Literary List Season Begins

and a Sparklehorse documentary and more

Barnes and Noble released their year-end book lists a couple of weeks ago, so last week I started compiling all the “best books of 2022” lists I find on Largehearted Boy. As of this morning there are 99 lists represented, from Emma Straub’s favorite books to Publisher’s Weekly’s top books to Food & Wine’s best vegan cookbooks.

These lists are invaluable to me. I love to discover a book that might interest me (or a friend).

This is the fifteenth year of literary lists for me. I have built a system to search them out, sort, and post them, my mid-October through mid-January features the daily ritual of best books lists, followed by work on Largehearted Boy, followed by writing. Collecting the lists is a passion for me. I hope you enjoy them.

Largehearted Likes

1. The new Sparklehorse documentary

2. New music from Saintseneca

3. Halloween candy - Any season that celebrates treats for my sweet tooth is appreciated

4. Sonic Youth live recordings - Sonic Youth shows were some of the loudest, cacaphonous, and best live concerts I have ever attended. The band has been releasing some of these on Bandcamp, definitely worth picking up.

5. NYCTaper - Speaking of live shows, NYCTaper shares an eclectic variety of live performances to download and/or share.

6. The Athletic - The best place for in-depth sports writing.

7. The NYC Ferry - My favorite mode of transportation in New York City. I cannot wait for the Greenpoint stop to be restored.

8. Watching people stomp on spotted lanternflies - Brooklyn is a tough audience, but twice this week I have heard passersby cheer when someone announced they had just stepped on the invasive spotted lanternfly.

9. Disrespect of early winter holiday decorations - Heard outside the DII on Manhattan Avenue: “I can’t afford Halloween, why are they putting up Christmas stuff already?”

10. Learning to play the ukulele - We inherited a ukulele a couple of years ago, and I have been taking work breaks learning the chords.

11. Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream - Until I start making my own ice cream again, this is my go-to.

Largehearted Links

1. Three designers discuss book cover trends

   A book cover should not only ask a question but it should also answer the question “What do I want to read right now?” So, that becomes a lot about trying to send little hidden clues to the reader to just say, “Hey, this is actually what you want.”

2. The best baketball players who rap

3. Widowspeak’s Molly Hamilton & Robert Earl Thomas and Scout Gillett on their DIY ethic

4. Short novels you can read in a weekend

5. George Saunders interviewed

6. Alexander Chee talked about the importance of community

   I’m known for activism, but something that I learned from those first moments as an activist was how to think past something like a demonstration: How do you change minds? How do you reach people? How do you generate change?

7. Jane Campbell on publishing her first book at 80

   Heather Schwedel: You published a debut book of short stories this year at 80. Were you writing all along, or did you start writing more recently?

   Jane Campbell: When I was about 8, I wrote an ode to a peanut by a squirrel. I don’t know if that answers your question. Yes, I’ve written all my life—poems, nothing very grand, short stories, a few novels, a novella, and so on. But actually, “Cat Brushing” was the first short story I’d ever tried to write. And I wrote that when I was 77, so it took me a while to get there.

8. Claire Rousay Interviews Circuit Des Yeux’s Haley Fohr... And Vice Versa

   Claire Rousay: What was your first experience with music that made you go, ‘I wanna do that’?

   Haley Fohr, Circuit Des Yeux: It was more like, I can do that. When I was 17 I was grounded with my sister, only for two days, but we happened to have Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex on vinyl. We pretended we were having the best party of our lives in the room, listening to that record over and over. Hearing Kim Gordon’s voice and how deep it was, it was directive. It made me feel like, ‘that kinda sounds like my voice and what I’d like to do with it.’

9. Teju Cole interviewed about photography and Switzerland

   I have been photographing seriously, at this point, for maybe fifteen years. ‘Seriously’ in the sense of taking photographs that are not family pictures or tourist pictures, but photographs for publication or with some kind of artistic intention behind them. During that time I have been developing – or attempting to develop – a voice.

10. Namwali Serpell on her new novel

    If what we’re reading about is feeling and if what we’re reading is an elegy, then the repetitions of loss are more like the different images that you would encounter when you’re reading a long poem.

11. Read an excerpt from Fatimah Asghar’s novel When We Were Sisters

    Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

    Andy Davidson's playlist for his novel The Hollow Kind

    Amina Cain's playlist for her book A Horse at Night

    James Wade's playlist for his novel Beasts of the Earth

    Jasmine Sawers' Playlist for their collection The Anchored World

    Rijula Das's playlist for her novel Small Deaths

    The Largehearted Boy List of Online “Best Books of 2022” Lists