The 23 Must-Read Books of Winter 2022

Covering everything from gardens to fine art, furniture, and food, this 300-page book dives deep into the way that the legendary Bunny Mellon built the rarefied world she inhabited.  A comprehensive understanding of her unique eye comes from newly discovered correspondence, interviews with friends and family members, and contributions from fans (like Tory Burch) and relatives (grandson Thomas Lloyd) alike. 

This American debut from author Lisa Harding tells the story of Sonya, a former actress whose glittering life is a thing of the past and whose current predicament—disappointment, addiction, a tenuous grasp on motherhood—seems to be teetering on the edge of disaster. It's an emotional powerhouse of a novel that has earned early comparisons to Shuggie Bain and promises to entrance and unsettle readers long after the last page is read. 

Today, Grey Garbo might be as well known for her reclusive nature and mysterious persona as she is for any of the 24 films she starred in. In this deeply researched look at her life and legacy, the critic Robert Gottlieb tells the complicated, sprawling story of how a girl from Stockholm's slums became an international superstar and then something much more interesting—and explores why the way she lived still transfixes us today. 

The late photographer Vivian Maier's work became a sensation in the early 2000s, around the time that she died, thanks in part to the fact that someone with her expert eye and undeniable talent had been previously virtually unknown. This deeply researched biography helps explain who the real woman behind the haunting photographs truly was, examining the world she was born into and the one she came to inhabit, and uncovering the real life of an artist whose secret passion made her a posthumous phenomenon. 

Told in three parts—the first taking place in a version of the American 1890s, the second in 1993 Manhattan, and the third in a future nearly 70 years from today—this new novel from the author of A Little Life beautifully grapples with questions of family, loyalty, love, and belonging. It's a thoughtful, imaginative, and elegantly constructed tale that ponders big questions with equally large doses of style and heart. 

The story of The Great Gatsby is reimagined and retold by three of the novel's women, Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Catherine McCoy in this sharp, compelling recasting of the classic. 

The work of reporter Carl Bernstein is already the stuff of legend, but in this engrossing new memoir, the writer who made his name uncovering the Watergate scandal (and countless Washington secrets since) recounts the beginnings of his life in newspapers, recalling a bygone era of American media and exposing the building blocks of an iconic career. 

Despite weighing in at only 136 pages, this novella from Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children, The Burning Girl) packs a serious wallop in its depiction of a 1970s American family that leaves New York City for Australia and is forced to discover new ways to maneuver friendship, class, and fear in an unknown place.   

This collection of articles, essays, and criticism spanning more than three decades gives readers a new opportunity to appreciate the work of Zora Neale Hurston. With an introduction from editors Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Genevieve West, the compendium includes Hurston's takes on issues that still haunt us today as well as time capsules, like her coverage of a 1952 murder trial. 

In novels like The Lions of Fifth Avenue and The Address, Fiona Davis has deployed an unmatched skill for unspooling compelling dramas amidst some of New York's most glittering historical moments. Her latest is no different; The Magnolia Palace tells the story of two different women whose lives are changed at the Frick mansion, giving readers the chance to soak in dual eras of history all while great love, epic loss, dazzling fortunes, and foul play are afoot. 

There's more to Brian Cox than what we might see on Succession, the hit series for which he plays media tycoon Logan Roy. In this memoir, the Scottish-born actor steps out of character and shares his own life story from a hardscrabble childhood through to his storied career on the stage and screen.  

If this new graphic novel from the author of the Bridgerton books sounds familiar, that might be because it already has some very notable fans—namely, Quinn's other characters. Indeed, this story has been mentioned as a favorite of Quinn's fictional creations before, and now the story—about the trials and tribulations of a young woman destined for big things—will stand on its own. A must-read for anyone patiently counting the days for the return of Bridgerton on Netflix. 

This second novel from Weike Wang, the award-winning author of Chemistry, follows a New York City doctor as the world she's built for herself is thrown into turmoil when her mother returns to America from China and an unprecedented health scare upends her professional and personal life. It's a smart, powerful, and very contemporary read that touches on the sorts of struggles that are shaping the very world we live in today. 

In her new memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Kathryn Schulz explores the intricacies of the relationships that have helped make her into who she is—her father's upbringing, her wife's experience growing up a farmer's daughter, her own marriage—and uses them to build a captivating story about how we find our way in this glorious, complicated, maddening world. 

Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel tells the tale of two siblings and the impact of the unexpected inheritance left to them by their late mother. It's a story of family secrets, hidden pasts, and second chances—no wonder it's already being developed into a television series for Hulu. 

Nancy Balbirer's previous books—Take Your Shirt Off and Cry and A Marriage in Dog Years—made clear the author had a singular skill for turning the trials and triumphs of her own life into unforgettable stories. In this new memoir, Balbirer tells the story of a romance more than 30 years in the making, and brings readers along on the equally funny, heartbreaking, and exhilarating adventure to make it work. 

The protagonist of Lucy Foley's new novel goes to Paris in search of a fresh start, but what she finds instead is a mystery as all-encompassing as it is dangerous. When she arrives as her half-brother's apartment, he isn't there, and as the days go by, the building where she's living beings to become a more complicated and sinister-seeming place. The Paris Apartment is a charged, charming thriller that'll have us all eyeing the neighbors a bit skeptically, no matter where it is we live. 

If anyone knows how to turn the anxious-making indignities of daily life into something funny, it's Georgia Pritchett, the Emmy-winning writer who's worked on Succession and Veep. From childhood concerns to her adult anxieties, the problems that have plagued Pritchett are played for big humor here, exploring with a sharp eye and wicked sense of humor what it is that makes us worry and the strange and unexpected ways we cope.  

This second book in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy finds the award-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings retelling the epic battle from the first installment, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, from the point of view of the ancient witch who played the villain that first time around. Come for the action of an epic adventure tale and stay for James's uniquely brilliant writing and delicious knack for spinning a complicated, compelling story of the struggle for power.

When a mysterious First Lady asks White House correspondent Sophie Morse to write her biography, it's a chance too good to pass up. But as Sophie gets to know more about the icy former model living in the White House, a surprising tale of international intrigue begins to unfold—and she's left to grapple with whose story it is to tell and how. This novel from Anna Pitoniak (The Futures)is a smart, timely take on American politics, Soviet spy craft, and the lengths we'll go to for love and revenge.