Between autumn 2020 and spring 2021, lots of COVID-themed books started to appear on bookstore and library shelves in the UK, where I live. It felt like nonfiction was quicker to respond to the pandemic than fiction. Some of my favorites were too niche for US publication because they focus on the UK’s National Health Service (Intensive Care by Gavin Francis, a Scottish GP) or England’s lockdown spring (The Consolation of Nature by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott, and Peter Marren). It soon became a low-key obsession of mine to read whatever I could about COVID.
I’ve especially valued insider looks by medical professionals. Every Minute Is a Day by Robert Meyer, MD and Dan Koeppel is a blow-by-blow account of the first six months of the pandemic by an ER doctor at the Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center. The statistics are stark: Of 6,000 COVID-19 patients admitted between March and September 2020, nearly 1,000 died. The situation changed daily as doctors recognized new symptoms and tested treatments.
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.
Looking for reading inspiration? BookBrowse's Book Club discussions are a reliable resource for readers seeking ideas for their own book club picks or who just want to get some insight into specific books. In 2022, our members talked about 18 different books in our discussion forum. Scroll down for links.
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!
Reading nonfiction with your book club provides an opportunity to learn about new topics with the benefit of others' thoughts and perspectives. It can also be fascinating to discuss how authors have chosen to view and present certain aspects of nature, society, history or their own lives.
If you're looking to expand your group's nonfiction picks for next year, we have some suggestions! Below are half a dozen books covering a wide range of subjects that will be newly available in paperback during the first half of 2023, all of which come highly recommended by our reviewers. Three are memoirs that use the author's personal experience to reflect on the world around them, while the other three are substantial dives into complex and important subjects. Despite their depth, they're relatively short, digestible reads, ranging from around 240 to 350 pages. All of them are sure to provide plenty of worthy material for conversation, and we've included ideas for topics to discuss.
