My favorite books from 2022

XX by Ryan Hughes

This is one of the last books I started in 2022, and it’s the only hardcover book I’ve read this year (I use Libby liberally).

XX is a contemporary sci-fi mystery; the premise is that a mysterious radio signal is detected in space and the race to interpret the message uncovers a hidden network of alien life. The most unique aspect of the book (and the reason I bought the hardcover edition) is that design and typography are used to enhance the story… as well as the stories within the story.

In addition to expressive typography, XX incorporates unique elements like redacted NASA reports, a sci-fi serial, and transcripts. I’m about halfway through this book, but based on what I’ve read so far, it’s easily in my top five.

Bookshelf: XX

The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

The biography of Alexander von Humboldt, a 19th-century explorer and naturalist who’s credited with coining the term ‘ecosystem’, and who inspired Darwin, Muir, Thoreau, and many, many others.

This was one of those books that caused me to notice his influence in other books, movies, and series (officially, that’s called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon). ALSO, it reminded me of the great span, or the unexpected intersection of human lifetimes.

Bookshelf: The Invention of Nature

The Overstory by Richard Powers

A story about the interconnectedness of all living things, told through the stories of nine people whose lives are affected by trees. That broad summary doesn’t do it justice, so I’ll borrow the official description:

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of – and paean to – the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours – vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Bookshelf: The Overstory

Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

A fun, fast-paced sci-fi book that will surely be turned into a series or movie . Set in modern (early pandemic) times, a laid off tech worker takes a mysterious job that takes him to a parallel world dominated by strange, enormous creatures… and people attempting to exploit them.

Bookshelf: Kaiju Preservation Society

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

This was the first book I read last year. It’s a fictional-ish account of how the world might grapple with the effects of catastrophic climate change. I say fictional-ish, because the opening story – a deadly heatwave that kills millions – feels like it could be ripped from the near-future headlines. The story follows the actions of the Ministry for the Future, a global body tasked with finding solutions to the crisis and working to prevent further damage while it contends with political and corporate interests who stand in the way of progress. See? Fictional-ish.

Bookshelf: The Ministry for the Future

— 👋 Kyle