Online reader reviews can be great for discovering what other people think of books that you're considering reading yourself. BookBrowse's First Impressions program is an extra reliable resource for high-quality, trustworthy reader reviews of new titles.
Last week, we announced the Top 20 Books of 2022, as chosen by our subscribers. Now, we're excited to reveal the Award Winners for Best Fiction, Best Nonfiction and Best Debut, the books with the highest number of votes in each category.
As 2022 winds to a close, we once again have the pleasure of bringing you our BookBrowse Best of the Year titles, the Top 20 books of the year as selected by our subscribers.
This annual list, which we're proud to have published for over 20 years, is unique among "best of" lineups determined from popular opinion in that voting is open only to BookBrowse members and subscribers of our free newsletters. This prevents vote-stuffing and mitigates the imbalance between books with different degrees of social reach, giving a fairer and more accurate reflection of which books are personal favorites. Also, thanks to our subscribers' participation, the Top 20 Books are calculated from a robust pool of votes — topping out at over 9,000 in recent years. This makes it all the more significant and exciting to note the titles that have ultimately made the final cut, and we hope you enjoy perusing the Best Books of 2022, which you can view below.
Thank you to everyone who voted — we couldn't do this without you!
While still underrepresented, Native authors — including many emerging writers — have been behind an exciting variety of interesting literature from both major and small publishers as of late. As we at BookBrowse have been working to consciously build up the books featured in our Native and Indigenous category, we would like to take the opportunity to share with you some of our recently reviewed books by Native writers.
If your book club arranges conversations and reading materials around current issues, it's likely that you're focusing on reproductive rights, or soon will be.
While the leak of a Supreme Court draft suggesting an intent to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationally has thrown the future of abortion rights in the United States into doubt, the broader topic of reproductive rights is one that transcends this particular moment in time. Regardless of legality, reproductive health care is already effectively out of reach for many, and issues of reproductive justice include not just abortion access but access to contraceptives, involuntary sterilization and forced or coerced adoption, all of which are historically intertwined with racism, gender discrimination and eugenics.
Below are six contemporary novels that reflect this reality, dealing substantially with reproductive rights and the social contexts in which they are grounded. Most have reviews, reading guides and/or other accompanying material available on BookBrowse. We've also included some general resources that we hope will be helpful for your book club discussions.
Could your book club use some uplifting books for a change? Many book groups make a point of choosing reading that will lead to serious discussions of important issues, but it's also important to foster the sense of joy and well-being that books can bring into our lives.
Plus, "uplifting" doesn't have to mean insubstantial. Plenty of books that address unpleasant realities still land on a hopeful note and leave room to feel positive about the future. Books that focus on social and political problems can do so through a lens of human closeness and community, and those that include sadness and grief can also offer plenty of humor and heart.
Whether you're looking for a cozy mystery, a travel adventure, a societal critique with a funny and optimistic bent, or a story that celebrates the strong ties between people maintained over years or generations, we have something for you. The list below includes all types of uplifting books from recent years that come highly recommended from our reviewers or from BookBrowse members participating in our First Impressions early reader program.
