> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Best Books of 2022 - URL: https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2022/12/31/the-best-books-of-2022/ - Published: 2022-12-31T13:12:00.000Z - Updated: 2023-12-26T16:44:40.000Z - Description: The best fiction, best general non-fiction, best biography, philosophy and history books, best graphic novels, the best art and photography books and the most disappointing books that I read this past year. - Author: Ivar Hagendoorn - Tags: Blog, Literature, Non-Fiction, Design It's that time of the year again. As in previous years I bought more books than I can read, which means that the piles of unread books are growing ever larger. I actually see it as a sign of my curiosity and my yearning for knowledge and novelty. I already added some titles from [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/books/best-books-2022.html?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) and [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/booksof2022?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com) year end lists to my list of books to read in 2023. ### The Best of the Best Philippe Descola: Les Formes du visible Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith: Van Gogh. The Life Hervé le Tellier: L’Anomalie Patricia Lockwood: No One Is Talking About This ### Best Fiction Hervé le Tellier: L’Anomalie Patricia Lockwood: No One Is Talking About This Mircea Cartarescu: Solenoid Fernando Pessoa: Kroniek van een leven dat voorbij gaat Mohamed Mbougar Sarr: La plus secrète mémoire des hommes Benjamin Labatut: When We Cease to Understand the World Claire-Louise Bennett: Checkout 19 I greatly enjoyed *Anomaly* by Hervé le Tellier. With perfect logic he traces the consequences of an absurd assumption in a variety of literary styles. *No One Is Talking About This* is what I would call a totally contemporary novel in its linguistic style. It’s also quite moving. *Kroniek van een leven dat voorbij gaat* ("Chronicle of a life that passes by") is apparently the first selection of fragments from Pessoa’s archive to appear in translation. It’s as good as *The Book of Disquiet*. *La plus secrète mémoire des hommes* by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is reminiscent of *The Savage Detectives* by Roberto Bolaño, from which the title is borrowed, but it's an excellent novel in its own right and a deserving winner of the Prix Goncourt 2021\. Finally, *Solenoid* by Mircea Cartarescu is a 900-page surreal hallucinatory stream of consciousness that you either love or hate. It’s one of those novels without a middle ground. I haven’t finished *Jahrestage* by Uwe Johnson yet, so I’ll include it in next year’s list, provided that I manage to finish it. It's fabulous though and I've already added it to my list of the best books I've ever read. ### Best Non-Fiction Catherine Belton: Putin’s People. How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West Lea Ypi: Free. Coming of Age at the End of History I hesitated to read a book about Putin, but I’m glad I did, because now I have a better understanding of the past twenty or so years of contemporary history. I recommend reading it alongside *Le mage du Kremlin* by Giuliano da Empoli. *Free* by Lea Ypi is a wonderful and moving read. It’s interesting to read what it was like to live through events that I only knew from the news. ### Best Biography Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith: Van Gogh. The Life Ananyo Bhattacharya: The Man from the Future. The Visionary Life of John von Neumann [*Van Gogh. The Life*](https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2022/05/22/steven-naifeh-and-gregory-white-smith-van-gogh-the-life/) is a marvellous biography of Vincent van Gogh. Why did I only read this now? Turns out there’s so much about Van Gogh that I didn’t know. And why is the best Van Gogh biography written by two American scholars? I’m always a bit skeptical of books that claim that this or that person was the brightest mind of the 18th, 19th or 20th century. Perhaps that person was just lucky to make it through childhood, had relatively well-to-do parents, got a good education and worked at a time when a single person could still make a big difference in multiple areas of inquiry. Having said that *The Man from the Future* is a great biography. ### Best Philosophy and Anthropology Philippe Descola: Les Formes du visible Jacques Rancière: le fil perdu Jacques Rancière: Le destin des images *Les Formes du visible* by Philippe Descola is probably one of the most mind-opening if not mind-bending books I’ve read this year. It’s also one of the most difficult and not just because Descola uses an extensive vocabulary which had me reach for my French dictionary on every other page. It’s a challenge to REALLY understand the worldview of radically different cultures. ### Best History David Graeber and David Wengrow: The Dawn of Everything. A New History of Humanity I am a bit skeptical of the historical veracity of the story of Lahontan and Kandiaronk and the importance Graeber and Wengrow lend to it, but apart from that I found *The Dawn of Everything* a real eye-opener. I now plan to read *The Journey of Humanity* by Oded Galor and *The Creation of Inequality* by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus for an alternative view. ### Best Graphic Novel Simon Stålenhag: The Electric State Simon Stålenhag: Things from the Flood By accident I discovered the amazing work of [Simon Stålenhag](https://www.simonstalenhag.se/?ref=ivarhagendoorn.com). I love his drawings. ### Best Art, Design & Photography Ed Fella: A Life in Images Laurence Bertrand Dorléac: Les choses. Une histoire de la nature morte *A Life in Images* is a superb overview of the life and work of legendary graphic designer Ed Fella. It was actually funded via a Kickstarter campaign. If you can’t make it to the [exhibition](https://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2022/11/06/les-choses-une-histoire-de-la-nature-morte/) at the Louvre the catalogue of Les Choses is well worth buying, browsing and reading. ### Most Disappointing I had been looking forward to read *Finding the Mother Tree* by Suzanne Simard, whose research was part of the inspiration for Peter Wohlleben's *The Hidden Life of Trees* and *Ice Rivers* by Jemma Wadham, a popular science book about glaciology, but both are light on science and heavy on human interest. I’m afraid that this is because publishers believe that this is what people want to read. They're still good books, but they could have been so much better.