This is my sixth year of formally tracking, reviewing and officially selecting the best books of the year. Year one (2017) I used the verbiage notable books, and I included ten books. Each year since I’ve gone with the straightforward best of, and have limited it to five books.
BUT–

I read so many unforgettable books this year I find it necessary to write a bit of a preamble—if you will—or an in memoriam to some truly special books that fell just short of the best of. I like to call them the OLI¹.

First up—Asimov’s Foundation. I read the original trilogy this year, and these books blew me away. They feel incredibly modern and immediate though they were written in the 1940’s and 50’s. Asimov’s language in Foundation became standard lexicon for the genre.² Foundation ages like a properly stored fine wine, shockingly so even. Nothing is hackneyed, nothing feels shticky or excessive. His subtlety and his restraint dazzles. Asimov makes exceptionally bold choices in these books, and he pulls them off brilliantly. It’s easy to see why he’s considered part of the Mt Rushmore of sci-fi writers.
The entire trilogy³ is maybe 600 pages, but the world Asimov creates is monumental. You won’t regret reading these.

Another sci-fi juggernaut that only narrowly fell short is Gene Wolfe. I read his Book of the New Sun series this year—it consists of four central books, and a fifth that acts as a sort of coda. Wolfe is a legend in the sci-fi world. He has a cult-like fandom. Devotees.

A common tenet of this community is you don’t read Gene Wolfe, you re–read Gene Wolfe. Some Wolfe zealots profess to only read Gene Wolfe. He acts as a rosetta stone for some of these fanatics.

I loved these books. I thought all five were great.

Wolfe delights in the obscure. At times its like reading a story with missing words on every page. The wiki page of obscure Gene Wolfe words is not only real—but a necessary reading companion throughout this series.
This was easily the most rigorous and demanding storytelling I read all year. At times the most rewarding, too. Though on the outside looking in on our inner sanctum of best of, these are next level books that deserve your attention.

That’s it for sci-fi.

Some years an author so dominates my reading year that the year becomes theirs completely. 2017 was the year of George Saunders. 2019 belonged to Ottessa Moshfegh.

There’s been close-calls and near misses. Rachel Kushner, Haruki Murakami, and Alice Munro have all nearly had their year.
Almost.

This year that almost proclamation goes to Graham Greene.
I read two of his books this year, and that was nearly enough to cement 2022 the year of Graham Greene.

Greene popped up on my radar for two reasons. One—he is a bookstagram darling⁴. And two– I read two William Goldman books this year. In one of them Goldman riffs of the capricious nature of awards and he snidely remarks that somehow Pearl Buck⁵ won a pulitzer but Graham Greene never did.
So I added both to my tbr⁶.

Greene’s two novels—The Heart of the Matter, and A Burnt-Out Case aren’t two of the best five books I read this year, but they are two of the best seven or eight. These are excellently crafted novels. At one point Greene was probably one of the best living writers, and it shows in these two books.

Another year one or both of these books would be locks for the best of honors. Just not this year.

I’ll finish the oli by quickly mentioning a few others.
Christopher Hitchens’ Letters to a Young Contrarian was fantastic. I felt myself turning from reader to acolyte while reading this book, and I predict that Hitchens will be to my 30’s what Kurt Vonnegut was in my 20’s.
I begrudgingly have to say something about Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Begrudging only because this book is getting plenty of attention right now without me.

I loved this book.

So much so that I pestered my wife to read it after me and she loved it too.⁷It’s the bookstagram darling of the year, and a soon-to-be Noam Baumbach Netflix movie.

Moving on.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold isn’t one of the ten best books I read this year. Closer to twenty than ten, even. But it did bring me to tears, something that’s happened maybe five times (ever). So worth mentioning.

That about does it for the OLI.

Four last things.

I did read the new George Saunders book, and I’m to happy to report Saunders remains in peak form.

I haven’t read the new Cormac McCarhy book(s).

I haven’t said anything about the insane 2666 by Roberto Bolano.
It’s insane. And the most subversive book I read all year—a year that included five Gene Wolfe books!

I did read Heat 2. Believe it or not it doesn’t crack my top ten, apologies to Michael Mann.

The inner sanctum awaits…

1. Outside looking in.
2. I go back and forth between sci-fi and speculative fiction. I know I’m not ready for spec-fi.
3. It should be noted that a fourth book was released in 1982, nearly 40 years after the first book. There are now closer to ten, and he eventually connected the i robot universe to that of the foundation. But Foundation enthusiasts generally seem lukewarm to all of this, and remain extremely protective of the original trilogy. I have the fourth book but have yet to read it.
4. I don’t know how this happens
5. A member of the inner sanctum this year, apologies to Goldman
6. To be read.
7. She had just finished reading Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. A truly unhappy book. Vonnegut called it perhaps the unhappiest book ever written. Something Happened and White Noise share something however–a certain ennui to modernity. Far be it from me to besmirch the late great Joseph Heller, but I see White Noise as a better version of Something Happened.