I had a rather shitty reading year in 2022, thanks, of course, to Vladimir Putin. I only hit my 100-book Goodreads target out of spite, refusing to give Vlad the Small the satisfaction of ruining my challenge. So I went ahead and finished 32 books in December (most of them in the last 10 days of the month), including four volumes of One Piece*, which absolutely count, thank you very much.

Frankly, my reading year was all over the place. As I work in energy policy, the workload reached levels that even I found hard to sustain – despite a well-developed workaholic streak and a tendency to be proud of my ability to deliver without sleep or sustenance**.  After the war started, I found it difficult to read anything at all for months. I still haven’t fully recovered my taste for contemporary literary fiction that often just seems meaningless when there’s a war going on.

All this explains why I only have one ‘best of’ list this year – I simply didn’t read enough stuff that I connected with strongly and feel confident in recommending. This is not to say that the books that I read were bad and I will be mentioning quite a few bonus ones below, in addition to the nine ‘official’ picks.

The Gates of Europe, by Serhii Plokhy. This well-written and deeply thought book about Ukrainian history is the most important book I read last year. I feel that we all have a duty to learn more about Ukraine and The Gates of Europe goes a long way to address any gaps one may have in the basic understanding of the Ukrainian story. It is not a super easy read, as it has to distil a lot into less than 400 pages and much of it is not fun to read about to begin with. But Plokhy does most of the work for us, so we should be grateful and just read it. What really struck me it is that while every country has a complex history, if you go into enough detail, Ukraine has more complexity than most. Being divided geographically, religiously and ideologically throughout its history creates a matrix where these elements combine in different configurations. This is challenging, but also fascinating to keep track of. As a bonus, you could read this together with Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Message from Ukraine, a small volume offering a selection of his speeches – it’s a moving read that includes some pre-war entries that I found really interesting.

The Road to Unfreedom, by Timothy Snyder. I read this book when it came out in 2018 and reread it now, after Russia invaded Ukraine. It is an analysis of Russia turning into a fascist state and spreading its influence outside its borders – including into Ukraine (the least successfully), the US and the UK. The most interesting chapters focus on Russia and Ukraine and are rather difficult to read knowing what we know now. Snyder is not universally loved in the Western academic circles and he has been accused on overstating the case for Ivan Ilyin being a fascist, for Ilyn’s influence on Putin and for Putin’s influence on Brexit and Trump’s election. I wonder if his critics still believe what they wrote in 2018.

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. This was certainly the most ambitious history book I read this year and while I finished other interesting ones (Persians by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Nomads by Anthony Sattin, The Horde by Marie Favereau, A Brief History of Indonesia by Tim Hannigan), they tend to be more niche. The Dawn of Everything, as you may guess from the title, does not do niche. It looks at the entire course of history, in particular early history, and questions our conventional understanding of it. I am not qualified to assess whether they are right or wrong, but many of the things they question absolutely need to be questioned. I especially enjoyed their very determined (pun intended) attack on historical determinism and their firm belief that different ways of structuring a society are possible. I didn’t mind the credit given to women and to non-Western societies either – there is an especially delightful bit where the authors respond to the criticisms towards Marija Gimbutas. If you like meta history in the vein of Harari, I recommend that you pick this up: you do not have to agree with Harari to do so, as the Davids do not like him much. I know the book is almost 700 hundred pages, but I found it a relatively accessible and definitely engaging read.

Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich. Staying in the historical territory, if you are interested in genetics and population genetics in particular, Reich’s book is required reading. But you better read it quick, as the field is moving fast: Reich is the best there is in this area of research (with Svante Pääbo), but even his understanding of things is bound to be somewhat out of date by now. This book is particularly thrilling if you – like me – find very early history fascinating. What we can know about who we are and where we came from is limited by the distance in time, but genetics can tell us a lot, and we have barely scratched the surface, especially outside of Europe. I do not fully agree with Reich when it comes to assessing the risks related to studying population genetics and the constant temptation to find differences between groups. But this does not take away from the book and I enjoyed it immensely. It is a serious read, though, so if you are a beginner, start with Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived (also available in Estonian).

