The 117 Books I Read In 2019
By: Nina Li Coomes
Tags: Books, Goodreads, 2019, Year In Review

Subtle Knife Illustration, by Brett

As has become my annual tradition, here is a list of books I read in the year 2019. I read A LOT this year, mostly because halfway through the year I realized I’d be going to grad school and that my pleasure-reading output would go way down, which resulted in sudden up tick in hate reads/trash reads/ speculative reads, especially during the summer months. To be honest, I lost complete track of what I was reading once school started (thank goodness for the OverDrive app for keeping track of my e-reads, as well as the current pile of books next to my bed where I haven’t bothered to move the recent ones).

Bolded titles are particular recommendations. (I say particular because I enjoy most everything I read, but the bolded ones are the books that went above and beyond.) I didn’t write very many comments this year but if I did, it would be following the “//.”

Next year, I’d like to try my hand at reading harder books (i.e. “classics.” I didn’t include the 18th century texts I was assigned in class this past quarter, and though I don’t think I’ll be turning back to Tristam Shandy any time soon, Jane Austen did convince me a thing or two about how lovely an ‘old’ book can be.) I’d also like to read a lot more Japanese and translated books, so if you have any recommendations there, do please pass them along!

And now, the year in books:

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead Year One, Nora Roberts Wedding Night, Sophie Kinsella Ghosts in the Schoolyard, Eve Ewing About a Boy, Nicholas Hornsby Misery, Stephen King Red Sparrow, Jason Matthews Wild, Cheryl Strayed The Identicals, Elin Hilderbrand (HATED THIS BOOK) Bluets, Maggie Nelson The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson Dear Shameless Death, Latife Tekin The Emissary, Yoko Tawada A Family Trust, Kathy Wang Love In a Blue Time, Hanif Kureishi The Traitor’s Niche, Ismail Kadare Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Yan Mo The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt The Great Movies, Roger Ebert // This book started a kick of me thinking about what it actually means to write about culture well and accessibly. Highly recommend to anyone who even remotely likes movies. Big Little Lies, LIanne Moriarty The Liar’s Club, Mary Karr Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado The Collected Schizophrenias, Esme Waijun Wang // Read this twice this year. Stay With Me, Ayobami Adebayo Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (RR) Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld (hated) Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple (also hated) La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain Uprooted, Naomi Novik へルタースケルター、岡崎京子 Goodbye Vitamin, Rachel Khong // Possibly the best book I read in 2019 Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue Educated, Tara Westover The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood A Cook’s Tour, Anthony Bourdain A Game of Thrones, GRRM (RR) Clash of Kings, GRRM (RR) Storm of Sword, GRRM (RR) A Feast of Crows, GRRM (RR) Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit The Nasty Bits, Anthony Bourdain 初めての文学、山田詠美 初めての文学、吉本バナナ あさきゆめみし、大和和妃 Oculus, Sally Wen Mao The White Book, Han Kang Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney The Incendiaries, RO Kwon Where Reasons End, Yiyun Li Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple // This book for me was the same as her other — -I really was not a fan. Also, raised issues of casual racism in white neoliberal female novelists — -why “You bet your Bindi?” is it quirk? Camp? Does no one see that this is jarring? I don’t so much as find it offensive, but it does jolt the reader of color out of the reading experience, while I imagine an unseasoned white reader would just skim past it. Grave Mercy, Robin LaFevers (lol) Tempest and Slaughter, Tamora Pierce (I guess I was on a YA kick) Circe, Madeline Miller Normal People, Sally Rooney Long Live The Tribe of Fatherless Girls, T Kira Madden// This book added something to the internal dialogue of what memoir could look like. The Recovering, Leslie Jamison The Young Elites, Marie Lu / Younge ELITES??? Come on!! Galatea, Madeline Miller The Hazelwood, Melissa Albert Tearling trilogy (RR) .. .. The Mothers, Brit Bennet The Proposal, Jasmine Guillory The Cranes Dance, Meg Howrey Lot, Bryan Washington // Aspirational. The Descendants, Kaui Hart Hemmings The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer The Wife, Meg Wolitzer Home Going, Yaa Gyasi Shrill, Lindy West Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn The Goldfinch, Donna Tart (RR) Gifts, Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin The New Atlantis, Ursula K. LeGuin It Was Me All Along, Andie Mitchell //Triggering Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie The Ministry of Utumost Happiness, Arundhati Roy Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood The Idiot, Elif Batuman The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb (RR) Killing Monica, Candace Bushnell // “Universally reviled” The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood MadAddam, Margaret Atwood The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik Call The Midwife, Jennifer Worth And Now We Have Everything, Meghan O’Connell The Nix, Nathan Hill Shadows of the Workhouse, Jennifer Worth Farewell To The Eastend, Jennifer Worth Places I Stopped on the Way Home, Meg Fee The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood (RR) The Power, Naomi Alderman // Thought provoking in a weird way. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood The Secret of Platform 13, Eva Ibbotson (RR) How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee (RR) Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva コンビニ人間、村田紗耶香 // So enjoyed 一切成り行き、樹木希林 イヤシノウタ、吉本バナナ 字幕屋の気になる日本語、太田直子 The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman (RR) The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman (RR) The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman (RR) Certain American States, Catherine Lacey The Storyteller and collected essays, Walter Benjamin Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (RR) // A perfect novel Earthquake Bird, Susanna Jones Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie // Horrifying!!! In the sense of horror! Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi Wicked, Gregory Maguire The Winter Soldier,

Currently on my shelf for the rest of the year: