Our 2023 survey results are in! And along with our readers’ favorite books of the year, we have a list of the most-read titles specifically from Reading Group Choices 2022.
Has your group read all of these terrific books yet?
1. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.
2. The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
“Just like a story written by Austen herself, Jenner’s first novel is brimming with charming moments, endearing characters, and nuanced relationships…Readers won’t need previous knowledge of Austen and her novels to enjoy this tale’s slow revealing of secrets that build to a satisfying and dramatic ending.” —Booklist (starred review)
3. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong.
4. Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s powerbrokers. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream.
5. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
6. The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abé
In 1910, Jack Astor was one of the richest men in the world. Madeleine Force was a beautiful teenaged debutante suddenly thrust into fame simply for falling in love with a famous man nearly three decades her senior. From their scandalous courtship to their catastrophic honeymoon aboard the Titanic, their love story is brought to life.
7. Remember by Lisa Genova
“Genova’s plentiful anecdotes from her personal and professional lives make it easy for readers to relate, and her obvious expertise in memory and the brain results in a book that is more insightful than many others on the subject. Sharp writing and accessible storytelling make for a compelling read.”—Kirkus Reviews
8. The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore
For Mirielle West, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her glamorous life in Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease.
9. The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
Where the Crawdads Sing meets The Four Winds as award-winning author Donna Everhart immerses readers in a unique setting – a turpentine camp buried deep in the vast pine forests of Georgia during the Great Depression—for a captivating story of friendship, survival, and three vagabonds’ intersecting lives…
10. The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina
When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward. Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief.
11. This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
“[Winspear] draws distinctive portraits of postwar England, altogether different from the U.S., where she has since settled, and her unsettling struggles within the rigid British class system. An engaging childhood memoir and a deeply affectionate tribute to the author’s parents.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
12. The War Nurse by Tracey Enerson Wood
“[An] impeccably researched, well-drawn, based-on-a-true-story tale, written by a former RN…The War Nurse shines an important light on a woman whose story was, until now, lost to time.”―Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names
13. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street—a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.
14. Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
“Kaitlyn Greenidge’s historical fiction unites the African diaspora. Libertie is a feat of monumental thematic imagination . . . Greenidge both mines history and transcends time, centering her post-Civil-War New York story around an enduring quest for freedom . . . The sheer force of Greenidge’s vision for [Libertie], for us all, gives us hope that it won’t be long now.”—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, The New York Times Book Review
15. Three Sisters by Heather Morris
Against all odds, three Slovakian sisters have survived years of imprisonment in the most notorious death camp in Nazi Germany: Auschwitz. Due to a last minute stroke of luck, the three of them are able to escape formation and hide in the woods for days before being rescued. Inspired by a true story, The Three Sisters will hold a place in readers’ hearts and minds as they experience what true courage really is.
16. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
“Bursting with fury, loneliness, and vulgarity, Yoder’s narrative revels in its deconstruction of the social script women and mothers are taught to follow…An electric work by an ingenious new voice.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
17. The Spanish Daughter by Lorena Hughes
Set against the lush backdrop of early twentieth century Ecuador and inspired by the real-life history of the coastal town known as the birthplace of cacao, this captivating #OwnVoices novel from the award-winning author of The Sisters of Alameda Street tells the story of a resourceful young chocolatier who must impersonate a man in order to survive…
18. All the Little Hopes by Leah Weiss
“Like all great southern writers, Leah Weiss’s magic turns the local into the universal. I love this coming-of-age novel – its portrayal of friendship, the complications of family, the threats that outsiders can bring. Lucy Brown and Allie Bert Tucker will break your heart, but Leah Weiss’s beautiful writing will sew it back together again.” – Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind than Home
19. This is Happiness by Niall Williams
Niall Williams’ latest novel is an intricately observed portrait of a community, its idiosyncrasies and its traditions, its paradoxes and its inanities, its failures and its triumphs. Luminous and otherworldly, and yet anchored with deep-running roots into the earthy and the everyday, This Is Happiness is about stories as the very stuff of life: the ways they make the texture and matter of our world, and the ways they write and rewrite us.
20. The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin
For centuries, witches have maintained the climate, their power from the sun peaking in the season of their birth. But now their control is faltering as the atmosphere becomes more erratic. All hope lies with Clara, an Everwitch whose rare magic is tied to every season.
Looking for more great reads from 2022? Don’t miss our most popular books from each month last year, and browse all of the themed reading lists on our blog!