Best of Year Lists, Book Recommendations for ‘23, and Other Happenings
Read to the end for the greatest tweet of all time?
“Biggest” News in Books: Year-End Lists
Roundups
It’s the start of the new year, which means everyone from Spotify, to Etsy, to multi-trillion-dollar financial institutions are sending “fun” info graphs recapping 2022. For books, that means the annual “best of” lists. The New Yorker seems to have included every single book they covered in any way throughout the year, big or small, and made that the criteria for “The Best Books of 2022”. Vulture picks 10. Time picks 100. Goop says f-it and picks 6. Amazon favors books that sell. Wired favors muted colors. The New York Public Library a delightful eclectic slate. The New York Times chops “best of” into a million pieces. And LitHub goes down the rabbit hole and complies a list of lists.
It's incredible how idiosyncratic these rankings are. Take the top pick from one and it won’t appear on another publication’s top 100. Every outlet is serving a different reader and each team of reviewers is following its own taste with rare consensus—if there is clustering, it’s mostly around already well-known, prestigious authors. That might not be surprising in a world where we have more entertainment options than time and are all cordoned off in our little media niches. However, a similar search for tv turns up about five or six predictable results from outlets as diverse as Esquire, Elle, and The Atlantic (The Bear, Barry, White Lotus, Severance, The Rehearsal—with a short list of other interchangeable selections). And film awards like the Oscars get down to dozens of films from thousands each year. At most, these lists actually serve as vehicles for visibility—the old axiom is that a reader needs to see a book in three different places before buying it—so the clickbait of “best” probably does its job sufficiently. As for an actual critical judgement of what is best, it’s difficult to imagine that is what these lists set out to seriously consider. It’s not like movies or television where reviewers can survey a good deal of what’s put out if they wanted to, even outlets as well-heeled as The New York Times haven’t closely considered even a fraction of the total books put out by major publishers or the many reputable independent publishers (alone the Big 4 published almost 100,000 titles). Instead, these lists should be taken more as: here are some books that were well done—the ones we actually read—and that we paid attention to because we thought our [magazine, website, library] readers would like them or find them noteworthy.
Book Democracy?
Is voting any better than journalism at determining the best books? At the end of each year, Goodreads—an Amazon-owned company—runs a popular reader’s choice awards. But democracy in a highly splintered marketplace turns into something closer to “the most read book of the year” award. It’s true with best-of-all-time lists as well, where To Kill a Mockingbird, is…always…#1. Not a surprising result when you consider the publisher sells almost a million copies of Harper Lee’s classic novel to schools each and every year, creating a rolling wave of voters for the past six decades. As a professional editor I’ve read maybe three books from any given finalist category on Goodreads, and if statistics are to be believed, that means the average reader is very much just picking the one book that they read this year or the most well-known author they like (Goodreads users skew much younger, so big authors with older audiences are at a disadvantage). There’s a bit of the Ancient Greek fear that democracy-descends-into-a-popularity-contest here, but you also generally can’t go wrong reading the books that win these polls. That is, after all, kind of what popularity means: a lot of people read the book all the way through and a good many of them really liked it. But if you’re looking for the book that will be incredibly great to you, go beyond the top-100 and definitely beyond the top-6 lists.
A Reckless Judgement after Reading Thirty Lists
Directly contradicting what I said above, I am going out on a limb to say that Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is definitively a great book, having not read a single word of it. This novel won the Goodreads award in its category (fiction) and was tied with two other books (Trust by Hernan Diaz and An Immense World by Ed Yong) for appearing on the most end-of-year lists. From what I’ve gathered—without reading the online copy or book jacket—the premise is that two video gamers fall in love in the 80s…? I love video games and played a lot as a kid, but that doesn’t strike me as the knockout commercial premise of the century, on paper, to garner such a massive readership and popularity. Therefore, if this book is topping reader and media lists consistently, a reasonable assumption is that its magic must be “in the read”, as publishers say. If a book has a killer high concept or sounds like a lot of fun, purchase and read with extreme caution. If the premise sounds kind of weird but a lot of people love it, run don’t walk to that book. Often when everyone reaches consensus of opinion they are blinded by groupthink in some way, but sometimes they are just right. Bob Marley resonates with billions of people because he’s really, really good, even if Reggae isn’t the most popular genre of music.
