I read Elena Knows after you first recommended it earlier last year and it is absolutely my favourite book I read in 2022. I have recommended it to a few folk as well and everyone I know has loved it! Thank you for the video and the book ❤
My favorite books of 2022 were: The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga, The Rivals of Casper Road by Roan Parrish, Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Last Christmas in Paris by Hazal Gaynor and Heather Webb.
When I read Indelicacy, I finished it and immediately read it again..I especially love how much it sits out and in history/time/place. I am super excited to read Women Talking and Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love
I read Elena Knows and I really like it. It raised a lot of questions about convictions and that can block us from understand someone's experience. Tragic and realistic. Thanks Jen Campbell for the reviews share!
Best of the Year: Fiction: Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver Non-Fiction: Ancestor Trouble - Maude Newton Memoir/(Auto)Biography - Some New Kind of Kick - Kid Congo Powers Poetry: Come Kingdom - Derrick Harriell
Thank you so much for this video! I think I wrote down almost every one of these recommendations. You read such a variety of literature and it’s so refreshing- especially living in the US, I always here about the same books repeated. You definitely have the most diverse reading list and it’s refreshing!
This was great. So many people not just putting Elena Knows in their list, but putting it at the top of their list. I was surprised Maps didn't flat out win the Booker Prize. It was brilliant and thought provoking in so many different ways and I very rarely say that about books that are so emotionally gifted (normally being emotionally gifted is the joy).
There are so many books on your list this year I want to read, I’ve saved this video so I can go back and reference it. Thank you, Jen, for all your videos and care for your community. ❤
Have noted so many of these down for future reading. As always on your channel, I love the breadth and depth of books about disability included, as I don't see many others talking about books with those topics!
I've been wanting to read Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies ever since you first reviewed it! But I know I'll have to be in a good headspace for it. My top 5 favorites of the year were Writers & Lovers by Lily King; Stay True by Hua Hsu; Sorrow & Bliss by Meg Mason, Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser.
i've read two books that were split into different time periods, and it was really great: the errant hours, a great historical thriller-romance nobody seems to have heard of, split into hours like medieval england, and a 99p kindle book called 24 hours in ancient china, which is a) great and b) permanently 99p on kindle i think, do recommend
Also enjoyed creatures of passage. What willow says and night crawling are both on my tbr and I look forward to reading them soon 😊 Glad that Elena Knows stayed as your number one favourite pretty much all year!
I also ordered Elena Knows already last year because of your recommendation, and it got high up in my favourite reads of the year. It is crazy how many of these books I knew from your videos but completely surprised to see you read them only just last year. It seemed like it lasted three years at least :D but I will definitely, definitely buy a whole lot more books from your favourites, your recommendations are top notch ❤️
I just watched this video for the second time. I just liked to hear your book review of your best books of 2022 again to see if i am to pick some more (yes, cuz I have already ordered Still Missing and downloaded samples of a few more🙃).
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is one of my favs of the year too. I’m so excited to see what Maddie Mortimer does next. It reminded me a lot of one of my other favorites, Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson, at least in writing style. I’ve bumped Grief is the Thing with Feathers up my tbr since you’ve mentioned the connection to Maps and since it’s mentioned as a comp title in the description of Little Scratch.
One of my favorite reads of last year was Moominland Midwinter, which was inspired by you reading the Moomin books in November. Other, favorite grown up books include Monor Deail by Adania Shibli, Carbide by Andriy Lyubka, Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal girl by Andrea Lawlor, and a bunch of re-reads and a new book from two of my favorite authors that are sadly not available in English (so no point in recommending it here).
in terms of your video, it's got themes and repetitions just like your favourite books! blind/deaf-ness, mystery and repetition, japan-china-korea, strained holidays etc :)
I loved reading Elena Knows after your recommendation last year. I would never have picked it up!. I have now just made a must read list after this video. ❤
I’ve read none of your favourite books, but I’m gonna set that right quickly. I already bought Elena knows. But have a lot of new books added to my reading list.
The Need and Cold Enough for snow could easily have been in my top 15. I think I lost track of Au’s book and perhaps it should be on my list somewhere. Anyway, here’s my top 15 as it stands. Thanks for being such a champion of Elena Knows. I loved it. The Stranding - Kate Sawyer The Trees - Percival Everett Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier Nightcrawling - Leila Mottley Don’t Cry For Me - Daniel Black Elena Knows - Claudia Pineiro Cold Earth - Sarah Moss Foster - Claire Keegan The Twyford Code - Janice Hallett The Colony - Audrey Magee The Last Resort - Jan Carson Dear Little Corpses - Nicola Upson Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield Razorblade Tears - S A Cosby Lean Stand Fall - John McGregor
I definitely want to read Creatures of Passage, Maps of our Spectacular Bodies and Woman, Eating. Just added The Need and Elena Knows to my ever-expanding TBR. Some wonderful sounding books here, Jen ☺
Ahh woman eating was in my top ten too! (And I've read A LOT of vampire novels 😂) Siân xx (oh and I loved the Thomas Morris too when I read it a while back!)
