On this episode of Shelf Care: The Podcast, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! That’s right, it’s Editors’ Choice time, when we here at Booklist pick the best of the best for 2022. As in years past, Booklist editors picked some standouts from the list to shout out in this Very Special Episode of Shelf Care, and here’s what we talked about:
Donna Seaman, Editor, Adult Books:
The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka (Top of the List Adult Fiction)
Africa is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent, by Dipo Faloyin (Top of the List Adult Nonfiction)
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton, art by the author (Top of the List Adult Graphic Novel)
Booklist Reader
Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern, by Neil Baldwin
Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, by Aidan Levy
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Liberation Day, by George Saunders
Out There, by Kate Folk
How to Read Now, by Elaine Castillo
Sarah Hunter, Editor, Books for Youth:
Farmhouse, by Sophie Blackall, illus. by the author
Maya’s Song, by Renée Watson, illus. by Bryan Collier
Our Crooked Hearts, by Melissa Albert
My Aunt is a Monster, by Reimena Yee, art by the author (Top of the List Youth Graphic Novel)
Squire, by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh, art by Sara Alfageeh
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton, art by the author
Heather Booth, Editor, Audio:
Listening Still, by Anne Griffin, read by Nicola Coughlan (Top of the List Adult Audio)
Journal of a Traveling Girl, by Nadine Neema, read by the author (Top of the List Audio for Youth)
The Babysitter Lives, by Stephen Graham Jones, read by Isabella Star LaBlanc
Inside Voice: My Obsession with How We Sound, by Lake Bell, read by the author and a full cast
Thank You for Listening, by Julia Whelan, read by the author
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, by Janelle Monáe, read by Janelle Monáe and Bahni Turpin
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries, by Agatha Christie and others, read by a full cast
Love & Saffron, by Kim Fay, read by a full cast
Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew, by Michael W. Twitty, read by the author
Tell Me Everything, by Erica Krouse, read by Gabra Zackman
I Must Betray You, by Ruta Sepetys, read by Edoardo Ballerini and Ruta Sepetys
Coming Up Cuban: Rising Past Castro’s Shadow, by Sonia Manzano, read by a full cast
Hilo: Books 1—3, by Judd Winick, read by a full cast
Demon in the Wood, by Leigh Bardugo, read by a full cast
Ronny Khuri, Senior Editor, Books for Youth:
A is for Bee: An Alphabet Book in Translation, by Ellen Heck, illus. by the author (Top of the List Picture Book)
Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle, by Nina LaCour, illus. by Kaylani Juanita
Annie Bostrom, Senior Editor, Adult Books:
Stay True, by Hua Hsu
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton, art by the author
Maggie Reagan, Senior Editor, Books for Youth:
All My Rage, by Sabaa Tahir (Top of the List Youth Fiction)
Alone Out Here, by Riley Redgate
Kiss and Tell, by Adib Khorram
Susan Maguire, Senior Editor, Adult Books:
By Her Own Design, by Piper Huguley
Lark Ascending, by Silas House
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution, by R. F. Kuang
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey
Julia Smith Senior Editor, Books for Youth:
The Honeys, by Ryan La Sala
Hell Followed with Us, by Andrew Joseph White
Lily and the Night Creatures, by Nick Lake
Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal about the Japanese American Incarceration, by Elizabeth Partridge, illus. by Lauren Tamaki. (Top of the List Youth Nonfiction)
