In that spirit, I will list my favorites from this year and make some suggestions from other authors you might enjoy. Sort of like a “greatest hits” of my reading life, I have some titles I have just loved. And I will even add some at the end that I haven’t read yet, but that I suspect I will also enjoy because who couldn’t use a few more? My list cannot be exhaustive of course, but I hope it will serve as a solid starting point for those interested in getting more nonfiction into their reading lives. If that’s you, you’re in the right place for reading these in 2023 and beyond. Those are the titles I chose for my best nonfiction of 2022, but there are so many others I have not read yet. A few come to mind immediately like Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora and Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies. I also wrote a list of the best biographies of 2022 if that appeals. If you need more nonfiction generally, check out the best nonfiction out in October 2022 (with only two titles that overlap with my list above!) or new November nonfiction for more books to settle your cravings for the best nonfiction of 2022. Similarly, I would highly recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. There is also a young readers edition Caste (Adapted for Young Adults) for those who find that helpful. And of course this reminds me that I have yet to read Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Sons: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, so I offer that, too, as a suggestion for you and myself! It reminded me of the famous Buddhist parable of the mother grieving the death of her son. She goes to the Buddha and asks him to bring her son back to life. He promises to do so if she will bring him a mustard seed from the house of a family in which no one has ever died. The mother goes from home to home searching for a person who has never grieved the loss of a loved one. And of course, she returns with empty pockets and an understanding of the universality of loss. Perhaps she also returned with a deep understanding that though grief may feel isolating, it can be communal in its own way too. Gay’s work is that same kind of life-changing and thought-provoking, making it one of the best nonfiction books of 2022 without a doubt.
