My reading numbers are down for 2019. Only 56 books read this past year. In part that was due to a variation in reading habits — for example, spending a long time dipping into a large collection of essays on jazz, which I didn’t read in whole and thus didn’t count. In part it was due to having a few months where I barely read at all. However, it didn’t feel like a bad reading year because so many of the books that I read were excellent. And very few were bad (and none were awful).
Highlights of the year included books by Ben Lerner, Don DeLillo, Anna Burns, Max Porter, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner. But also highly regarded were works by Pat Barker, Ottessa Moshfegh, Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod, Erika Swyler, Daniel Pennac, Antonio Damasio, David Salle, Colm Tóibín, Jessie Kanelos Weiner, André Alexis, Meg Rosoff, Jesmyn Ward, Rachel Kushner, and George Saunders. So, a lot of good books!
As has been my way in recent years, I have written short reviews of each of the books and posted those on LibraryThing. I’m confident that 2020 will be an even better year for reading.
Stats from my 2019 reading list:
- 25 were borrowed from our public library
- 13 have Canadian authors
- 5 were chosen due to personal recommendation from friends
- 0 were being reread
- 13 are non-fiction
- 0 are ebooks
Books read in 2019 (56):
- Saunders, George. Fox 8: a story
- Kushner, Rachel. The Flamethrowers
- Ward, Jesmyn. Sing, Unburied, Sing
- Rosoff, Meg. Good Dog, McTavish
- Peterson, Oscar. A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson
- Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance
- Homes. A.M. Days of Awe: stories
- Li, Yiyun. Where Reasons End: a novel
- Swyler, Erika. The Book of Speculation: a novel
- Barris, Alex. Oscar Peterson: A Musical Biography
- Plett, Casey. Little Fish: a novel
- Russell, Karen. Swamplandia!: a novel
- Baker, Dani. Macarons and Murder
- Alexis, André. Days by Moonlight
- Weiner, Jessie Kanelos and Moroz, Sarah. Paris in Stride: An Insider’s Walking Guide
- Tóibín, Colm. Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce
- Salle, David. How To See: Looking, Talking, and Thinking about Art
- Gros, Frédéric. A Philosophy of Walking
- Callanan, Liam. Paris By The Book
- Fowler, Christopher. Full Dark House
- Pennac, Daniel. Le Roman d’Ernest et Célestine
- Damasio, Antonio. The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
- Miller, Tom. The Philosopher’s War
- Pennac, Daniel. L’oeil du loup
- Swyler, Erika. Light From Other Stars
- Porter, Max. Grief is the Thing with Feathers
- Arrou-Vignod, Jean-Philippe. Le professeur a disparu
- Moshfegh, Ottessa. My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- Gopnik, Adam. A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
- Burns, Anna. Milkman
- Brodesser-Akner, Taffy. Fleishman Is In Trouble
- Crummey, Michael. The Innocents: a novel
- Ewen, Paul. How to be a Public Author by Francis Plug
- Cusk, Rachel. Coventry: essays
- Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca
- Barker, Pat. The Silence of the Girls
- Baker, Carleigh (compiler), Hernandez, Catherine (compiler), Whitehead, Joshua (compiler). The Journey Prize Stories 31
- DeLillo, Don. The Angel Esmeralda: nine stories
- Lerner, Ben. The Topeka School: a novel
- Robinson, Eden. Trickster Drift
- Eisenberg, Deborah. Your Duck is My Duck: stories
- Lerner, Ben. Mean Free Path
- Tannahill, Jordan. Liminal
- Westover, Tara. Educated: a memoir
- North, Ryan. How To Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler
- Skibsrud, Johanna. I Do Not Think That I Could Love A Human Being
- Bernhard, Thomas. Wittgenstein’s Nephew
- Strout, Elizabeth. Olive, Again: a novel
- Smith, Zadie. Grand Union: stories
- Kaufman, Andrew. The Ticking Heart
- Rosoff, Meg. McTavish Goes Wild
- Patchett, Ann. The Dutch House
- Aylett, Steve. Lint
- deGrasse Tyson, Neil. Letters From An Astrophysicist
- Ferrante, Elena. Incidental Inventions
- Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen