The Books That I Read in 2022

Hey Newsletter Fans,

I’m a big reader and every year I like to do a round-up of the books that I read that year. And since it’s an impossibly slippery and icy day here in Washington State, I figure there’s no time like the present to do a round-up. (Actually, after I wrote that sentence we went to see The Fabelmans — which was great — and now it’s 4:46 PM PST which means it’s 7:46 PM EST on a Friday on Christmas weekend, maybe the worst time in history to ever send a newsletter? But maybe you’re all trapped inside too and grateful for something to read?)

In any case, here are the books that I read in 2022! If most of my reviews seem glowingly positive, that’s because if I’m not enjoying a book, I stop reading it. (Note: many of these write-ups are from my Goodreads page, so if you follow me there, some of this may seem familiar.)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

At first, I thought I knew what to expect when I started reading this book: Michelle Zauner's mother dies and Michelle grieves her mother's death by cooking Korean food. It seems a simple enough premise, but then the book keeps rolling along and you realize the story Zauner is telling is much larger, much deeper, and much more affecting than that. It's a story of the hurt and healing that's possible within a family. It's a story of tradition, culture, identity, love, anger, and kimchi. It made me want to go to Koreatown and eat everything I can find; it (obviously) made me want to spend a lot of time in H Mart. But mostly it made me want to read anything Zauner writes in the future: she's an incredible writer and this is an unforgettable book.

Gulp by Mary Roach

No book has given convulsed my body the way this one did: either in laughter or disgust. Truly, there were moments I legit LOLed and then there were other moments where I felt so nauseous that I had to put the book down. There's a secret about this book which is that you think it's a book about the alimentary canal and your digestive system, but really it's a chance to spend time with Mary Roach, who's right up there with David Sedaris as one of the wittiest writers writing today. She can write about anything, and I'd read it -- and apparently she has. Next up: either Stiff or Fuzz or Spook, about life after death. In Mary Roach's hands, I feel good about all of it.

Listen to my podcast interview with Mary Roach here:

Just by Looking at Him by Ryan O’Connell

Loved Ryan's book -- full disclosure: Ryan's a close friend! But this book is so raw and open and funny and insightful that it made me feel even closer to him. If you're a fan of his Netflix show Special or his writing in general, this book takes things to the next level. Highly recommend.

Listen to my podcast interview with Ryan about the book (and our trip to New Orleans) here:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

I've always loved George Saunders' short stories for their zaniness and their heart. Lincoln in the Bardo didn't seem very zany at first: it actually felt a little square, with all of that historical stuff, I was like: "Where's the George Saunders who I know and love?" Well, he shows up in a huge way. Turns out, there's a method to the madness behind this book: the historical stuff lends credence to the wild shenanigans that come later (ghosts! boners! hats!) and all of it is in service of a beautiful, heart-wrenching theme about losing a child, suffering, and what it all means in the grand scheme of things. This book deserves all of the acclaim it received, and more.

The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World by Alan Downs

So glad that I finally made time to read (or listen to) The Velvet Rage. As a gay man who came of age pre-Netflix, pre-Lil Nas X, pre-The Other Two, I still carry a lot of shame with me that I rarely acknowledge. This book made me confront that head-on: specifically, the way that we as gay men are constantly compensating for it, by trying to be the funniest, the most successful, the best cook (ahem). I really admired this book for the way that it gives concrete advice for moving from the "compensating for shame" stage to the "cultivating authenticity" stage. Specifically, in cultivating real friendships not based on attraction and, even more importantly, seeking joy instead of validation when pursuing our goals. That's a big one for me (already anticipating how many likes this review is going to get!); and though Alan Downs says that gay men are particularly susceptible to seeking validation, I think that's a universal bit of advice in 2022.

There are a few downsides to this book. 1. It can be a bit hokey in places; particularly, when he tries to give concrete examples that match the point he's trying to make. Like: "Tom and Sam were dating for six years when Sam said he was ready for a change." They almost read like the kind of reading samples you get on the SATS; and 2. It can be a bit pearl-clutching about sex, especially in our more sex-positive age. But that's a tiny quibble considering the book was written in 2005.

