Let’s talk books. If you’re like me who has always dreamed of owning her own library like in the Disney film, Beauty & The Beast or jumped with glee upon entering The New York Public Library, then you’re in the right place. I have put together the top 10 books of 2022 you should read.
This is a book segment I’m looking to update on the annual so you can shop the books I’ve enjoyed and highly recommend. I have about 20 books on my shelf that are waiting to be read and can’t wait to share those with you next year! In the meantime, take a gander at these as I’ve listed a little bit of everything.
If you have any favorite recommendations, I’d love to know so I can add onto my wishlist. Also, be sure to download app Goodreads. It’s the perfect way to keep track of the current book you’re reading, write recommendations, and curate your own wishlist.
These books are listed in no particular order. Some of them may be part of a trilogy and I’ll make a note if they are. Grab a cup of tea (or coffee) and get ready to read my list of the top 10 books of 2022 you should read.
Becoming
by Michelle Obama
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United State of America–the first African American to serve in that role–she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she shows us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her–from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it–in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations–and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Purchase the book here.
The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz
by Jeremy Dronfield
Where there is family, there is hope.
In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality.
Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz–and certain death.
For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow.
Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future.
Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz’s story–an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable.
Purchase the book here.
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
by Helen Rappaport
They were the Princess Dianas of their day–perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses–Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanov–were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore and their privileged lifestyle.
Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass sentimental and idealized hagiography. With this treasure trove of diaries and letters from the grand duchesses to their friends and family, we learn that they were intelligent, sensitive and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution, the nightmare that would sweep their world away, and them along with it.
The Romanov Sisters sets out to capture the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, World War I and the Russian Revolution. Helen Rappaport aims to present a new and challenging take on the story, drawing extensively on previously unseen or unpublished letters, diaries and archival sources, as well as private collections. It is a book that will surprise people, even aficionados.
Purchase the book here.
Unknown 9: Genesis – Book 1 of the Genesis Trilogy
by Layton Green
To solve the enigma of her past, a brilliant but troubled young woman joins a deadly global treasure hunt.
Strange hallucinations have plagued PhD student Andie Robertson throughout her life. After years of consulting doctors, she decided the visions were a glitch in her own mind–until her mentor, the famous physicist Dr. James Corwin, is murdered in Italy, and Andie finds a stack of ink drawings in his office that bear a remarkable resemblance to her hallucinations.
Shocked, Andie digs deeper and learns that Dr. Corwin developed a device that might shed light on the very nature of her reality. She is even more stunned to discover that her mother, an academic who disappeared when Andie was a young girl, might also be involved.
Determined to find answers, Andie follows a trail of clues placed by Dr. Corwin, for reasons unknown, in museums and cultural sites around the world, highlighting human achievement as well as a tapestry of secret knowledge woven into the threads of history.
Yet Andie is not the only one searching. Powerful forces know of her mentor’s invention, including a mysterious elite society that spans borders and will stop at nothing to find the device. Now a target herself, Andie and a disgraced journalist embark on a perilous journey that might hold the key to a new frontier of knowledge–and which also promises to unlock the doors of her past.
Purchase this first book of the trilogy here.
Next Year in Havana
by Chanel Cleeton
After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity–and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution…
Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, ninteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba’s high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country’s growing unrest–until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary…
Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa’s last wish was for Marisol to scatter ashes in the country of her birth.
Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba’s tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she’ll need the lessons of her grandmother’s past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.
Purchase this first book of the series here.
The Cuckoo’s Calling
by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym for J.K. Rowling)
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he’s living in his office.
Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry — known to her friends as the Cuckoo — famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.
You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this.
Purchase this first book of the series here.
Midnight Sun
by Stephanie Meyer
When Edward Cullen and Bella Swan met in Twilight, an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Bella’s side of the story. At last, readers can experience Edward’s version in the long-awaited companion novel, Midnight Sun.
This unforgettable tale as told through Edward’s eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward’s past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger?
In Midnight Sun, Stephanie Meyer transports us back to a world that has captivated millions of readers and brings us an epic novel about the profound pleasures and devastating consequences of immortal love.
Purchase the book here.
Rain of Gold
by Victor Villaseñor
Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa’s revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.
It all began when Villaseñor’s maternal grandmother sat him down in their little home in the barrio of Carlsbad, California, gave him sweet bread and told him the story of their past. Of his mother Lupe, the most beautiful girl in the whole village who was only a child when Villa’s men came shooting into their canyon. And of his father Juan and his family, reduced to rags and starvation as they sought refuge across the border, where they believed that endless opportunity awaited.
Lupe and Juan met and fell in love in California, but they found the doors to the Promised Land were often closed to those from south of the border. His father was forced to take the law into his own hands, in spire of his wife’s objections. With love and humor, Villaseñor shares his passionate love story that celebrates the triumph of the human spirit.
An all-American story of struggle and success, Rain of Gold focuses on three generations of Villaseñor’s kin, their spiritual and cultural roots back in Mexico, their immigration to California and overcoming poverty, prejudice and economic exploitation. It is the warm-hearted and spirited account of the wily, wary and persevering forebears of Victor Villaseñor.
Purchase the book here.
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.
The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.
The Glass Castle is truly astonishing–a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Purchase the book here.
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie Rubenhold
The award-winning, best-selling book that changes the narrative of the “Ripper” murders forever.
Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from some of London’s wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods, from the factory towns of middle England, and from Wales and Sweden. These women wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses, lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped human traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.
The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. Now, in this gripping narrative of five lives, Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight and gives these women back their stories.
Purchase the book here.
I hope you enjoyed my list of the top 10 books of 2022 you should read. Be sure to check out the rest of my Lifestyle posts. Also, let me know if you’ve read any of the books listed, what you thought of them, and what are some of your recommendations.
