This month we’re taking a look at the most wished for books by our lovely customers over at Wob.com. There are million-copy bestsellers and modern classic texts that everyone needs to read at some point. This top 10 most wished for books on 2022 so far might not be as predictable as you think! Read on to discover our fantastic new wishlist feature, making your book-browsing sessions even smoother.
1. Normal People – Sally Rooney
When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person’s life – a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel.
By now, Sally Rooney has written her way into becoming a household name. Normal People was a hit among lovers of contemporary fiction as soon as it hit the shelves. However, since the BBC/Hulu adaptation of the heart-wrenching tale graced our screens, Rooney’s written word has been in even higher demand. In 2021, she released her newest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You. It’s recently been announced that Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations With Friends is to follow the path of Normal People with a BBC/Hulu adaptation that’s set it steam up our screens later this year.
So, if you haven’t jumped on this runaway train of millennial mastery in the fiction world, why not?!
2. The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Nora’s life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth, she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?
Though Matt Haig’s bestselling fantasy tale was published in the summer of 2020, it’s the sort of reading that warms you on a winter’s night, sees you through February storms, and engenders calm on a turbulent commute. Haig has been a constant in the lives of readers for a long time and appeals to a huge variety of people. From his hard-hitting, ever inspiring memoir, Reasons to Stay Alive, to his festive favourite, recently adapted for the big screen, A Boy Called Christmas. Haig’s words can be found all over Instagram feeds, battled between book club members, and in book reports across the globe. No matter what you like to read, Matt Haig’s incredible versatility ensures there’s a book for you.
3. Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Ageing and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen the rise of book-loving communities across social media. Bookstagram is alive and kicking and, more recently, Booktok has taken off at an incredible pace. When a book is discussed on these platforms, everyone gets very excited! Hugo’s 2017 novel has recently been picked up and resurfaced as a must-read novel across the social media world. Loosely based on the lives, loves, and scandals of Elizabeth Taylor, and Ava Gardner, this historical fiction puts strong women in the driving seat and explores sapphic sexuality in a way that is both representative and enlightening. Talks of a TV series adaptation are very much on the table, so we’re keeping our ears to the ground!
4. Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of this novel. The publication of a murder mystery from the loveable British comedian and TV presenter originally came out of the blue. However, since becoming the first-ever debut novel to top the bestsellers list at Christmas in 2020, we now expect nothing but further greatness flowing from Osman’s curious pen. His second novel, The Man Who Died Twice, was published in Autumn 2021, and people are racing to read the first and second before the third instalment is released, likely in late 2022.
In most recent news, The Thursday Murder Club has been signed for a film adaptation by Stephen Speilberg’s production company. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a good idea to get it on your wishlist or straight into your basket now!
5. Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life – until the unthinkable happens.
This bestseller which made Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick back in 2018 has continued to impress new readers over the years. In response to the incredible impact the novel has made on readers for the last four years, Where the Crawdads Sing is being made into a movie due to be released on July 22nd this year. Daisy Edgar-Jones, who amazed everyone in her role as Marianne in the TV adaptation of Rooney’s Normal People is playing the lead character, Kya. This is set to be a huge hit, and we are beyond excited to watch see how the tale of the ‘Marsh girl’ is translated onto the big screen. You only have a few months to read the novel before the film comes out, so better add it to your list now!
6. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
It takes great courage, but one day Santiago decides it’s time to follow his heart and believe in his hopes and dreams, so he sets off in search of distant lands. He meets people along the way and sees incredible things that change his perspective forever and provide him with the wisdom he needs to lead the life he craves.
The Alchemist is an astonishing tale where folklore and magical realism combine to form a compelling story that might just change your life forever.
The Alchemist is a modern classic text that’s never far from the top of wishlists and reading lists around the globe. However, it’s recently been discussed by Will Smith, as not only one of his favourite books but the book which has had the most impact on his life so far. You couldn’t ask for a better recommendation than this! So people who haven’t yet discovered the magic of Coelho’s 1988 novel have been swiftly adding it to their TBR lists.
The book is full of quotable lines which can often be found in the foreground of an aesthetically pleasing edit on Instagram. But Smith’s endorsement seems to be pushing more people to explore the full text, and hopefully, find some inspiration of their own directly from the page.
7. The Beekeeper of Aleppo – Christy Lefteri
This novel is about war, love, courage, and how to face the darkest of times with strength and grace. Nuri is a beekeeper and lives with his artist wife in Aleppo, where they find richness in simple pleasures such as spending time with family and friends.
Their peaceful and happy existence is completely overturned when the Syrian Civil War reaches their doorstep, and they are forced to leave everything they know behind. The pair travel through a despairing landscape, dealing with everything they have lost while confronting dangers that only the most courageous and strong would be able to overcome.
Lefteri uses fictional narratives to put humanity back into very real stories of war in Syria and across the Middle East. Heartwrenching, inspiring, and, above all, necessary, we believe this novel deserves to be on every wishlist and every bookshelf. With constant relevance as political warfare pushes more and more communities into direct danger, books like The Beekeeper of Aleppo are brilliant at encouraging stories behind the headlines to come to the surface. They enable people to look beyond stats, figures, and political rhetoric, and into the faces of the people affected by powers above them.
8. Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo
This is Britain as you’ve never read it.
This is Britain as it has never been told.
From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .
Evaristo is by far one of the most influential contemporary writers, championing black British women through her prose and beyond the page. Her novels and her new memoir, Manifesto, are all over our reader’s wishlists right now! With an impressively varied back catalogue of work, Evaristo is the type of versatile writer whose future endeavours cannot be predicted. We wait in anticipation to see what she produces next, but in the meantime, we’re still very much indulging in her novels, and you should too!
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix-tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can’t stay on the sideline forever.
Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
Move over Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye), because The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the Gen Z coming-of-age story that is likely to last the test of time, for a decade or two at least. Published in 2009 and adapted into a Hollywood movie in 2012, Chbosky’s bildungsroman remains a trending title for young adults and adults alike.
It has recently resurfaced among news articles discussing the new influx of banned books, mostly across US states. The novel deals with sex, drugs, abuse, and psychological issues, which have fallen under censorship in some schools. Fortunately, these discussions always shed further light on these brilliant books and end up encouraging more curious young readers to seek them out themselves. Reading is a fantastic way to learn about the world, and we are proud to champion books that explore all aspects of life.
10. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper – despite the displeasure of Achilles’s mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfil his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.
Another novel that has been heralded as a necessary read by the young adult readers on Tiktok; The Song of Achilles has been a mainstay on bestsellers lists for the last decade but was given an extra boost by viral videos across social media in the last few months.
This historical fiction novel brings the genre into the hands of those who may ordinarily avoid it. A fast-paced read, the story unfolds beautifully, exploring the forces of love and war which are relatable at any period of time. The exploration of the intimate relationship between Patroclus and Achilles is far from new, but Miller brings it to the forefront of the story, leading to this novel becoming a hugely recommended read among LGBT+ communities and, of course, far beyond.
Have you seen our new and improved wishlist function? It allows you to not only add items to your virtual bookshelf but create multiple lists and name them for your own convenience. This is perfect if you want to separate your TBR books by genre, add a gift list filled with fantastic titles to buy your loved ones, or simply need to separate your books from your films and music lists.
Curious about what else other readers’ have been wishing for? Check out our page full of the most-wished-for books right now. Get some inspiration or see if your wishlists look similar to the rest of Wob readers!
Don’t forget, you can build your individual wishlists here!
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