Top Books of 2022

Reviving an old Down the Rabbit Hole tradition

Most Moving: Small Things Like These and Foster by Claire Keegan

Most Surprising: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Most Comfortable: The Cleaner of Chartres by Sally Vickers

Most Inspiring: Unruly Saint by D.L. Mayfield

Most Meaningfully-Curated: Earth Song ed. Sara Barkat

Most Life-Giving: Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

Most Self-Illuminating: The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May

Most Wild & Unexpected: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Young women mistreated in a convent home and fathers who care // Mr. Hyde is small! // a cozier but still shadowed convent and cathedral story // Dorothy Day is a complicated, caring, Catholic woman activist for good // nature poems chock-full of beauty and rending truth // Good Lord, the way Ross Gay’s (shadowed) joy jumps off the page, exuberant // An author discovers she is autistic, and I do, too. // a futuristic (seriously shadowed) monastery story

It would appear I have a thing for monastery stories of many stripes. It is a fact this was a big year for big questions and self-discovery. It was also an incredibly difficult year. Then again, I got to spend three weeks in England, being a writer. These books couldn’t be more different from each other; I guess I, like Dorothy Day, am complex. I guess we all are. How beautiful, the way reading can reflect that.

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Have you read any of these? What did you think? I am always ready to chat books.

In years past, on my past blog, I ran a Top Reads series at the end of each year. Here’s a link to those posts. And here’s a link to my Goodreads reading list, which I update intermittently.