All-in-all, The Velvet Rage is essential reading for any gay man who struggles with a healthy sense of self due to societal pressures... which is pretty much most of us.

Eighty-Sixed by David B. Feinberg

This book will definitely go up there with my favorite books of all time. It's just so exuberant, joyful, funny, and smart and despite its subject matter -- how the onslaught of AIDS devastated the gay community in the late eighties -- it's never maudlin or didactic. The book just tells the store of B.J. Rosenthal who's living it up in New York as a neurotic, Jewish gay man in 1980 (the first part of the book is pre-AIDS). You meet his friends, you meet his family, you follow him to bathhouses and parks and raunchy nightclubs and revel in all of the freedom that existed during that time period. A less thoughtful book might set-up some kind of corollary; that the AIDS epidemic introduced in the second half is some kind of consequence for the behavior we witness in the first. But the book absolutely refutes that idea; it does so explicitly in a conversation with a friend who rails about there being no link between morality and disease. This book is matter-of-fact about AIDS, and never tries to manipulate your emotions; BJ resists crying in therapy, and his breakthroughs become your breakthroughs as you read it. A truly stunning book.

[Note: a mini write-up that I wrote about Eighty-Sixed is going to appear in The New York Times book section! Keep your eyes open for that.]

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

I watch a lot of magic clips on YouTube, especially Penn and Teller, and this book is a masterclass in literary slight-of-hand: how you create a distraction in order to deceive and dazzle your audience. You might think, from the title, that this book is going to be a quirky, romantic comedy. (Unless you read the blurb on the back: "It's as if Vladimir Nabokov wrote 1984.") What Gary Shteyngart actually pulls off here is no less an indictment of our twenty-first century way-of-life in America and yet it all goes down so smoothly because the book is hilarious, heartbreaking, character-driven, and specific. I don't want to spoil too much, it's best to go in cold. I guarantee it's not a book you'll forget.

Hello, Molly!: A Memoir by Molly Shannon

Love love love Molly Shannon so much; whenever I'm depressed, I watch her Best of SNL DVD ("Don't get me started!") and my mood instantly improves. With this book, I was riveted from the get-go: the tragic car accident that took her mother, sister, and cousin makes for a heart-wrenching opening sequence. From there, the book really concentrates on her relationship with her father and it's a deeply moving, surprising, and ultimately cathartic story about a very complicated man whose story only gets more complex the more that Molly digs. If I had to ding the book at all, there were moments that felt slightly self-indulgent (I could've done with less family history, even if it helped color things in a bit), but overall I loved sitting in my car, listening to Molly's voice, and hearing the origin stories of Mary Katherine Gallagher, Jeanie Darcy, and so many other characters we know and love. Do not, by any means, read this on the page: you have to hear Molly read this out loud. Best audio book performances of all time.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

I listened to to this book in my car, which I highly recommend (well, not my car personally) because it's best digested a little at a time. The scope of Isabel Wilkerson's work is so vast, it's hard to write a review of it without minimizing it somehow. All I'll say is that this book forever changed the way that I view race in America: the arbitrariness of the caste system, the cruelty of it, and the way it refracts itself through everything from politics (see: the election of Donald Trump) to the way race is represented in the media. The parts that will stay with me the most are the specific stories, some too horrific to write about here; others, seemingly benign but just as awful in their own way (I'll never forget Wilkerson's airport experiences. They shine such a useful light on the insidiousness of caste.) If I have any criticism of this book, it sometimes felt like it went on a little too long... but how could it not? It's trying to do so much. Pretty much the most essential read of the 21st century so far.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Somehow this book lowered my blood pressure and put me in a trance. Elizabeth Strout's voice isn't just compelling, it's calming... despite the harrowing things she describes. In this seemingly straightforward story about a woman sick in the hospital whose estranged mother comes to visit, the spareness of the prose and the attention to detail gets completely under your skin, so that your name too becomes Lucy Barton. It's a fast read, but not one you will soon forget.

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

What an odd book. I was trying to describe it on the phone the other day and the best I could come up with is "it's like a campus comedy about Benjamin Netenyahu's father coming to teach at school in upstate New York but it's more about this American Jewish family and their issues and how they contrast with this Israeli family and about Jewishness in general." It's very funny in spots, a little too dense in others. But if you're Jewish and you love Philip Roth, you'll get a kick out of it.

