Happy 2020 everyone (wow we are there)! I hope your holidays were wonderful and that you received many new books and gifts. We just returned from visiting with family in Southern California and had a great time. The only trouble was that I came down with a bad head cold and have been sick this past week. Sigh. Now it’s sniffles and hacking for me. Still while there, we took a couple of fun bike rides, had many great dinners with family, and my sister and I saw the movie “Little Women,” which was quite enjoyable. It’s a sisterly movie after all. I think Louisa May Alcott would approve of this faithful movie version of her novel even though there are some tweaks to it … which make the story feel a bit more modern but also good. Have you seen it?
Now we are back in North Country and I have been looking over my 2019 year in reading. My stats were okay, though not great — it was more quality over quantity, which is a bit typical for me. I will try to boost my numbers in the coming year. Though I’m often not in a rush while in a book … sometimes I’ll read as well as listen to a book, which I did with Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming,” or I’ll listen to a book twice such as with “Southern Lady Code” or “Daisy Jones and the Six” — it’s just I find myself caught up in it and take awhile to move on.
Anyways, what I noticed making this list below … is that I completed quite a few debut novels this year — which I didn’t realize I was doing but so many were good — and several dystopian tales that seem ripe for our times — I can’t stop picking them up. I was also high on the audiobooks whose productions are getting better and better. Some of them are amazing renditions. No wonder my dog gets such long walks and I’m keeping up with laundry. Now in leaving you with my 2019 list, I’ll just say that a few books pleasantly surprised me … and were my sleeper hits such as “Nothing to See Here,” “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” and “Severance” — these are stories that you don’t expect much then are jumpstarted from your seat. All in all, it was a pretty strong year in books. Below are the ones I completed in 2019.
- Books Completed: 56
- Fiction: 45
- Nonfiction: 11
- Print: 23
- Audiobooks 33
- Female Authors: 36
- Male Authors: 20
- Non-white Authors: 13
- American Authors: 45
- British Authors: 3
- Canadian Authors: 3
- Australian Authors: 2
- Irish Authors: 1
- French Authors: 1
- Nigerian Authors: 1
Favorite Fiction:
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
- The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019)
- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)
- Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (2019)
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
Favorite Nonfiction:
- Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)
- American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the American West by Nate Blakeslee (2017)
- The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power (2019)
- Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity & Style by Benjamin Dreyer (2019)
- Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff (2008)
- Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis (2019)
- The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-Ups, and Winning at All Costs by Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle (2012)
- My 25 Years in Provence: Reflections on Then and Now by Peter Mayle (2018)
- The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life’s Direction & Purpose by Oprah Winfrey (2019)
Favorite Debut Novels:
- Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (2019)
- After the Flood by Kassandra Montag (2019)
- The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall (2019)
- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2018)
- Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (2018)
- A Prayer for Travelers by Ruchika Tomar (2019)
- The Falconer by Dana Czapnik (2019)
- American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (2019)
- Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (2019)
- We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (2019)
- Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (2019)
- Miracle Creek by Angie Kim (2019)
- The Last Book Party by Karen Dukess (2019)
Favorite Post-Apocalyptic / Dystopian /Speculative Novels:
- The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019)
- After the Flood by Kassandra Montag (2019)
- Severance by Ling Ma (2018)
- The Dreamers by Karen Walker Thompson (2019)
- We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (2019)
- Recursion by Blake Crouch (2019)
Favorite Memoirs
- Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)
- The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power (2019)
- Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff (2008)
- Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life by Michael Caine (2018)
Classics:
- If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (1974)
- Night by Elie Wiesel (1960)
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles (1959)
Literary Fiction:
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
- The Red Daughter by John Burnham Schwartz (2019)
- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (2019)
- Trust Exercise by Susan Choi (2019)
- Inland by Tea Obreht (2019)
- Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (2018)
- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (2011)
- Normal People by Sally Rooney (2019)
- Those Who Knew by Idra Novey (2018)
- The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill (2017)
- The Need by Helen Phillips (2019)
- Elsey Come Home by Susan Conley (2019)
Crime & Popular Fiction Novels:
- The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (2018)
- Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2019)
- The River by Peter Heller (2019)
- Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens (2019)
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (2019)
- The Lost Man by Jane Harper (2019)
- The Current by Tim Johnston (2019)
- The Futures by Anna Pitoniak (2017)
- Recursion by Blake Crouch (2019)
- Descent by Tim Johnston (2015)
- The Mother in Law by Sally Hepworth (2019)
- The Last Book Party by Karen Dukess (2019)
- The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves (2019)
Favorite Audiobooks
- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson /read by Marin Ireland (2019)
- Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid /read by numerous actors (2019)
- Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner /read by Allyson Ryan (2019)
- Becoming by Michelle Obama /read by the author (2018)
- The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani /read by Finty Williams (2019)
- After the Flood by Kassandra Montag /read by Hillary Huber (2019)
- Little by Edward Carey /read by Jayne Entwistle (2018)
- The River by Peter Heller /read by Mark Deakins (2019)
- Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis /read by the author (2019)
That’s all for now. What about you — did any of these make your favorites for 2019?
