First, the books published in 2022 (in no particular order)
Cold Enough for Snow, Jessica Au — A wonderful slender novel about a mother-daughter trip, and ways of being alone, together.
Dinosaurs, Lydia Millet — A lovely, gentle novel about new beginnings and trying to be a good person.
Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, Forugh Farrokhzad, tr. Elizabeth Gray — Emotionally extravagant poetry about desire, longing, misery.
Grey Bees, Andrey Kurkov, tr. Boris Dralyuk — A quiet, melancholy road-trip novel about a man traveling from Ukraine to Russia.
Ulysses, James Joyce, edited by Catherine Flynn — A new critical edition that does an absolutely tremendous job giving readers some critical context and helpful framing for making their way through a novel that remains astonishing, one hundred years later.
Also a Poet, Ada Calhoun — A really wonderful memoir about literary ambitions and family relationships and poetry.
Either/Or, Elif Batuman — A delightful story about college life from one of the funniest writers working today.
Foster, Claire Keegan — Like diving into a clear, dark pool; there is something both chilling and clarifying in the tremendous depths of this novella.
The Pachinko Parlor, Elisa Shua Dusapin, tr. Aneesa Abbas Higgins — A moving and melancholy meditation on identity and estrangement.
And then, favorite things published any time, that I read this year!
Generations, Lucille Clifton — sparse prose that evokes an entire world; just incredible.
5 Women Who Loved Love, Ihara Saikaku, tr. William Theodore de Bary — Saikaku is just amazing for the way he plays between irony and sincerity, tradition and change. Fingers crossed for some good new translations of his work soon!
Admiring Silence, Abdulrazak Gurnah — a powerful, powerful work of postcolonial rage that kept surprising me.
Weird Fucks, Lynne Tillman — Brilliant account of a life, and a cultural milieu, chronicled in sexual liasons
Simple Passion, Annie Ernaux, tr. Tanya Leslie — a surprisingly riveting examination of passion, and how it changes you
Aftermath, Preti Taneja — a difficult testimony of working through and mourning a shattering tragedy and a broken society
Air Raid, Polina Barskova, tr. Valzhyna Mort — complex and innovative poems on history and memory, dazzlingly translated
Journal of a Homecoming, Aimé Césaire, tr. N. Gregson Davis — a dense, intricate, rich long poem
The Sentence, Louise Erdrich — This felt like it was 10 different novels in one, there were so many different narrative threads at work, but I loved all of them
The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen — an uproariously funny academia story
A Separation, Katie Kitamura — Kitamura was my great discovery of 2022 (thanks to Chris Holmes’ fantastic podcast, Burned By Books). Searing, minimalist, stunning.
The Global Indies, Ashley Cohen — An astoundingly smart, impeccably researched, really mind-blowing account of how people in the eighteenth century thought about the world. I learned so much. I dream of writing something as brilliant as this.
Kasia Reads 