(TUCSON, Ariz.) – A favorite for readers who stay up late devouring the best of Southwest-themed books, the Library’s 45th annual Southwest Books of the Year is now available online, opens a new window! Watch for it soon at local libraries and bookstores.
Here are the Top Picks selected by the seven panelists, all voracious consumers of Southwest literature:
Memoir
Fiction
History
- Becoming Hopi: A History , opens a new window
- The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon's Life of Science and Art , opens a new window
- Wildcat: The Untold Story of Pearl Hart, the Wild West's Most Notorious Woman Bandit , opens a new window
Biography
Nonfiction
- Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Versus the Latino Resistance , opens a new window
- Treasured Legacies: Conservation, Art, Education, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, opens a new window
Poetry
Children's
Young Adult
There are many more books waiting to be discovered in Southwest Books of the Year, including titles in Nature & Science, Art & Photography, and Memoir. Find your new favorite today!
Southwest Books of the Year: Best Reading 2022 is published by Pima County Public Library in partnership with the Friends of the Pima County Public Library, opens a new window. This is the 45th annual edition. The publication was begun by the Arizona Daily Star and continued by the Library in 2000. Southwest Books of the Year is made possible by a gift from the Friends of the Pima County Public Library and by the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records, opens a new window, a division of the Secretary of State, with federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Our gratitude goes out to the amazing Southwest Books of the Year selection committee:
- Ann Dickinson, retired Pima County Public Library librarian
- Bruce Dinges, retired Director of Publications at the Arizona Historical Society
- Vicki Ann Duraine, Programming Librarian for Apache Junction Public Library
- Gregory McNamee, writer, editor, and photographer
- Mary Margaret Mercado, a bilingual public librarian for over 40 years who specializes in children's and Latinx services and programming.
- Margie Trujillo-Farmer, Literary Arts Librarian at Pima County Public Library, and Southwest Books of the Year project coordinator
- Helene Woodhams, retired Pima County Public Library librarian who has been affiliated with Southwest Books of the Year since 2006
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