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. Moving over to fiction, this is referred to as a historical novel, but I have always find it weird that something that talks about events 40 years ago is labelled like this. Anyway, it’s the 80s, it’s Ireland, things are tough and ordinary people need to make difficult choices. This is a small but perfectly formed book that examines some of the less glorious aspects of Irish history. It is literature in the old-fashioned sense: considered, nuanced, well-observed, with a message and morals. One could argue it comes close to being sentimental – and perhaps it does, which also makes it a great Christmas read (I prefer it to A Christmas Carol). I enjoyed Keegan’s Foster a lot, too.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (translated by Adrian Nathan West). This is pretty much the opposite of Keegan – pretentious, convoluted, experimental, male-centric, about big things. What these two books share is a historical perspective and being very good. Labatut looks at the dark side of genius, what it means to understand things most people don’t and the consequences of this understanding, the destructive potential of science. It starts almost as a documentary and becomes progressively less factual. The absence and underdevelopment of female characters bothered me and while you could say it’s a critique of ‘genius’, it also reproduces the same concept. Still, it is a powerful novel that I read almost in one sitting. I also dicovered, with a pleasant surprise, that it is available in Estonian – as is Small Things Like These. 

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel. I am yet to read Station Eleven (I’m definitely planning to), but I really liked The Glass Hotel and enjoyed Sea of Tranquility even more. I am a fan of Mandel’s voice and the way different POVs come together in this one is really well done. The ending is satisfying in a loopy/paradoxical way that is often the case in a certain type of science fiction (trying not to spoil anything here). While it’s definitely SF, I can see non-genre readers enjoying this one, too. If you liked The Glass Hotel, I recommend trying it, especially as there is a connection between the two books. I read less SF this year than I usually do and from the rest, Tchaikovsky’s Shards of Earth was my favourite.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. This fantasy novel about an orc mercenary who wants to retire and start a coffee shop is the nicest thing I read in 2022. The blurb says it’s ‘high fantasy with low stakes’ and that’s exactly what it is. Cozy, heartwarming and wholesome. If you are in need of a comfort read – and who isn’t these days – look no further. Similarly nice, but with a stronger romance angle, was The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher is darker, but like the previous books has a strong found family element and is just a great read overall. I will try to do a separate roundup of SFF novellas soon, as the golden age on this front continues and I read quite a few in 2022. Let me just mention that Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo was probably my favourite of the bunch.

If Not, Winter by Sappho (translated by Anne Carson). I loved Sappho already when I read her poems in the Penguin’s little black book. Now that I have read every word by her that has survived – and sometimes it literally is a word or two of a poem that remains – in Anne Carson’s translation, I am a proper fangirl. This is pure magic and I cannot even describe why or how. Perhaps I am inventing some of that greatness in my head, based on the scraps that are left to us. Then again, isn’t that the case with all poetry, with all literature? Nothing is great in itself, only reading makes it so. If you haven’t yet, you should read this and if you read Estonian, you should also read Berit Kaschan’s Täna piisab vähesest, which is my other favourite poetry collection from last year.

I want to read more in depth next year and document it more, although this may not be realistic during the first months of the year – I have a very exciting project that I cannot tell you about that will be eating up my reading time. That said, I am more excited for reading than I was most of 2022 and if nothing else, will be making long, elaborate lists of everything I SHOULD read.

As always, please feel very free to share your favourite books of 2022 below and have a very happy and bookish new year!

*In case you are not au fait with the new classics, it is an extremely popular and (at least so far) pretty silly Japanese manga about a boy who can stretch like rubber and wants to become the king of pirates. I have 100 volumes to go.

**I’m working on being less proud of it.