Best nonfiction books of 2022 so far
It’s hard to believe 2022 is already half over. Even harder: Selecting only 20 nonfiction books published this year (so far). The Amazon Editors’ No. 1 nonfiction pick is Bittersweet by Susan Cain, a stunning meditation on accepting dark moments to truly find the light in life. It’s a perfect book for this moment in history.
Read on for a few more highlights from our nonfiction list. For the entire roundup—featuring stories that will inspire, horrify, and enlighten you—click here. And, of course, our 20 best books overall—led by our top choice, Remarkably Bright Creatures—are revealed here.
For the many of us who enjoyed Cain’s 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, the question of what she’d write next has lingered. Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole seems like a natural follow up, and it will have just as powerful an effect on readers. It turns out that sadness is the heart of compassion, and compassion is the heart of being human. Cain describes how sorrow and longing are adaptive traits with benefits that far outweigh the suffering they put us through. And they aren’t just human qualities. In fact, sorrow is on par with functions like digestion and breathing—it’s part of the mechanics of living. Through research and stories, Cain takes us through a journey of understanding, and Bittersweet will be a timely and welcome read for so many. It will help a lot of people to process how they are feeling—indeed, how we all feel sometimes. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor
“Why, after all we suffered, would I read a book about the COVID-19 pandemic?” asks ProPublica journalist J. David McSwane in the opening lines of his deeply reported book, Pandemic, Inc. Good question, I thought, before getting completely sucked into the twisty tale of scammers who hatched wild schemes to take full advantage of the bewildering early days of the pandemic and a government that “was so desperate and clueless that it was doling out checks like Oprah gives out cars.” McSwane’s breathless storytelling (which includes a D-list TV star who bought a mansion with stimulus cash and “the Nicholas Cage of modern politics”), combined with his tongue-in-cheek asides, make for a highly-enraging read, in which the loser is, sadly, the average American. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
TV writer Jessi Klein lays it all on the table in her latest collection of essays, I’ll Show Myself Out. There’s a cliché in parenting that “the days are long, but the years are short.” This hilariously sharp book perfectly captures that feeling, with essays that chronicle everything from the “forgettable drudgery” of raising a young child, to the “big, important, profound” moments— while also trying to maintain some semblance of the person you were before giving birth. While there were some passages that made me literally laugh out loud (such as when Klein admits she accidentally “dressed [her] son up as trash” for Halloween), I also deeply related to the quiet undercurrent of rage that flows through the pages, which I suspect many parents (especially moms) will identify with. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Kendi is back with a thought-provoking follow-up to his best seller, How to Be an Antiracist. This time, he applies his research and theory—there is no such thing as “not racist,” you are either racist or actively working against racist societal beliefs, known as antiracism—to children, which he argues are never too young to learn. Kendi writes with the cadence of a pastor delivering a sermon. He cranks up the speed and power of his words, and then pulls back slowly into a personal story about his daughter, or an unexpected connection between two thoughts. He doesn’t mince words, but he’s not judgmental—he too struggles to be antiracist, and you read this as if on a shared journey. Kendi also clearly explains the controversy of critical race theory, a buzzy-phrase that’s not truly understood by most people. A poignant read for all parents, or for anyone who wants to examine the way they were raised. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
What do a circus, a farm boy who lives on the Kansas plains, and capitalism have in common? A lot, we find out in this wild tale about the discovery of dinosaurs. Geologists take on the Bible—and some say God Himself—in this riveting look at the rise of archeology. Digging up bones, it turns out, is shady business full of colorful characters. Like many historical recounts, men get all the glory, although I appreciated learning about Mary Anning, a 12-year-old who shocks the preeminent experts by digging up a giant, bug-eyed skeleton near her home in England. (Even if fame later eludes her, as she had “neither the wealth, nor the status” to claim credit to her discoveries.) From fossil-hiding ants to a cowboy who lassoed the first Triceratops skull, fascinating facts abound in this book about the “Bone Wars” that is hard to put down. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
