There are novels that take you to a glorious past. You’ll also find some that put you in a dystopian future. There are many novels you can’t afford to miss if you love reading works of fiction. Here we’ve listed the most fabulous novels of 2022:

1. A Time Outside This Time by Amitava Kumar

A virus is spreading a lot of chaos across the world. What’s making things even worse is that the news being reported is more fiction than fact. Under such circumstances, a struggling writer named Satya goes to the retreat of an acclaimed artist. He realizes that the pressures of the outside world are following him there.

He starts getting ideas for an Orwellian novel, which is set in the era of post-truth. It’s a time which makes it difficult to recall an earlier way of operating.

2. The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson

Lucia is Ray Hanrahan’s selfless and steadfast wife. Ray is an egotist. He is preparing himself for a new exhibition of his art, which will be the first in several decades. He’s quite sure that it will enhance his reputation. His wife and his three children are also preparing themselves for the event.

Lucia is an artist herself, but she always chooses to be a wife and mother first. What would happen if she makes up her mind to change? Of course, she’s carrying some secrets of her own. As the date of the exhibition draws closer, she must make a choice.

3. Invisible by Danielle Steel

Antonia Adams was born to a beautiful model and a rich businessman. She feels lonely amid the unhappy relationship of her parents. As she grows up, she attempts to hide herself from the world. Her only escape are the movies and it’s her dream to become a screenwriter. Antonia finds a summer job at one of the Hollywood studios.

There she meets a filmmaker who wants to make her a popular actress. Although she’s hesitant, she finds herself in the public eye and gets their attention as well. Of course, she gains massive popularity, but her real dream is to make films. She must now pursue her dream through doubt and tragedy.

4. Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe

Under some murky circumstances, a woman quits her post at a girls’ school in London. She begins to explore the land around her cottage on the Hare House estate. This place is quite isolated and she spends some time walking the woodland and the moors.

She then gets to hear some unsettling stories of strange figures of clay, scared young men, and witches. Doubts start to descend when she becomes friends with her landlord Grant and his sister Cass. When the inhabitants of the house are trapped together due to a snowfall, the tension begins to rise.

5. Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal

Nell’s world revolves around her devotion to the sea and her brother. She picks violets for a living in a coastal village in the southern part of England. Nell is set apart by her community owing to the birthmarks speckling her skin. One day Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonderland comes to the village.

Nell’s father kidnaps and sells her to Jasper Jupiter. He tells Jasper that she can be his leopard girl. Nell feels greatly betrayed, but her fame grows. She makes friends with other performers and Toby, who is Jasper’s brother. Later, she wonders whether joining the circus was the best thing to happen to her.

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Here, we’ll discuss how book reviews are not something worthless as many people think. If they come from professional book reviewers, they can be of great value to authors, readers, and publishers.

A guide to the readers

The book market is really huge and there are millions of books you’ll find online or offline. With such vast number of options, finding the right book can be overwhelming. Book reviews that professional book reviewers offer can act as a guide to the readers. They can get an idea whether a particular book can be good for them. Many of the avid readers of books can also be good reviewers.

However, they must be careful not to give away too much information in their reviews. There’s always a risk of bias in book reviews, which often lead to manipulations. Nevertheless, this is hardly a big issue in the world of literature. Reviews that unbiased reviewers provide do more good than harm.

A genuine feedback for authors

Authors are often eager to know how the readers are reacting to their literary works. Now, book reviews can either be extremely helpful or utterly pointless. Regardless of how the reviews are, authors can always gain some good insights from the book reviews. They’re both a means of reflection and a one-way interaction. Authors can get to know the areas where they need to improve.

They also get a better idea of what their readers truly want from them. Of course, there are authors who don’t give any importance to book reviews. They’re the ones who don’t have the desire to impress their readers. All that these authors want is to express themselves freely through their writings.

Free and unadulterated publicity

Honest book reviewers have a huge fan-base just like the authors. This is because their reviews are untainted and speak the truth. A wise author would always value such reviews, as such individuals are always looking to improve themselves. If the author’s book gets good feedback in the review, it’s almost certain that the readers would like it.

So, we can say that book reviews act as free and unadulterated publicity for the authors. Generally, it’s not possible to have tainted reviews publicized for gaining the readers’ attention. One major reason is that such reviews are risky for the author and the publisher. If the readers get even the slightest hint of it, they’ll end up disliking the author. They might never again buy the author’s and the publisher’s books.

Presenting the industry in a good light

The book reviews project a positive image of the literary industry and community. The entire industry comes across to many as transparent and open to criticism. This maintains a certain degree of trust for the industry in the minds of readers.

Perhaps this is the reason why successful authors and publishers have embraced the genuine book reviews. Many of the distributors and book stores also hold the book reviews in high regard.

