Make way, the BookNet Canada staff’s favourite reads of the year are here! And just like last year, we’re sharing some tidbits of data about our team’s reading habits — how many books we read, our preferred formats, and the subjects that caught our eye. One thing is certain, BookNetters continue to love reading! All our recommendations can be found in this CataList catalogue.

BookNet Reads

The BookNet staff read a total of 424 books.

33% were print books, 40% ebooks, and 27% audiobooks.
61% were Fiction, 34% were Non-Fiction, and 5% were Juvenile & Young Adult.

The BookNetter who read the most read 96 books in 2022.

These are some of the books we read and loved in 2022:

Non-Fiction

Christi Belcourt by Sherry Farrell Racette 🍁, Nadia Kurd 🍁, Dylan Miner 🍁, and Christi Belcourt 🍁

The first artist's monograph for Métis visual artist Christi Belcourt is a stunning compilation of a career in progress. I am a late-to-the-party admirer of Belcourt’s work, particularly her monumental "flower beadwork" paintings. Her Wisdom of the Universe work in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario has enthralled me since it was first displayed in 2021. Goose Lane Editions has compiled a beautiful book that stuns on a shelf or coffee table. — Lauren Stewart

Have You Eaten Yet? by Cheuk Kwan 🍁

Author and documentarian Cheuk Kwan, a self-described “card-carrying member of the Chinese diaspora,” weaves a global narrative by linking the myriad personal stories of chefs, entrepreneurs, labourers and dreamers who populate Chinese kitchens worldwide. Behind these kitchen doors lies an intriguing paradox which characterizes many of these communities: how Chinese immigrants have resisted—or often been prevented from—complete assimilation into the social fabric of their
new homes, while the engine of their economic survival, the Chinese restaurant and its food, has become seamlessly woven into towns and cities all around the world.
An intrepid travelogue of grand vistas, adventure and serendipity, Have You Eaten Yet? charts a living atlas of the global Chinese migration, ultimately revealing how an excellent meal always tells an even better story.

Recommended by Aline Zara.

No. 91/92 by Lauren Elkin

Reading anything by Lauren Elkin makes me want to step outside my apartment and be more observant of the city I live in. In No. 91/92, she intimately chronicles her daily commute through notes she took on her iPhone while taking the bus to her job at a Parisian university. This exercise captures moments all commuters know well: manspreaders, loud phone conversations, fashion observations, strangers you become familiar with, bad perfume, and crying in public. As a result, this pocket-sized book feels intensely familiar while allowing a glimpse into Parisian daily life. If you enjoy this book I also highly recommend her previous work of non-fiction, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City! — Lily Dwyer

Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud 🍁

As a former, temporary Kingstonian, I came for the loving tribute to the 401 paint test strips, I stayed for the thoughtful, tender stories of Abdelmahmoud finding belonging and community in unexpected places (professional wrestling roleplay, nu-metal) and becoming yourself and exploring your identity in new places and new contexts. There are moments of play and fun and absurdity and romance, balanced with an earnest, nuanced, and complex exploration of identity, race, and family. — Monique Mongeon

The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong

This quote from a Goodreads reviewer says it all for me: “It is a very dense book, but loaded with fascinating information for the patient reader.” That fascinating information is about the founding of the leading religious traditions of our time. Armstrong takes us through a tour of the thinking and insights that led to what philosopher Karl Jaspers has termed the Axial Age. At the heart of this transformation is a move away from violence and ego toward empathy for all via a rich inner life. — Tim Middleton

The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

A fascinating memoir that takes the reader back through the author’s family history in Colombia’s coffee triangle. Full of larger-than-life characters, we learn about the family’s history as curanderos, traditional healers and dealers in spiritual remedies — the chosen ones being mysteriously gifted, or cursed, with what the family calls “the secrets”.

Curandero is traditionally only a male role, but the author’s mother receives the secrets after a fall that results in a head injury and amnesia. When the author suffers her own injury and bout of amnesia, the family is convinced that she too will now inherit the secrets, and we follow her story as she explores her family's stories and navigates her own path. — Carol Gordon

Tree Thieves by Lyndsie Bourgon 🍁

A true-crime story about tree poaching. Follow along with National Geographic Explorer Lyndsie Bourgon as she follows tree poachers in the Pacific Northwest. An engrossing mix of history and crime reporting. — Noah Genner

Fiction

Acting Class by Nick Drnaso

Nick Drnaso delivers again. From the author of Sabrina, we have another graphic novel that taps into some fundamental anxieties experienced by many living in North America. Through his drawings and dialogue, Drnaso looks at power dynamics, the cult of personality, existential dread, self worth, self perception and how we are perceived by others, and the ennui and loneliness felt by so many in modern society. I did not see where this story was going and was truly surprised by the ending. — Jackie Fry

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

It’s a couple of years old now, and I was slow getting to it but am I ever glad I read this book. Written in part in the form of a screenplay, it's a biting, clever satire on how Asian Americans are discriminated against, perceived both in real life and in film, in the present day and historically. This book is both funny and angry, clever and poignant, and informative and entertaining. Charles Yu manages to document the history of racism and prejudice against Asian Americans to write a detective story screenplay that speaks to racism in America, and to tell a family story that involves internalized racism. Told with incredible acumen, this is just incredibly unique and original. — Jackie Fry

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

One of the best-written books I’ve read in a long time and well worth reading for that alone. It’s also a nasty, troubling tale that is genuinely disturbing. “Even at his most impulsive and cruel, his father spoke with humour, as though it were all a game.” — Tom Richardson

Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illus. by Ann Xu

This graphic novel was an enjoyable read, exploring through one Japanese woman’s story the universal themes of family and relationships. Especially as the baby boomer generation ages, this story further explores the timely and relevant topics of autonomy and growing older on your own terms. — Carol Gordon

The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore

I say I’m recommending one book, but I’m really recommending the entire Legend of Drizzt series — which should be read in publication order, in my opinion. It’s quite long (over 30 books!), so it’s a good fantasy series to settle into when you’re in the mood to binge-read. It’s about a dark elf who abandons the evil ways of his people and makes a life for himself on the surface. It has all the unique characters and action scenes that you could want, interspersed with Drizzt’s take on humanity and what it means to be a hero. — Vivian Luu

The Poppy War by R. F Kuang

There’s something about an underdog, plucked from a miserable life to receive a special and magical education at a far away boarding school that I really love in my fiction — Red Rising, The Magicians, and Nevermoor are all fairly recent favourites and now I can add The Poppy Wars to that list. — Ainsley Sparkes

The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

Set in Ireland this is the first in a series of three books about Detective Inspector Cormac Reilly which are all great. Booklist got it right when they said “Hand this one to readers of Tana French and to police-procedural fans.” — Ainsley Sparkes

This is How I Disappear by Mirion Malle 🍁, Aleshia Jensen 🍁, and Bronwyn Haslam 🍁

A difficult, beautiful, and ultimately hopeful read about the ways we tend to give others what we can’t give ourselves, and how we do the best we can fumbling our way through trying to connect and manage our increasingly complex feelings. Malle’s illustrations are expressive and lovely, and I can’t wait to read her future books! — Monique Mongeon

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Scratch my ‘80s/’90s video game itch. A complex story of two longtime friends who founded a video game company and created art. Zevin has developed a novel that explores friendship, loss, art, and so much more. — Noah Genner