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

To be both entertaining and profound is not an easy feat, but Jennifer Egan is a genius at telling captivating stories that have you racing through the pages, while simultaneously widening your mind at the same time. The Candy House is every bit as good as A Visit From the Goon Squad, and if you enjoyed that book, you're in for a treat. I must confess it's been a long time since I read it, so I didn't really pick up on to the connections to the previous book, but it didn't matter at all. Highly recommend.

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

There's no doubt, when it comes to the micro, Gary Shteyngart is a master. Line for line, word for word, no living writer writes with as much humor and flair and idiosyncrasy. There were so many LOL moments in this book, and so many words I had to look up (many of them Russian), it was like studying a canvas painted with electric neon colors. It's only when I stepped back and looked at the canvas as a whole that I started to question whether or not I actually liked this book. As the title suggests, it's about a group of friends quarantining together in the country during the pandemic. There's a Chekhovian through-line (made explicit with references to Uncle Vanya) and, much like Chekhov, not much happens and everything happens all at the same time. Where I struggled was with the balance of satire and sincerity -- these characters are eminently mockable, but also strangely vulnerable. Ultimately, I didn't find myself caring that much about them, which is a shame, because, as mentioned, this book is beautifully written. My suggestion, if this is your first Shteyngart, is to put it down and read Super Sad True Love Story instead. That's a canvas that sparkles both close-up and far away.

Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green

What a life and what a book. Mary Rodgers is the daughter of Richard Rodgers and the mother of Adam Guettel, best friend of Stephen Sondheim, and creative maverick in her own right as the composer of Once Upon a Mattress and the author of Freaky Friday. I loved this book for its complete lack of sentimentality, its rawness and realness about everything from her fraught relationship with her mother (who told her that she loved her, but didn't like her) to the horror of losing a child. My only critique is that Jesse Green, theater critic for the NYT and Rodgers' collaborator on the book, interposes a bit too much via endnotes. I appreciated them when they illuminated the action, but sometimes they were so excessive that when I returned to the main text, I still had Jesse Green's voice in my head and not Mary's. That's a tiny quibble. The book itself is marvelous and a perfect read for anyone who loves theater and theater lore.

Devil House by John Darnielle

I set out to read this book on a dare with myself: I don't generally like horror (movies, etc.) but because it was around Halloween, I wanted to see what a horror novel would be like. Well! Turns out, the emphasis should've be more on the "novel" aspect than the "horror" because this work is as literary as anything by Nabokov. It's a hall of mirrors, a Russian doll, an enigma wrapped in a mystery and so forth. What I loved so much about it was that each section (minus a slightly unreadable medieval section) stands on its own legs as a wonderful piece of writing. Taken together, though, the cumulative effect is stunning: an indictment of true crime as a genre that still offers up all the pleasures of a true crime story. It reels you in and spits you out like an Alanis Morissette song. Highly recommend.

Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders

If I give this one four stars, it's only because I didn't love it as much as Saunders' other books, so it's a four-star Saunders book but a five-star normal book. Saunders pulls new rabbits out of his magical hat here, only sometimes the rabbits look a little familiar. Lots of stuff with mixed-up language, android/zombie/humans, theme parks, humor pressing up against the bleakest parts of humanity. But if those are his signatures, so what? That's what makes him such a pleasure to read: there's no one else who writes like he does. We're lucky to have him.

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

We all know Sedaris as a celebrated humorist, but this book made me realize he's just as significant as a truth teller (which is often the same thing). Who tells the truth like he does, even when he stretches it? This book "goes there," as they say, and some of the chapters are truly shocking in the taboos they flout. From a twelve year-old boy who sexually harasses him to his sister's suicide, this book is a gay romp through life's grizzliest pastures. If I dock it a star, it's only because I found him a little too glib about things like BLM, trans identity, and economic disparity. That said, this book left me reeling.

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That’s all for this year, folks!

What were the best books that you read this year? Let us know in the comments!

I’m currently about a quarter of the way through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I’m loving, but you’ll have to wait for next year’s newsletter to see what I really think.

Happy reading,

Adam