Best Books Read in 2022

I think this is obvious, but I simply mean I read these books in 2022 and most were published much earlier.

As mentioned elsewhere, I forced my way through Beckett's Three Novels, which I found unpleasant and vastly over-rated.  This is easily the biggest (reading) disappointment of the last decade.

Top 3 of 2022
Mandel Station Eleven
Conrad The Secret Agent
Kurkov The Milkman in the Night

Best novel reread:
Lamming In the Castle of My Skin 

Honorable mention:
Welty The Robber Bridegroom
O'Connor Wise Blood (might have been higher except for gratuitous racial slurs)
Arlt The Seven Madmen
Celine Journey to the End of the Night*
Maugham The Razor's Edge
Carter The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Roy The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (didn't really enjoy it much but it had compelling moments)
Bissoondath A Casual Brutality (the ending felt forced; overall, the flashbacks to life in Toronto were the best part)
Kurkov A Matter of Life and Death

And a tie between Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Giono's The Open Road, which seemed heavily inspired by Steinbeck and in particular this novel.

I actually reread several good-to-great novels including Crime and Punishment and The Satanic Verses, but I think I'll stick with the relative dark horse candidate In the Castle of My Skin, as there were some new nuances I picked up on, esp. during the ocean crossing scene.  

I am thisclose to finishing Farrell's Troubles, which would definitely be a top pick, but I guess I will wrap it up the first week of Jan.  Perhaps the rest of the trilogy will be as strong, and, in 2023, I will revert back to 5+ best books of the year, as I used to do...

* After many years of saying I would, I finally buckled down and read Celine.  I found Journey to the End of the Night pretty interesting (and so cynical about human motivations) but strongly disliked Death on the Installment Plan.  It's a shame as it had the potential to be so much better if it had focused on the narrator's current situation rather than diving back into his unedifying childhood adventures.

Update (11/28/2023): Starting to reflect on what I read in 2023 for this year's round-up, I went back through all my reading in 2022 as well.  I'm not quite sure why I finally picked The Ministry of Utmost Happiness over Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams.  I suspect in the long run, Breaking and Entering will remain in my memory longer, though that does depend to some degree on reading her later novels and stories.