Maureen Corrigan

Jane Smiley's latest novel, A Dangerous Business, is a mash-up of a Western, a serial killer mystery and a feminist erotic romp. Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, stars a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus.

Some years, my best books list falls into a pattern: like a year that's dominated by dystopian fiction or stand-out memoirs. But, as perhaps befits this hectic year, the best books I read in 2022 sprawl all over the place in subject and form. Here are 10 superb titles from 2022:

Keegan is a writer who revels in the suspense of the unspoken, the held breath. Her new novella centers on a nameless young girl whose parents leave her in the care of relatives for the summer.

The Revolutionary is not merely a dutiful exhumation of a poorly remembered Founding Father, it's a thrilling, timely account of how the American Revolution happened.

Alexandra Horowitz is a professor of psychology and founder of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College. Horowitz's new book is called "The Year Of The Puppy." Our book critic Maureen Corrigan says it offers readers plenty to chew on.

Our Missing Hearts imagines a world of governmental cruelty — and the armies of citizens who both facilitate and resist. It's a masterful work that epitomizes the possibilities of storytelling.

Less is Lost is the sequel to Sean Greer's novel Less, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018.

Maureen Corrigan reviews Ling Ma's new collection of stories Bliss Montage.

Jonathan Escoffery's debut is called If I Survive You, eight interconnected short stories about a Jamaican family living in Florida. The "you" his characters are trying to survive is America itself.

Maureen Corrigan calls 'The Last White Man' a deft, if narrow, Twilight Zone-type fantasy about identity.