Always ready to put my hot takes to the test.
What to Read: Special 2023 Edition
Insiders Picks— A Few Books I’ve Had a Sneak Peek At
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor (Out this week!)
I read this when it was on submission to publishers and finished this monster of a manuscript within 48 hours and, still, I can’t wait to read it again in its final form. I think reviews will be tempted to compare it to the Godfather because it’s operatic in a mafia way, but to me the better mafia movie comparison is Goodfellas. My favorite piece of the novel is the rag-to-riches climb of Ajay and the temptation and danger of said vice in the title, which makes this book undeniably propulsive. It is also tremendous in its scope of India, showing it as a land of extraordinary growth and promise, alongside poverty and violence. If you think Scorsese movies are too upsetting: stay away; but this is the rare work of fiction you can recommend to all the dads in your life (women out-read men by 60%-40% when it comes to literature, some estimates of this imbalance are even higher).
The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins (August 15, 2023)
I edited this debut novel, and it’s simply awesome. It’s hopeful climate change fiction, the characters are unforgettable, and the future is immersive and well-imagined. The title refers to a near-future period of time when humanity comes together to save the world with herculean efforts to combat the effects of a warming climate. I’d recommend this to almost everyone who reads fiction (not something I’d say about every book, even the ones near and dear to me).
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo (August 1, 2023)
I read a piece of this novel and I’m dying to see the entire thing. It has a classic elevator pitch —a family, a wedding, a funeral, and a whole lot of family mishaps, romances, and funny moments in between. But following my rule of thumb—a better premise should equal more suspicion—this is all about execution and what I remember of the writing is pure, page-turning fun with a little magic and a cast of characters that truly jump off the page with energy.
Generations by Jean Twenge (April 25, 2023)
Since I started working on this book about two years ago, I haven’t stopped bothering people in my life with wild facts about GenZ, Millennials, and Boomers. Jean is the preeminent social scientist that studies generational differences, and you’ll never be able to look at the people in your life the same, especially your own generation and doubly the younger ones.
If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook (April 18, 2023)
A friend of mine wrote this book and it is just as funny and big-hearted as she is. If you love a multigenerational family story with a big cast of characters, or the awesome comedy/drama/rom-com movies they used to make in the 90s, you’ll be taken with the Williams family. It has the author’s wonderful Southern charm and wit, and is for any reader that wants to be fully entertained and literally laugh out loud; but there is no fluff here, and it’s also impossible not to shed a tear or two by the end.
Outsider Picks— Some Books I’m Looking Forward To
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
An author for weirdos and people that have read too many novels, Jen Beagin is a one-of-one, an exceptionally good writer whose worldview is on the fringe: strange, always surprising, funny, dark, weird, but also extremely tender and insightful. I recommend reading thirty pages of any of her books in the bookstore; you’ll either scratch your head and walk away or become hopelessly obsessed.
The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks
A man that doesn’t need the free publicity, but Hanks writing a sprawling book about the movie business, a multi-character, multi-timeline novel about the making of a superhero movie and the origin of its source material just sounds cool. Books about film can be hit or miss, but I’ve heard whispers that this one is great.
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
I will always defend my position as someone who was on the Colson Whitehead bandwagon before he won his two Pulitzer Prizes (a category that also includes Miami Heat basketball legend Dwayne Wade on draft night and Hozier before “Take Me to Church” took over the world briefly). About as smart a writer as they come, Whitehead has turned to lighter fare with these historical genre crime novels, and I’ll be first in line for his next one.
Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
Evicted is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read and, for a book of its type, one of the stylistically most daring. I cannot wait for this follow-up.
A Good Tweet
Back Matter: Links and Other Happenings
Ingenuity from The Atlantic putting together fun facts as a 2022 list, revealing the important information that Icee and Slurpee are the same thing?!. A Buzzfeed list with some flaming hot—I Am Legend???—bad takes about books adapted to films. Insight into James Patterson INC. Nepo babies react to the New York Magazine article that put them on front street (putting someone on front street is a peerless idiom). Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven, gives an interview for a very odd reason. Your favorite authors lay on the charm with tales of bad book signings in order to support a first-time author. The Guardian’s headline says it all about Greta Thunberg’s tweet.
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