Best books 2022

“The Life of Violette” by Valérie Perrin

A novel that is like sunshine in the moments of greatest darkness. An uplifting and beautiful story, one that we need here and now, and we certainly need it this year. A tribute to life, to everyday life, to abiding. A story that will comfort you, that will be with you and stay with you. Written with tenderness towards the heroine and the readers, a totally unpretentious story about a certain French cemetery concierge and her secrets. One of those ordinary-unusual stories, which out of nowhere touches a person to the very depths. REVIEW

“Agla. Alef” by Radek Rak

Beautiful literature, mystery, a piece of weird fiction, a piece of awesomeness, a story that escapes classification. Highly anticipated in the literary world, the latest novel by the winner of the NIKE Literary Award, and no wonder. The story of a young girl who enters adulthood, a tale of growing up in the shadow of magic and terror. A sheer delight for the reader who enjoys literary mysteries, likes to immerse himself in a story, not only getting pure fun out of it, but also being able to play detective and find references. A gem! REVIEW

“Four Muses” by Sophie Haydock

The story of the Austrian enfant terrible of the art world and the four women of his life. The story of a great artist and those who inspired his work. It’s been a long time since Egon Schiele was so fascinating, not to mention his muses. Sophie Haydock gives voice to these women, women for whom Schiele was at one point their whole world, and who became part of his artistic legend. They were the forerunners of their time, provocateurs, courageous and unrestrained in their desires and love. After reading, it is impossible to look at Schiele’s paintings without seeing their gaze, their story. REVIEW

“Testament” by Nina Wähä

This is a story about a family, about a father, a mother and their many children, and about returning home, which is never as one might imagine. And which sometimes brings irreversible consequences. This is such a family drama in several acts – at times insightful and emotional, at times hilarious and glancing from a distance, but always thought-provoking. One reads with fascination and delight. REVIEW

“Years” by Annie Ernaux

An autobiographical novel. From the post-war era to the present day. Annie Ernaux reminisces, and her memories are sometimes extremely universal in message. They hide behind those most notable social and moral changes, but she also finds them in ordinary objects or the words of popular songs. Seemingly written with lightness, but carrying at the same time a certain weight, an awareness that settles in the reader. It’s worth exploring, as it’s such a modern classic. REVIEW

“Scraps” by Krzysztof Jóźwik

Here we have three neighbors on one street and their unholy secrets… Secrets related to a series of disturbing murders in the neighborhood. This is pure fun to read, full of suspense, full of emerging conjectures, full of disgusting plot gems. A bloody crime thriller for readers with strong nerves and strong stomachs, adults only. REVIEW

“The Apartment” by Izabela Janiszewska

A luxury hotel in a fabulous location, a happy marriage and a disappearance that shatters everything. It’s a mystery novel, a plot-buzzer, where every element counts, every word, every glimpse caught. Full of pop-culture references, it’s a psychological thriller, a domestic thriller that oozes horror, and which has been perfected in every detail. Nothing but to be read! REVIEW

“Mortalist” by Max Czornyj

A new series by one of Poland’s criminal masterminds, a new fascinating hero on the scale of classic detectives and a crime that works on the imagination. And all of this shrouded in the shroud of death, because, after all, around death and dying this series will take place. However, it is worth remembering that it deals with very specific topics. It brings the corporeal decomposition closer, tosses up tidbits of tanatopractice, issues of thanatology, asks questions about mortality and what can await us after death. REVIEW

“For the price of death” by Malgorzata Rogala

Fullness is a town hidden from the world in the midst of lakes and forests. It is there that police officer Monika Gniewosz and her daughter found asylum, but even there crime and human weaknesses found her. This is a series unhurried, atmospheric, working on all the senses of the reader. A detective story and a novel of manners in one, with attention to those smallest details. It is worth starting with the first volume: “Silent as the Grave”. REVIEW

“The First Day of Spring” by Nancy Tucker

An intelligent thriller, precise as a blade, a psychological and social thriller, and in it a heartbreaking story of violence, lack of love, rejection. An eight-year-old girl kills a little boy. This violence did not blossom in a vacuum. It rose from childhood experience, from a life marked by rejection and neglect. We follow her story with bated breath. It is one of the most emotional. It is sometimes uneasy, sometimes harrowing – a psychological and social thriller and a dramatic story of redemption in one. It does not leave the reader indifferent. REVIEW

“Acts of Desperation” by Megan Nolan

One of those high-profile debuts that is talked about a lot, loudly, and commented on both sides of the Atlantic. A millennial story. A tale of love. A vivisection of a certain relationship. However, there is no cliché in it. Between the words of the nameless heroine lurks pain, weakness, love doomed to suffer. Nolan depicts a toxic, self-destructive relationship, and in it, him and her. They are a violent and ruthless duo. Selfish in their emotions and collection of experiences. At the same time thirsty for attention, craving intimacy. And in the background is modern Ireland, young people looking for their way, St.

“Hard Land” by Benedict Wells

“That summer I fell in love, and my mother died.” So begins the story. A story of one summer, smelling of popcorn, old cinema, to the rhythm of songs of the mid-1980s. A small American town, the 1980s, a boy who enters adulthood and the life he has to face. Wells touches all the nostalgic notes and does it with skill, with attention to detail. He draws a timeless tale of becoming, growing up and maturing, such a classic coming of age story, universal in its message. And Victor Grotovich’s Americanized translation gives it a distinctive twist. REVIEW

“Paper Palace” by Miranda Cowley Heller

Sharp as a piri-piri pepper, an intelligent, stunningly engaging novel about… family and its secrets. About memories of trauma, enduring love and guilt. Also about family ties, torn, betrayed, rebuilt. About the pathologies and misfortunes of a privileged family, but also about the search for a safe haven, a haven to break free from the past. The author serves us scenes short and very vivid – there will be a series, there is no doubt about it. Unexpectedly satisfying, delightful in places, it reads almost by itself. REVIEW

“Son” by Phillip Meyer

A gripping, multi-generational family saga, a wonderful tale of the American Frontier, for anyone who loves, as I do, Cormac McCarthy’s prose. Meyer taps into the bloody history of the Frontier, and his prose – like the place itself – is raw and full of brutal realism. The words are tough and implacable, like the people who chose to live there, like a family that builds and destroys its empire. This is their story, portrayed with naturalism, ruthlessly. There is no forgiveness here. REVIEW

“Laurel paean” by Julia Gambrot

The 1920s, the Island of Sylt and a young doctor trying to put her life back together. In the background is the mystery of an old mansion and the crimes that terrorize the neighborhood. This is definitely my favorite installment of the Julia Gambrot series, and no wonder. This is the darkest volume, the most predatory and mysterious, in which a secret chases a secret and danger lurks at every turn. Here the author has combined a historical novel, a medical thriller, adding a pinch of romance and domestic thriller. Emotions guaranteed! REVIEW

SPECIAL MENTION:

“Who killed Mommy?” Margaret Starosta

A fantastic crime comedy with a brilliant crime mystery and a brick in one! Part of the profits from the sale of this wonderful crime comedy will be donated to humanitarian foundations supporting Ukraine, so read and help, it couldn’t be better!

And in front of the reader is the story of a dead mother-in-law and her former daughter-in-law, who must solve the mystery of the crime! The reader is immersed in the story, so that between giggling, laughing to tears, you feel a quite real shiver of anxiety. Margaret Starosta leads the intrigue with an efficient hand, she does it with irony, with a wink, with beautiful language that absorbs