I've read several of these on your recoammendation and I really enjoyed them - Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love and What Willow Says both made my fave books of the year list! I've added some of the others to my tbr too :) some of my other faves were In the end it was all about love by Musa Okwonga, Permafrost by Eva Baltasar, Severance by Ling Ma, Girl Parts by Eliza Clark, The Friday Gospels by Jenn Ashworth, Mr Loveman by Bernadine Evaristo and A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
Thank you for the great recommendations! I picked up "Elena Knows" and although it is objectively well-written, gripping and raises important issues, I would not recommend it to anyone who has a relative in need of care.
I agree; like with anything, you’ve got to weigh up your own experiences before diving in to something like that. I don’t think I would have been able to read Elena Knows if my grandpa were still alive (he had Parkinson’s too). x
the need was one of my favorites this year too, which i read bc of your rec! other favs include such a fun age, infinite country, and annihilation. also recently loooooved Gods of Want by K-ming Chang which i think you would really like as well 🥰
You def have me curious about some of these. My favourite book was The Appointment by Katharina Volckmer. It’s def not for everybody. It plays with revulsion, but the ideas it explores are so interesting. I love it.
Maps was my favourite book of the year. I just adored it so completely agree with you on that one. The scene when was Iris in bed sick and her and Lia are separated through the door… that bit just made me sob 😭 Great list, I have taken note so thank you 😉📚❤️
Done it again Jen 😀. Elena Knows was my top of 22. I have just ordered Still Missing and downloaded the audio of Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies. My tbr is pushing me out of my study. 😀👍🏻😍
My library system only has the first of your Franklin and Luna books, Franklin's Flying Bookshop, so I requested the next two via interlibrary loan, picked them up today, and opened Franklin and Luna Go to the Moon. I'm on the first page spread, and already in love with Katie Harnett's art and your words for this one: Luna loves stories. Stories make the world feel bright. She reads exciting adventures all night long, curled up with her tortoise, Neil Armstrong. 😍💖🥰🤗 Love everything about this! The structure. The imagery. Bright and night rhyme. SHE HAS A TORTOISE AND HIS NAME IS NEIL ARMSTRONG. 🤗🤗🤗 Edit: It's so good, and so is Franklin and Luna and the Book of Fairy Tales! Love how characters and items gained from previous books in the series show up , but one doesn't need to read the previous installments to understand and enjoy each book. 💖👍
Hi Jen 👋 Happy New Year. Thanks for this recommendations video. Have added most of these to my library request list. I think my favourite read of 2022 was The Observations by Jane Harris.
Best book of 2022? Hmm. Probably The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy. I can't remember if I read The Passenger / Stella Maris in 2022 or 2023, but brilliant.
Elena Knows had become one of my all time favourite reads and I ended up purchasing her entire backlist ( I do recall that you mentioned in another video, that you read another title that was a little disappointing but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will still be engaging)
I don't read crime stuff very often but Still Missing sounds ace. Read We Don't Know What We're Doing years ago and loved it, especially the Welsh settings. I remember the stag-do story being my least favourite and loving the realist elements of the collection the most too.
I read 95 books in 2022, but only a few were stand outs. Everything you ever wanted by Luiza Sauma and Severance by Ling Ma were my top two (both quite bleak :-) )
“What Willow Says” sounds amazing, adding it to my TBR! Listening to you talk about “Untold Night and Day”, was jarred by the phrase “theatre for the blind”. As a vision impaired person working in the disability/charity sector, I always find the phrase “the blind” (as opposed to “blind people”) super dehumanising and alienating. It gives me vibes of the way groups of monsters are described in fiction (“the undead” etc). But that may be just me!
That’s the phrase that’s used in the book, hence my using it here, but I agree it’s strange what some organisations cling to when it comes to language (even the RNIB).
The three books on this list that I’ve read - Elena Knows, Creatures of Passage, and Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies - were also some of my favorites of the year! And I 100% agree with “Justice for Creatures of Passage!” It should have at least made the shortlist.
She talks a lot about how her mum is Malay-British, her dad was Japanese, the importance of food heritage, discussions of colonialism etc, as well as people questioning her ethnicity, and anti-Asian behaviour (written during the beginning of the pandemic, when Asian hate crimes were so prevalent).
