Forward editors offer you the (unexpected) favorites we discovered during the year past. If you stumble across them too, we recommend picking them up!
By the FF Editors
Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
I still have never read any of Hilary Mantel’s critically acclaimed novels (they’ve been on my list for ages), but when she passed away this past September, a number of people posted portions of her (excellent) writing online, and the bits that struck me the most were from her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. I ordered a used copy of it and was somewhat surprised to receive a pocket-sized edition—but its small size earned it a place in my luggage when we packed up for a family vacation. The title of the memoir, and its writing, were inspired by the sale of Mantel and her husband’s weekend home, Owl Cottage. In addition to its other charms, Owl Cottage was the last place Mantel had seen her stepfather before his death. Thus, he is the titular ghost, but as the story unfolds, he is joined by a host of others. In a life marked by loss—of home and family, of faith, of bodily autonomy, and, finally, of the children that would never be born—Mantel emerges on the page as an accurate historian, but decidedly not a passionless one. Whether one relates to the travails of Mantel’s life or not, her commitment to relating the story of a life as experienced makes this one worth the read. – Sarah Clark, Editor-in-Chief
If you’re not much for philosophy, or don’t want to commit time to reading the whole book, I suggest picking it up for the section on Mary alone.
Wandering in Darkness by Eleonore Stump
Late this summer, I finally plucked Eleonore Stump’s Wandering in Darkness off my husband’s bookshelf. Stump is a soft-spoken Thomist philosopher, and the book is her magnum opus. It’s a thoroughly original exploration of the problem of evil, driven by four stories from the Bible: the lives of Abraham, Job, Samson, and Mary of Bethany. Stump illuminates how each of these characters suffered differently, and her exegesis of the biblical stories that give us the details of their lives has invigorated my own reading of Scripture. Like poetry written about biblical characters and scenes, Stump’s exploration slows the pace of the biblical texts, allowing us to pause within the narrative to question why people act in certain ways or say specific things in light of their own suffering. Why, for instance, in John 11, does only Martha come out to meet Jesus on the road to Bethany, while Mary stays inside her house? If you’re not much for philosophy, or don’t want to commit time to reading the whole book, I suggest picking it up for the section on Mary alone, which will undoubtedly be a balm to your soul. – Moriah Hawkins, Managing Editor
Before each article, he offers a peek into his own life as a black writer at the time.
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
When I bought this nonfiction collection by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I expected a collection of brilliant articles covering issues of race and politics during the Obama years, a “greatest hits” of his work in The Atlantic with some additional new writing. That’s what I got—that, plus the most deftly crafted writer’s memoir I’ve ever read. Beyond Coates’s literary prowess and intellect, the book’s magic is in the structure. Before each article, he offers a peek into his own life as a black writer at the time. We see him go from fledging blogger to lauded journalist to best-selling author. These are vulnerable chapters, divulging not only personal information but also his current judgment of his past work, including several frank critiques. It is by eschewing the temptation to revise these articles that Coates manages to show something few memoirs can capture—the evolution of a mind and voice. Moreover, the memoir aspect enhances the book’s political insights. By speaking personally as a black man who came into success while the first black president was in power, he offers an exceptionally nuanced, piercing, and conflicted account of Obama’s presidency and what came next. “I wanted these articles… collected in a single volume,” Coates explains in the book’s introduction. “But I also had an urge to try to make something new of them.” Mission accomplished. – Whitney Rio-Ross, Poetry Editor
With the deft precision of a surgeon, Morrison uses the narrative of Pecola Breedlove’s life to cut to the core of our society’s enchantment with certain forms of beauty.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
A friend invited me to see a theater-in-the-round adaptation of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, earlier this year. I rushed to get a copy of the book, driven initially by the self-buoying goal of being “in the know” before the lights dimmed. But Morrison’s pen quickly exerted a fierce gravity over me as I spent three nights moving through this harsh, unforgiving, and confoundingly tender story. With the deft precision of a surgeon, Morrison uses the narrative of Pecola Breedlove’s life to cut to the core of our society’s enchantment with certain forms of beauty, and the devastating fallout of this affair for the most vulnerable in our midst. In truth, I don’t have anything to say about The Bluest Eye that hasn’t already been said by people much smarter than me, including those who gave it the Nobel Prize—save for a sheepish admission that I wish I had read it sooner. – Jake Casale, Editor
Steinbeck’s magnum opus still manages to coalesce as a coherent meditation on one of his biggest questions: Can humanity be good?
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
If Steinbeck is right that all authors have one truly great book in them, and the rest are just practice, he’ll get no argument from me that East of Eden is “the book” in his bibliography. An ambitious story that follows about a dozen characters over several generations (and never misses an opportunity to follow a side-character’s story down a bunny trail), Steinbeck’s magnum opus still manages to coalesce as a coherent meditation on one of his biggest questions: Can humanity be good? Steinbeck remains hopeful that the answer is yes, despite his novel never once shying away from mankind’s capacity for cruelty and violence. It’s hard to watch his characters make destructive choices and not empathize with why, in those circumstances, they made that decision. It’s easy to imagine that, in the right context, we might do the same. Perhaps that is why the tiny thread of hope that runs through the novel—rarely acknowledged as it is—shines so brightly. – Sara Holston, Editor
