The 36 Most Acclaimed Books of 2022

The acclaimed books on this list have earned multiple honors including; winning an award; making our bestseller’s list, or being selected for inclusion on prominent book club’s reading lists. This list will continuously evolve as we incorporate additional sources to help readers discover excellent books. Print the 2022 reading list, view of collage of 2022’s books, view the complete list from all the years, and enjoy ♥

Fiction – Nonfiction – Children’s – Poetry

18 Fiction Books

Deacon King Kong

The Awkward Black Man

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

The Vanishing Half

What A Woman’s Gotta Do

Glorious

Speaking of Summer: A Novel

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

Telephone

American Spy: A Novel

When No One Is Watching: A Thriller

Black Sunday

They Tell Me Of A Home: A Novel

Step Into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature

Voices of the Harlem Renaissance: Originally Published as The New Negro an Interpretation

His Only Wife

Transcendent Kingdom

It’s Not All Downhill from Here

11 Nonfiction Books (top)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

A Promised Land

Black Boy

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

Afropessimism

Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream

13 Children’s Books (top)

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box

Me & Mama

When Stars Are Scattered

Nana Akua Goes to School

Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon

King and the Dragonflies

Before the Ever After

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks

Legendborn

I Am Every Good Thing

The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person

She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm

A Black Women’s History of the United States

3 Poetry Books (top)

The Age of Phillis

Pale Colors in a Tall Field: Poems

Fantasia for the Man in Blue