10 Books at the Top of My TBR in 2022

This will be the third year in a row I’ve participated in Whitney’s Unread Shelf Project. The idea is to read the books you already own!

At the beginning of the year, you count all the books on your unread shelf and then see how successful you were at cleaning those shelves when the year is over. I’m starting the year with 185 (I do not include books on my Kindle because those books don’t really stress me out).

Whitney also has you make a list of 10 books you want to either read or get rid of before the year is over, so here are my books this year:

🖤Washington Black by Esi Edugyan – From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again–and asks the question, what is true freedom?

🌳Greenwood by Michael Christie – A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.

💍This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett – As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.

🐴Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese – Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.

📝Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First: 10 Questions to Take Your Friendship to the Next Level by Laura Tremaine – Part memoir and part guidebook, Share Your Stuff. I’ll Go First. is the invitation you’ve been waiting for to show up with your whole self and discover the intimate, meaningful friendships you long for.

💜Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa – A sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East.

❄️Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy – Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.

💛The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson – In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. 

🌅This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger – With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

🤎The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee – McGhee marshals economic and sociological research to paint a story of racism’s costs, but at the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy’s collateral victims: white people themselves.

What’s one book you’re looking forward to reading this year?