How much do you read, like really read? Do you jump at any chance to indulge in the binds of a book? Or do you simply skim pages here and there on newsstands or from long forgotten shelves? Whether you are an avid or leisurely reader it is important to appreciate what a book can bring to the table.
Books are a release, a point of pleasure and escapism from the outside world. Yet, while proving a viable other world, books are also a comfort, they provide insight, advice, and help in everyday life. No matter the genre that you prefer, millions of options are at your fingertips. Imagine your personalized, eclectically niched bookshelf.
I asked the Crawford team for their favorite books of 2022. Turns out this team loves to read and the resulting list came back with an adventurously tasteful range of old, new, fiction and nonfiction.
One of the leading genres was fantasy and thriller. Picture modern, vibrant book backs with textured titles and a new collectors gleam to them. A Court of Thorns and Roses is part of a New York Times best-selling series by Sarah J. Maas. It follows a mortal huntress who becomes entangled in mythical creatures.
Colleen Hoover’s Verity is a sensational psychological thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat as you read of financial ruin, death, and life altering accidents. The Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan divulges a high-profile marriage that unravels as the husband is accused of a terrible crime. In TJ Klune’s book, The House in the Cerulean Sea, a fantastical story unravels involving a case worker, orphans who are magical beings, and the Island of Marsyas that brims with mystery.
Coming in close second were books on self-help, holding the ability between their binds to help you grow in countless aspects of life. Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks provides a roadmap to finding purpose and success as you age, entering new phases of life. Lysa Terkeurst’s It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way outlines the author’s journey in faith with grit, humor, and vulnerability. The Business of Expertise by David C. Baker is a manifesto that heightens the impact of advisors who give insight as entrepreneurs.
In a category of its own, by an author that needs no introduction, is Taste by Stanley Tucci. This delicious and savory memoir is filled with quips and antidotes about his life and how food fits closely intertwined.
Novels spark insight in the minds of their readers through descriptive written word and representations of life that instructs or diverts, gleaning popularity through a shared love of their meaning. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens made it onto the list, and is anyone surprised? This book took the states by storm as it unearthed a marsh girl and her entanglement with life, love, and murder.
Rebecca Serle wrote In Five Years, a futuristic vision-oriented novel based around a love story. It follows a corporate lawyer who has everything planned out in a five year plan, or so she thinks.
Watership Down by Richard Adams evokes an epic theme translated through rabbits as they escape destruction and establish a new home. This novel has both overt and covert meanings. The overall message of the book relays the nature of leadership and how it should promote a successful and just society. I couldn’t help but think of Animal Farm by George Orwell in hearing about this book.
Lastly, I’d like to list the three books from the agency’s recommendations that stood out to me the most — each in their own timelessness and intricacies. First, I was intrigued by The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. This novel follows a search for the 1920s Mexican poet named Cesarea Tinajera, by two poets of the 1970s, Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima.
Anthony Doerr wrote Cloud Cuckoo Land which tells of five characters over six decades as they find themselves bound together by a single book. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is set in the late 50s to early 60s. It delves into Elizabeth Zott’s life as a brilliant chemist who finds herself forced to become a TV Chef. A single mom, this book talks about motherhood and empowerment mixed with circumstantial repression. I would like to include one of my own most loved reads, The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Written in 9 short stories, this book details life as an immigrant from India to America. It speaks on love, loss, and varying cultures, adaptation and its burdens.
Regardless of your personal book taste and genres that compel your literary interests, I hope within this list you discovered a new book that piqued your curiosity. The array of categories that the Crawford team provided bring me visions of vintage spell bound books coupled with timeless novels. Between and betwixt are old deep brown colors mixed with ornate gold and futuristic hues. A combined bookshelf about life and poetry, the delicacies of food and dance. Cultures intertangled between worlds and a sure escape from reality with intelligence, self-help, thrill, and mysterious fantasy laced between the words of your next book.