Former US President Barack Obama has officially unveiled his annual list of favourite 2022 reads.
Since 2015, Obama has made it a tradition to share a number of his best-read books of the year.
Per usual, this year’s compilation includes a mix of non-fiction and fiction titles from American and international authors.
“I always look forward to sharing my lists of favourite books, movies, and music with all of you,” Obama wrote on social media. “First up, here are some of the books I read and enjoyed this year. Let me know which books I should check out in 2023.”
Topping his list is his wife and former US First Lady Michelle Obama’s best-seller The Light We Carry. “I’m a bit biased on this one,” he teasingly admitted.
Obama’s other non-fiction selections include Canadian author Kate Beaton’s autobiographical comic Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Stacy Schiff’s The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Ed Young’s An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us and the finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction Imani Perry’s South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
Making up his choice of fiction titles are Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel Black Cake, Emily St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, Argentinian writer Hernan Diaz’s Trust, American-Zambian writer Namwali Serpell’s mystery The Furrows and Chinese-American novelist Jessamine Chan’s dystopian The School for Good Mothers.
In addition to George Saunders’s collection of short stories Liberation Day, Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House and Afterlives by Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives.
You can find The Independent’s recommended books of 2022 here, along with Obama’s list of favourites from 2021 here.
