Best Reads of 2022
ARCADIA’S TOP READS
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solá
In the year where Spain has returned to the rural (with the Berlinale Golden Bear winning film Alcarrás and the awaited, box-office success As Bestas among others) this 2019 book fits snuggly into this vein, with a lyricism and poeticness proper to the subject. Solá takes it upon herself to inhibit mountains, ghouls, deer and a wide range of people, weaving a complex web of relations in this unforgettable book.
Shame Space by Martine Syms
This book sent me into a depression spiral BUT isn’t the power of literature amazing?
Ada, or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
A mother of a newborn thinks she’s turning into a dog. Hooked from the premise.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
If I had to pick this would probably be my top read of the year.
Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic
A Door Behind a Door by Yelena Moskovich
Amazing. Moskovich’s writing is incredibly dream-like yet so capable of evoking visceral images. Her use of symbols, the sea and water, the knife and the steel from the necklace are impeccable in weaving a loop-like structure around all the characters, intertwining fates and struggles. The book is tender and at the same time incredibly brutal, mixing murder and desire, in a symbolic journey from Soviet Union to America and queer desire and faith. Death is an in-between place, it is America, it is a body, it has a shape. Very powerful writing.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
I’m Very Into You by Kathy Acker and Mckenzie Wark
PIERCE
King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
This is probably my top read of the year, the ending is killer. Currently searching for people to gush about this with.
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
Again, always, my annual re-read. Mmm.
My Dead Book by Nate Lippens
Great Expectations by Kathy Acker
Nina Simone’s Gum by Warren Ellis
This is an essential read, maybe I say that too much, but the idea of Warren Ellis holding onto Dr Nina Simone’s gum for 20 years, archiving and preserving a piece of her, is pretty unreal. The story transcends.
I’m Open to Anything by William E. Jones
Permafrost by Eva Baltasar
Stalking Wild Psoas by Liz Koch
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Nothing But My Body by Tilly Lawless
Milk: On Motherhood and Madness by Alice Kinsella (Picador upcoming)
First of all, I think Alice Kinsella is phenomenal. This is the first time I’ve ever read her work and I think it’s a masterpiece. I also don’t know if anything has ever been written like this before, at least I haven’t experienced something in this form that weaves across a pregnancy timescale; each chapter numbered along the term of pregnancy both prior to finding she is pregnant, during her term, and archiving the weeks following the babies birth. In this way, we’re asked to be malleable with narrative, teleporting across times where Alice–in her life–felt questions of womanhood, femininity, desire, consent, depression, and fear constrictive, reductive or welcoming. It’s an interesting way to capture moments in time where thoughts have been percolating for years, we get to feel the distance between them, to feel the pandemic shift and alter perspective, to sense the change of how being a mother now tethers Alice to the world with new ‘rules’ and ‘responsibilities’. It feels like an essential read and an impressive first novel from a poet.
The Way Blood Travels by Oliver Slate-Greene
It’s been a while since I read something that didn’t come with a whole heap of turbulence. This was gentle from the beginning, easing me into a narrative that was simple and generous with its poetics. Following the life of Will, who takes on this name later in their/his life during transition, we’re set as readers into a mirage of life's more benign moments and experiences as a complicated gender study transpires in a form that is un-sensationalised, radically honest, and piercingly common. Most of the book feels like we’re on the road with Will and their beloved Mustang, but leafing back through to find those–what I’m calling– in-between moments, I’m struck that they’re always reflected upon as memories. Most of the book felt like I was in the car beside Will, and looking back it feels right in saying that so often when we take on large stretches of road by car, we tend to get lost in contemplation on our past, present and future lives; where the destination ahead holds all potential and hope to embolden our ability to transform.
CAITLIN
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
I nearly put this down in the first half, however I’m so glad I didn’t because, as the second half becomes ever more devastating, you start to realise the function that the first half serves – to question our online lives and what they mean when faced with a real life tragedy. It made me really laugh and then really cry.
Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner
We Move by Gurnaik Johal
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Years by Annie Ernaux
Afterglow (A Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles
I still think about the Puppets’ Talk Show chapter in this book frequently, where Eileen’s (recently deceased) dog appears as a guest, so strange, funny, and oddly, deeply moving. Find a poem by Eileen Myles in Worms for Luncheon, our collab with Luncheon magazine.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
This book is so special in its unsettling strangeness.
I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel
Sheena Patel is the Worms 6 cover star, which you can pre-order here.
VIOLET
Which as You Know Means Violence by Philippa Snow
Rachel Tashjian once said that Philippa Snow is a writer’s writer, and it’s true. Which as You Know Means Violence – like Maggie Nelson’s On Cruelty – is all about pain and art, and Snow writes about the work of Harmony Korine, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Burden, Marina Abramović and more so insightfully and sharply. This is a great book to read while commuting because it’s short and succinct.
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
I preferred this to The Year of Magical Thinking – people talk about Didion’s razor sharp prose, and here I was blown away by it. The book almost unfolds like a play with different acts and goes back and forth in time, with Didion recalling parts of her daughter Quintana’s life as she gets progressively more sick. It’s not a spoiler to say that Quintana eventually dies – this is known as Didion’s second grief book – but it made me think about the ethics of revealing things about people’s lives in writing, and how Didion could only be so honest about her daughter’s character once she was dead.
