My Memorable, Relished, Beloved Books This Year
Why 'memorable & relished' rather than 'best'?
Because best is such an individual decision: best-written? Best-received? Best-advertised?
- As I went through my list of read and listened-to books this year, I used one overarching (okay, two) criteria: How well did I remember that book? There were titles I glanced at and then had to go to Goodreads to remember the story's details. Others, I looked at, and a flood of characters, situations, plots, and resolutions came pouring back.
Books earning memorable made the first cut.
- Okay, I remembered the book — but did I relish it? According to Merriam-Webster, to relish in something means: "enjoyment of or delight in something that satisfies one's tastes, inclinations, or desires."
Relished books are cherished stories.
Listed here are books I found memorable and relished in the reading. That feeling! Books that make you wriggle in delight at the thought of getting back to them — in paper and eBooks, pining to get to bed so you can read until you use your fingers to prop your eyes open. In the case of an audiobook, yearning to clean, cook, or iron, so you can listen, listen, and then listen some more.
Below are my most memorable, relished reads and listens of 2022. Some I found via reviews, some by hunting in stacks and bookshops, and some via friends (and some I stumbled upon!), but only some were published this year because …Books are evergreen.
And my most beloved are:
Read (paper & electronic)
Novels
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Memorable: Growing up with this boy (to man) surviving cascades of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Relished: Experiencing a part of the world (Appalachia) writ close, honestly, and lovingly.
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliot Dark
Memorable: A presentation of two older characters with neither sentiment nor pity, nor oh, getting older is nothing but tragedy!
Relished: The life-long friendship between women who walked disparate paths.
Bury What We Cannot Take: Kirsten Chen
Memorable: The world under Chairman Mao is seen through a child's eyes vs. the adults'.
Relished: The lengths one will go to survive.
Terra Nova by Henriette Lazaridis
Memorable: Learning so much while in the grips of a story about exploring the Antarctic, suffrage in London
Relished: Ice, cold, snow, Artic, Antarctic: I'm obsessed with these things.
Yellow Wife: A Novel by Sadeqa Johnson
Memorable: Being with a character of extraordinary strength and agency, surviving a slavery jail of which I was previously and shamefully unaware.
Relished: Being so closely inside the characters as the author brings us deep inside with a laser POV.
Memorable: The crushing horror of cultural/religious hatred turned lethal.
Relished: The deep, immersive experience of living inside this reluctant hero of honor.
The Truth and Other Hidden Things by Lea Geller
Memorable: SO much humor in this situation of a fish out of water in the Hudson Valley via NYC.
Relished: The revenge blog is going viral.
Memorable: This entirely new and frightening spin on a woman exploring the Arctic Circle, trying to save a child.
Relished: The intricate and close-up descriptions of surviving the landscape; the cherry on the sundae of including self-medication.
Memoirs
Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Zelda Lockheart
Memorable: Oh, man — everything. A poor Black girl growing up during segregation becomes a worldwide jewel thief — and it's a memoir.
Relished: How people will believe what they think is the truth based on the decorations we wear.
Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon by Kelley Benham French, Thomas French
Memorable: the true gripping story (this is a memoir) of parents in the NICU with their baby, born at 1 pound 4 ounces.
Relished: The story's truth as told in sections by each parent — and how becoming a parent flips you in a day.
Listened:
Memoirs
Memorable: Davis' searing childhood is leavened by miracles of love.
Relished: The revelatory story of her climb being read in her inimitable voice.
Coming Clean by Kimberly Ray Miller
Memorable: Growing up with severely hoarder parents — having to hide her home and bury her anger.
Relished: Miller's ability to feel her love for her parents and take agency in her life.
Apparently There Were Complaints: A Memoir by: Sharon Gless
Memorable: Gless is honest and tells stories that glued me to my tasks.
Relished: No. Holds. Barred.
Nonfiction
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by: Patrick Radden Keefe
Memorable: Greed: individual, corporate, family — the horror of it all.
Relished: The details and sweep of the story allowed forest and trees to come to the forefront.
Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy By: Anne Sebba
Memorable: All the sadness of this case and how many wrong, wrong decisions were made by the government
Relished: Ethel Rosenberg never stopped working at mothering her sons — and the friendships she made in prison.
Novel
The Body Reader: Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries, Book 1 by Anne Frasier
Memorable: Jeez, the story of a woman overcoming being imprisoned by a madman.
Relished: Clawing her way back as a detective and a woman—her strength.