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The line talks about Olga dying, dreaming about getting a five-dollar raise. However, the Olga in this novel by Xochitl Gonzalez will not meet such a fate.

The lives of two siblings

The protagonist of this novel is Olga Acevedo. She is the daughter of Puerto Rican activists. Her mother is a revolutionary who goes into hiding when she’s 12 years old. A heroin addict, her father dies of AIDS. Olga is then raised by her grandmother in Brooklyn. She performs well while studying in the public schools in New York and graduates from an Ivy League college.

In the summer of 2017, she is 39 and a renowned high-end wedding planner. Prieto, her older brother, is a progressive congressman and a divorced father. He’s also a closeted gay man. This secret makes him vulnerable to blackmail from the evil folks who belong to the real estate industry.

Despite being a self-made, successful woman, Olga suffers from depression and feels stuck. Her brief foray into reality television turns into a disaster. She realizes that she has allowed herself to get distracted from living the true American dream. Even her profession appears tedious and stupid to her. She does the work of manifesting the matrimonial whims of the rich.

The build-up of tensions

Olga also knows how to make her profits from this business. Despite this, she has become disdainful of her clients and grown frustrated by the need to adhere to strict ethics. She enters into certain business dealings that are shady. Even though she has noticed that her clients don’t seem contented, she continues the work. There are no real friends in her life.

She seeks sex devoid of any love with an ultra-rich libertarian, whose daughter’s wedding was planned by her. It appears that she’s sleepwalking through life like her brother, though she has the support of her extended family. Her mother, Blanca, has never seen her children in the past three decades.

Even though she never returned, she has managed to know about the happenings in their lives from afar. Blanca has sent letters full of ideological instructions periodically. When Olga is 25 and in love, she disapproves of her man in one of the letters. She also doesn’t like Prieto coming home to tend to his father who was dying.

Closing thoughts

Among the most interesting aspects of the novel is the complex influence that Blanca wields despite her absence. Both her children are, in a way, under her control. They’re desperately trying to prove that they’re more than what their mother thinks of them. At the same time, they’re also rebelling against their mother.

The author Xochitl Gonzalez manages to keep the readers hooked when he allows Olga’s mother to dominate her children. This is through the letters that she sends periodically to her children. The only downside are those frequent detours in the novel into the back story. It somehow affects the momentum of the ongoing plot of the book.

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If you’re an avid reader, you’d probably understand the joy of relaxing on your couch with a good book. There are a few relatively unknown facts about books that you probably never knew. So, here we’ve listed some of these facts that would never fail to astonish you:

1. There’s a word for the act of smelling books

You might’ve done this many times when you held a book in your hand. Many readers like the smell of a book, especially the older ones. As they hold a book, they can’t resist the temptation to smell it. The act of smelling books or the smell of a good book is called ‘bibliosmia’. Of course, it’s not a popular word and you won’t find it in all the dictionaries.

2. One of the first novels written on a typewriter

The world-renowned author, Mark Twain, wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the late 19th century. It was a commercial failure upon its first release, but eventually became one of Mark Twain’s best selling works. The novel talks about a boy who grows up along the Mississippi River.

This book was among the earliest novels that were written using a typewriter. Considered by many as a masterpiece of American literature, this book is based on Mark Twain’s own experiences as a child.

3. The oldest surviving literary material

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem that dates back to the 18th century BC. There’s a belief that it’s from ancient Mesopotamia and many consider it the oldest surviving literary material. The poem discovered in its tablet form is also considered as the second oldest religious text.

The poem tells the tale of King Gilgamesh, the ruler of Uruk, and a wild man called ‘Enkidu’. This wild man was gods’ creation and his purpose was to stop King Gilgamesh from oppressing Uruk’s subjects. The two later end up becoming friends.

4. Alice in Wonderland is based on a real Alice

Also called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this 1865 children’s novel features a young girl named Alice as the protagonist. The popular belief is that author Lewis Carroll had based this book on Alice Liddell. While rowing on the Isis River, he used to tell stories to entertain the 11-year-old Alice and her sisters.

It is through these stories that he developed the character ‘Alice’ for Alice in Wonderland. This has been disagreed upon by many of the scholars.

5. The world’s oldest operating bookstore

Founded in 1732, Livraria Bertrand is a bookstore located in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon. As it continues to operate even today, it has become the world’s oldest operating bookstore. Bertrand has a network of more than 50 shops across the country. Many authors have frequented this amazing bookstore over the years, including Fernando Pessoa, Antero de Quental, and Alexandre Herculano.

6. Inventor of the printing press

Johannes Gutenberg was the man behind Europe’s ‘Printing Revolution’. He invented the movable-type printing press in 1440, which could produce up to 3,600 pages a day. So, you need to thank Gutenberg for all the books that you’re able to read today. His invention had reduced the printing costs of books and other documents in Europe to a great extent in those times.

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