Sontag: Her Life by Benjamin Moser
It makes sense this book won a Pulitzer! Wow.. Often biographies can read like an extended Wikipedia entry, but this is the opposite – it’s about Sontag’s life but also covers everything that was going on around her, like culture and politics in New York. Even though Moser paints Susan at times as a cruel egomaniac, she had a completely fascinating life. My favourite chapter is about the photographer Annie Leibovitz (Sontag’s girlfriend), which talks about how she would do absolutely anything to get the perfect shot of her subjects – like have sex with them – but as soon as she captured the shot, Annie would disappear (like an intimacy vampire).
The Trayvon Generation by Elizabeth Alexander
I got this book in New York this summer – I haven’t seen it in any UK bookshops – because of the striking cover, which is Blue Black Boy by Carrie Mae Weems (1997). This short book is about Blackness and race in America, and features some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read on art and culture in a long time. It covers everything from Kendrick Lamar to Khalil Joseph, and was excerpted in The New Yorker in 2020 here.
Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu
A charming, nostalgic memoir about art, culture, friendship and identity from New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu.
Happening by Annie Ernaux
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
I’ve got no adequate words to describe the beauty of this book.. It makes sense Ocean was Ben Lerner’s student (another fave).
Motherhood by Sheila Heti
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
I love college novels, and this follow up to The Idiot was delicious and introspective. Read my colleague Dominique Sisley’s amazing interview with Elif on AnOther here.
CLEM
I’m feeling incredibly virtuous because for the first time, I met my Goodreads reading goal this year. I actually surpassed it by one. That’s 55 bookies (humble brag) (you’ve probably all read more than me anyway.) It’s always hard to whittle it down to ten, but here’s a sore attempt. Not in any particular order.
All About Love by bell hooks - this was just so beaut. I read this fresh from a break-up, thinking it would offer some cathartic tears, but it actually did the opposite. I took a lot more self-love from this book than I had expected. hooks is such a fluid, accessible read.
King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes - I’d seen the opening lines of this book on Instagram before, “I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the hysterics, the freaks, all those excluded from the great meat market of female flesh” but only indulged in it after quite a fiction-heavy month. As a blanket description, the book is about gender and sexuality. It’s really about existing outside of the male-written brief of what it takes to be considered a good female, but also the risks that that entails. Quite a difficult (emotionally, not technically) read, but powerful description of the porn industry, sex work and sexual assault.
Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris - blew my mind. Described as an ‘antebellum fever dream’ which feels appropriate.
Shame Space by Martine Syms - Martine has managed to get our generations ‘therapy talk’ down to a t. Turns out this wasn’t actually meant to be a book, but came from Martine’s actual journal pages, which doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s so authentic, hilarious, touching, deep, relatable. Highly recommend. Might read this one again.
Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel - scary! Never took myself as someone that would be into a murder mystery. Calla also manages to capture a very specific moment in time. Myspace and The Cobra Snake. Great narrative.
The Boiled in Between by Helen Marten - mad but in the best way. Philosophical and clever to the next level. I’ll dip in and out of this one for a while. Pockets of wisdom, for sure.
Just Us by Claudia Rankine - ‘As everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand, how best might we approach one another? Claudia Rankine, without telling us what to do, urges us to begin the discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and stuck moment in American history.’ As a white woman, this book made me question my position in the false comfort of public spaces. It's hard to write about these kinds of books without waving some kind of virtuous flag, so I'll keep it short and leave you to read the book yourself. Rankine is not afraid to oust the white people in the room for their positions of systemic power and as a reader this is almost like a bit of a cheat sheet. She doesn't leave anything for the imagination, instructing us exactly what it is, our tiniest actions, interactions or comments, that put us in the position of the oppressor. I'm not talking about touching someone's hair, I'm talking about the subtlest of beliefs that we harbour subconsciously that affect our everyday actions. Actions that we would never have to question if we didn't educate ourselves. Actions that don't affect us, that don't compromise our comfort or put us down, but which so clearly do this to people of colour. Rankine uses personal experiences as case studies, to show examples of blatant racism to run alongside these more nuanced situations.
Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk - somehow Elvia manages to make writing about the climate crises incredibly gripping. Not another dread-filled climate book. She describes it as ‘fan non-fiction’ like ‘fan fiction.’ The references are impeccable - Sontag, Mark Fisher, Chris Kraus, Simone Weil, etc.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis - Learnt more in this than anything I’ve read in recent years. A tough read (emotionally, not necessarily intellectually) but highly accessible nonetheless. This is an imperative one.
Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux - I feel like books like these are hard to come by these days. Everything seems much more self-aware. Annie really revels in her obsession for this man, and I really admire that. In a story like this I would expect the main character to be so anxious about appearing ill, that they probably wouldn’t admit to things like travelling to Denmark to send a man a postcard. The story itself reminded me a lot of I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - although this isn’t masked as fiction. Although it reads like it. Big fat 5 stars and only takes a couple of hours to read
