When people say publishing is a dying industry, Brad Johnson begs to differ. East Bay Booksellers, which Johnson owns, had its best sales in the store’s history during the past two years. So, it’s fair to say that in some pockets of the world, and particularly in Oakland, books are very much still a thing. And, as the world opened up, people are not only enjoying solitary reading time, but have returned to filling seats at literary readings and in-person book festivals. As the year comes to a close, we’ll talk to booksellers like Johnson, critics and writers about the books that we couldn’t put down. Share your top book recommendation from 2022 via email to forum@kqed.org or leave us a voice memo at 415 553 3300.
Listener Recommendations
Fiction:
- “A Place for Us” by Fatima Farheen Mirza
- “The Mountain in the Sea” by Robert Nayler
- “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabriel Zevin
Memoir:
- “This Body I Wore” by Diana Goetsch
- “Playing with Myself” by Randy Rainbow
Non-fiction:
- “The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization” by Roland Ennos
- “American Midnight” by Adam Hochschild
- “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- ”Breath: A New Science of A Lost Art” by James Nestor
- “Climate Restoration” by Peter Fiekowsky
- “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change” by Angela Garbes
- “Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey” by Florence Williams
- “Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism” by Joanna Scutts
- “How the Word is Passed” by Clint Smith
- “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” by Ed Yong
- “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann
- “Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon” by David Grann
- “The New Science of a Lost Art” by James Nestor
- “Sweat: A History of Exercise” by Bill Hayes
Poetry
- “Customs” by Solmaz Sharif
Alexis Madrigal’s Recommendations