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Recommended Books of 2022

December 31, 2022

Cheers to this year’s collection of books published by UCLA English alumni, faculty, students and staff.

Avidly Reads Poetry (NYU Press) by Jacquelyn Ardam, PhD alum and Director of the Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences at UCLA, is guaranteed to delight newcomers to this literary form, and poetry obsessives alike. This wonderful work is described as “an ode to poetry and the worlds that come into play around the different ways it is written and shared.”

Want to learn more about Oscar Wilde? Check out Professor Joseph Bristow’s Oscar Wilde on Trial (Yale University Press). This work is considered “The most authoritative account of a pivotal event in legal and cultural history: the trials of Oscar Wilde on charges of ‘gross indecency.’”

How do novels create theory? Professor Mitchum Huehls explores this in his new work Art, Theory, Revolution: The Turn to Generality in Contemporary Literature (Ohio State University Press). Described as “a much-needed intervention into ongoing discussions about fictional realism, historical fiction, and political forms.”

Professor Michelle Huneven’s new novel Search (Penguin Random House) is one not to miss. Huneven describes it as a story “about a church search committee tasked with finding the next senior minister. It’s a yearlong process with many steps and bumps along the way.” Huneven discusses her new work in our interview.

Professor Christopher Looby served as one of the series General Editors for the new anthology series, The Broadview Anthology of American Literature (Broadview Press). This beautiful series brings new life to early American Literature. Read our interview with Looby, who talks about why he was “reluctant” to join the series.

Can’t get enough of Elizabeth Bishop? Check out Distinguished Research Professor Jonathan F.S. Post’s Elizabeth Bishop: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press). In our interview with Post, he discusses the importance of including Bishop in this series.

Scholars of religious texts will love Distinguished Professor Debora Shuger’s new book, Paratexts of the English Bible, 1525-1611 (Oxford University Press). This divine work is the “first study of the myriad notes, essays, prefaces, poems, images, maps, charts, diagrams, indices, and chronologies found in early modern English bibles.”

Happy for You (Viking) by Claire Stanford, PhD alum and assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and one of the 40 Best Books of 2022 by Glamour. This gorgeous debut is described as “A whip-smart, funny, affecting novel about a young woman who takes a job at a tech company looking to break into the ‘happiness market’—even as her own happiness feels more unknowable than ever.”