Attack of the Best Lists 2022: NPR Books We Love and Publishers Weekly Best of 2022

This post is part of my year end "Attack of the Best Lists" coverage. To see every post in my "Best Books 2022" series [and more backlist best options] you can use the best lists tag. 

It begins earlier and earlier every year. I used to be surprised when Best Lists started showing up on November 1, but here we are, it's not even Halloween and 2 major year end "best lists" went live last week. I will say I am not surprised they came out early because not only are these 2 of the best and most useful best lists that are available, but they are also updated and available year round.

But since this is the first Attack of the Best Lists for 2022 I do want to remind you that I take all of the best lists that come out this time of year to craft my popular, annual presentation for PCI webinars: Reader's Advisory Year in Review. The registration for those has just gone live as well. 

PCI Webinars: Reader's Advisory Year in Review: 2022

• Tuesday, January 31, 2023; 10:30-11:30am Eastern [FL Libraries only]
• Wednesday, February 1, 2023; 2-3pm Eastern [Everyone else]

Now back to today's featured best lists. And again, a reminder, both are excellent year round resources.

First up: The Books We Love App from NPR.

Click here to enter the site

From the about page which also explains how the books are selected:

Books We Love is NPR’s interactive reading guide. In the past, it’s been a year-end guide we put out annually. But this year, we’ve decided to offer it in summer and winter! So this summer edition of Books We Love focuses on books published in the first six months of the year, from January through June 2022. But what hasn’t changed is the bounty of hand-picked books. Mix and match tags such as Book Club Ideas, Biography & Memoir or Eye-Opening Reads to filter results and find the book that’s perfect for you or someone you love.

I love this list for a few reasons. The first is the filters. Listed in the left gutter of the page in natural language with recognizable categories such as "Biography & Memoir," "Mysteries & Thrillers," or "Young Adult," but also including more intuitive, reader focused categories like "Eye-Opening Reads," It's All Geek To Me," and "The Dark Side," and even choices based on length, this is an excellent portal to "best" books that allows any reader [or library worker] to created highly specific and expertly tailored suggestions.

Second, it is fun to use. The mixing a matching potential is endless because of the breadth of choices. A lot of that breadth is because of the nature of how they add titles to the list. They ask all of their NPR Books contributors to suggest titles. As a result, a huge swath of reading interests are represented in the list. Their intentional inclusion of all voices, even those who only write a few reviews a year, makes this list one of the best. 

Third,  every former incarnation of this list is easily accessible with a single click from the top of this year's list meaning you have over 2,800 customizable suggestions for literally any reader, no matter how picky, at your fingertips. 

Fourth, Books We Love is a great go-to resource all year long because of the breadth and variety of titles included and the ease of backlist access. Users get to steer the ship to find their own suggestion amongst a universe of pre-approved titles. Then they can be as picky as they want, choosing their own filters to narrow it down. And since these lists are VERY broad in terms of the types of books that are included each year, the results are very useful. And they stand up over the test of time. 

When you visit the NPR Book Books We Love portal now and have fun using it for yourself or your patrons, but don't forget about it all year long. It is a wonderful  resource and, after years in existence, the compound interest of titles makes it even more useful. 

Next up is something very similar, PW's Best Books 2022.

Click here to enter the site

Look at that screen shot. From the Best Books of 2022 page on PW you can access by all ages and genres as well as single click access going back to 2010! And it includes their Summer Reads picks and overall Best titles in one place. 

This inclusion of Summer Reads access is key because often, those books are better general reads options but they don't make the year end lists as well. This allows the PW Best Books portal 
Nowhere will you find a resource that puts this many "sure bet" options in front of you so easily. There are literally hundreds of titles here, at your fingertips, both old and new, that you can confidently suggest to readers immediately. And so many readers. Readers who read across all age levels [down to infants] and in just about every genre. 

And, since every title is annotated, you also have a book talk [or annotation] for each title right there. You don't have to have read the book to suggest it. [Reminder: Use the Words of Others.]

I could keep gushing about how much I love this resource but I would rather you played around with it yourself.

Click through, check out the upcoming titles, but also look back at older titles, read the annotations, check genres you love and those you don't normally read, especially those you don't normally read because you will learn much about the current state of that genre [trends, popular authors] this year and going back a few years. You can both get access to some great sure bet suggestions AND brush up on your genre knowledge all in one place.

Spend some time really getting to know this resource. And then use it-- all of it including past years and both summer and year end lists-- to make your own lists for your readers. Make displays [digital displays too], make suggested reading lists by genre, by year, by whatever you want. Just embrace the wealth of information available to you with one click and help readers in ways they would not think to help themselves.

Go check out this database of "sure bet" reads for any season, and keep it bookmarked for use anytime you need a solid suggestion [especially for those hard  to satisfy readers].

And keep an eye out here on the blog for more "Attack of the Best Lists" posts coming soon.