I tried to keep better stats one year but found the effort to figure out an author’s sex and/or ethnicity more trouble than it was worth. I loved the production of Daisy Jones but didn’t love the book. Happy New Year!
Hey Kathy — Happy New Year to you! The stats I seem throw together at the end of the year — they take a bit of time but it seems sort of illuminating to me after I figure them. I agree Daisy Jones is perhaps better on audio than as a book.
We have several books in common on our “favorites” list, including the debut novels. I found it to be such a strong year for first novels, many of which were truly amazing. Happy reading in 2020!
Thanks Dorothy you too — Happy 2020 to you. I agree there were plenty of strong first novels last year. Now I’m off to check your lists ….
I also sos not read nearly as much as I would have liked in 2019. It looks like you read more books then I did. These statistics are so interesting. I need to dig into some of my own.
Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2020!
Thanks Brian. The stats sort of always surprise me as to what I’m picking up. I think you’d like to figure out your stats. Happy 2020 to you as well.
Quality over quantity is good… at least that’s what I keep telling myself! My numbers are down, but I’m happy with most of the books I’m reading these days. I think you’re helping me make better reading choices 🙂
As usual, we have several books in common. I see many more already on my tbr lists and a few are even waiting on my self (will this finally be they year of The Goldfinch?)… my “books to investigate” list is also growing. Just found the audio of Southern Lady Code on the library website. Will listen on my walk this morning!
I love your year-end posts!
Hey thanks JoAnn! I find we often read & like the same books, so you often give me great choices to read too. For instance, I still want to read Forty Autumns which you talked about. My husband liked it a lot too. I’m always a bit surprised about my findings in the year-end posts … that’s what makes them sort of fun for me. Still there is much I could improve upon!
2019 was an impressive year for books. So many of your reads were among the top reads according to critics and readers alike. I read 15 books–an increase over the last two years. 9 /15 were published in 2019, 6 of them I rated 4*, namely: The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal, Inland by Tea Obreht, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo, and A Good Neighborhood (5*)–to be released in 2020.
Hey Carmen, great hearing from you! You read some good ones that I haven’t gotten to. I’ll have to look for A Good Neighborhood — seems like you really liked it. I’m off to a slow start in 2020, yikes. What was your take away from the Golden Globes? It appears 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had a big night, and The Irishman and The Marriage Story not so much. I saw the Tarantino movie … and Judy and Little Women. I still have much to see before the Oscars.
I haven’t seen 1917, Once Upon A Time, or The Irishman yet, the last two mostly due to length, but I watched most of the other competing ones. I was very impressed with The Two Popes and Marriage Story. The latter is, for me, the best movie of the year, and so are the performances of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. I think Scarlett was better than Renee Zellweger in Judy. Be sure to read A Good Neighborhood. It’s extremely good, timely, and it’s a fast pace read. Hope you like it if you give it a try.
Wow that’s great your word about The Two Popes and Marriage Story. I’ll definitely see both. I have liked Noah Baumbach’s other movies. I haven’t seen The Irishman either / 3 hours is too much! We no longer get Netflix but do get HBO … so we miss some things. Hmm.
I am horrible with stats. Yours are quite impressive.
Are you still suffering from your cold? Everyone here at work is battling something. I am trying to stay away from it.
January is already flying by. All the politics and heated political tweets are bringing me down and frankly, making me angry. I try to avoid but the social media part of my job has be on there all the time. Can’t help but see it.
I am a little anxious for next week because production week begins. Three weeks, two different shows (Annie and Macbeth) and an audition for Godspell in between.
Wow your daughter is busy … and you too. These shows sound very good. I hope she gets all three! It’s great she has parts in these. I agree the news this January is crazy, and I’m fearful of war for no reason. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. Each day is a new disaster by this Administration. & Yes I still have the head cold. It’s been 2 weeks now, but I’m hopeful it’ll be over soon. Grrrrr. Stay clear of anyone sick!
I’m late to the table, but I’m glad I saw your list of favorites for the year. I read and loved Goldfinch and American Wolf and you have reminded me that I want to read Peter Mayle’s My 25 Years in Provence. I think you and I have similar reading likes and dislikes.
Hey Deb — just saw your note. So glad you liked Goldfinch & American Wolf too. I think we do have similar tastes! I haven’t found another blogger who read American Wolf so I’m really pleased you read and liked it as well. It was definitely a highlight of my nonfiction this year. But a sad ending on that book!
Your nonfiction list is so long (9 out of 11) – you must have made some good choices!
It looks like there were some good debuts this year. There are so many here I’d like to read! I like that you have a post-apocalyptic category. After the Flood has caught my attention.
Thanks Naomi. Yeah After the Flood was engaging and visual. A good debut.