As this year ends and the next draws ever closer, it’s a good time to stop and reflect. At Book Riot, we published thousands of articles in a year, ranging from longer, research-based posts to quick lists and bite-sized news stories. So after a year of uploading hundreds of posts a month, which ones were the useful for you, our audience?
We have gone through all our 2022 content and crunched the numbers to give you the top ten most popular posts of the year. These are the posts published this year that got the most views, whether you discovered them through browsing Book Riot, because your phone recommended them, because you googled something related, because you clicked through a newsletter link, or through the many other ways readers come across our writing!
But first, a couple of posts we excised from the list. October to December is the Best Of Book List season, and we like to keep our readers informed by sharing the biggest ones, usually in a short news post with a link to the full list. Apparently, you appreciate that, because two of those made it to our top ten list! Because they’re more of a reader service than original content, though, we’ve elected to leave them off the official list. Those posts are The Best Book of the Year, According to Barnes & Noble Booksellers and The 10 Best Books of the Year, According to Amazon Book Editors.
Without further ado, let’s get into our most-viewed posts of 2022!
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#10: 9 Books Like Verity by Coleen Hoover for Your Next Read
Colleen Hoover’s books have been dominating the bestseller lists this year, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a list of read-alikes also got a good amount of views! This is a post that is often discovered by people searching for what to read after they’ve finished Colleen Hoover’s backlist.
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#9: 42 of the Best Fantasy Novels From the Last 10 Years
“Best” is a popular word for this list! Our readers are looking for the best of the best, and while reading is always subjective, we’re happy to provide our opinion! This was only published last month, but it has already gotten enough attention to make the top ten of the year. It’s arranged by publication year, so you can see at a glance how the genre has shifted in the last ten years.
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#8: The Best Fantasy Books You’ve Never Heard of
While you definitely want to read about the best books of all time, you also like to discover hidden gems. The Best Books You’ve Never Heard Of is a series where we celebrate those books that don’t get the attention they deserve. They’re beautifully written, impeccably crafted, thought-provoking — and totally under the radar. If you want to widen your fantasy knowledge base, this is a great place to start.
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#7: 23 of the Most Influential Fantasy Books of All Time
This post just barely edges out the under-the-radar fantasy books for spot #7 on the list. Yep, three fantasy lists in a row! This one looks at not just which books are the best, but the ones that had the biggest impact. They’re stories that inspired countless others, or one that did something entirely new. The fantasy genre wouldn’t be the same without these influential titles.
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#6: 10 Bone-Chilling Horror Thrillers
We’re out of the land of fantasy and into genre mashups! Both horror and mystery/thrillers are genres our readers are interested in, so it makes sense that the combination would be appealing! These stories pack in a ton of action and unsettling moments, all building up to an unforgettable and nightmare-inducing climax.
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#5: 25 of the Best Space Opera Books of All Time
Who knew there was so much interest in space opera books? Well, considering that Star Wars is a space opera, that does add up. These books have the big stakes, action-packed plot, and expansive setting that makes sci-fi novels so interesting, but with an added heap of drama and a focus on characters and relationships. What more could you ask for?
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#4: What is Going On with Barnes & Noble?
In August, author Twitter blew up with the news that Barnes & Noble’s policy of which new titles it would stock had changed. Jenn Northington — author, former bookseller, and current Manager of Product Operations at Book Riot — jumped in to help explain what was happening and how it would affect authors and readers: “I have sympathy for buyers who, in efforts to keep their stores profitable, have to make hard choices about what they can successfully stock. But I have just as much sympathy (maybe even more) for the authors who see yet another door closed to them…How do you develop a proven sales record when your book isn’t in stock? Spoiler: you can’t.”
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#3: 10 Bedtime Stories for Adults To Help You Get Some Serious Shut Eye
The fact that this is in the top three for this year makes us have to ask…were you all doing okay in 2022? (Don’t answer that. We know.) Regardless, it looks like a lot of us could use some help shutting off our brains at night, and what better than a soothing bedtime story? These short stories are perfect for reading before bed — though there’s nothing wrong with reading yourself a picture book bedtime story, either.
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#2: 15 of the Best Mystery Books of All Time
It’s always hard to narrow down a “best of all time” list for a genre as vast as the mystery genre — and let’s face it, trying to do so is a good way to start an argument. But despite the impossibility of making a definitive ranking, the attempt is a great conversation starter. We’ve also seen a ton of interest in mystery/thriller books in 2022, so the interest in this post isn’t a big surprise!
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#1: 20 of the Best Science Fiction Books of All Time
And finally, our most-viewed post published in 2022 is the Best Science Fiction Books of All Time. We promise, most of our posts did not have “of all time” in the title; that’s just what our readers clicked on the most! This is another ambitious list that tries to encapsulate a giant genre into just 20 books. These unforgettable reads “push the envelope, show what things could be if we continue down the path we’re on, and make you question what’s possible.”
Those were our most popular posts of 2022, but they’re only a fraction of the posts we loved this year! Check out Book Riot Staff’s Favorite Posts of 2022 for the ones that stuck with us the most.
