Favorite Books from 2022
This year I had so much fun reading along with our monthly book challenges!
Here is what I read for each month:
January: “Tuesdays At the Castle” by Jessica Day George
February: “Rising Strong” by Brene Brown
March: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
April: “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers
May: “Small Favors” by Erin Craig
June: “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” by Terry Ryan
July: “The Stranger Beside Me” by Ann Rule
August: “The Dry” by Jane Harper
September: “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
October: “The Word is Murder” by Anthony Horowitz
November: “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin
December: “Peril At End House” by Agatha Christie
Including those 12 reads, this year I read 77 books that fit nicely into 6 different categories.
HOWEVER….more than half of what I read falls into two categories: True Crime and Mystery/Thriller.
(Soooo…it is good to have the monthly book challenge so I can break out of my apparently morbid norm.)
Below I have broken up my reads for the year into 6 categories.
My favorite 3 in each category are shown in the pictures.
And then in each list the great reads (the ones I really loved) are all highlighted in red…because I loved them…while all the stinkers are highlighted in light blue.
Here we go:
Non-Fiction
All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell
Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
A Thousand Naked Strangers by Kevin Hazzard
The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr
When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain by Giles Milton
Blood At the Root by Patrick Phillips
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
Opening Skinner’s Box by Lauren Slater
Black K Klansman by Ron Stallworth
It Ended Badly by Jennifer Wright
Total: 12
True Crime
American Predator by Maureen Callahan
The Killer Across the Table by John Douglass
Death on the River by Diane Fanning
The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Zodiac by Robert Graysmith
American Fire by Monica Hesse
Hell’s Half Acre by Susan Jonusas
Lost Girls by Robert Kolker
TinselTown by William Mann
Dead by Sunset by Ann Rule
Green River Running Red by Ann Rule
Heart Full of Lies by Ann Rule
If You Really Loved Me by Ann Rule
In the Still of the Night by Ann Rule
Lust Killer by Ann Rule
Practice to Deceive by Ann Rule
Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule
The I-15 Killer by Ann Rule
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
The Want Ad Killer by Ann Rule
Too Late to Say Goodbye by Ann Rule
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Total: 23
Self Help
Rising Strong by Brene Brown
Get Out of Your Own Way by David Hollis
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
Leadership and Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute
The Path Made Clear by Oprah Winfrey
Total: 7
Fiction
Little by Edward Carey
Small Favors by Erin Craig
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeymoon
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Total: 7
Mystery/Thriller
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
Peril At End House by Agatha Christie
Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie
The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco
He Started It by Samantha Downing
The Dry by Jane Harper
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Bearskin by James McLaughlin
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
Total: 20
Young Adult Fiction
Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko
A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Tuesdays At the Castle by Jessica Day George
The Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Sideway Stories from Wayside School by Louis Saacar
A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban
Total: 9
So many good reads this year!
I haven’t stopped talking about “Ghostland” (the historical stories behind haunted places in America like Salem, MA or the Winchester Mansion), “Little” (the story of how Madame Tussauds became Madame Tussaunds), “A Thousand Naked Strangers” (the tales of a former ambulance driver), “The Stranger Beside Me” (the book that started me on a journey of reading more than a dozen true crime books by the author, Ann Rule), or “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” (the story of a wicked wordsmith who I would I have loved to be friends with).
Each one of those reads was completely different and wonderful in it’s own way.
Other great ones were “Nothing to See Here” (which is full of language but surprisingly funny and heart warming…even if it is about children who burst into flames when they are angry), “American Fire” (the true account of a couple who started fires across a rural county), Rising Strong (because pretty much everything written by Brene Brown in terrific), and Hell’s Half Acre (the history of a serial killer family on the frontier).
Again…all different and interesting in their own way.
I love reading.
I love books!
I’m excited for another year of stories, tales, and histories.
And another year of monthly book challenges!
What are the best books that you read this year?
