Jan: Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
Jan-Feb: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Feb-Mar: Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach
Mar: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Mar-Apr: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Apr: My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid
May: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (didn't give the titular f*ck about this book and therefore didn't finish it)
May-Jun: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
May-Jul: Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
Jul-Aug: How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Aug: Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Sep-Oct: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Nov: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Nov: Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire
Dec: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (still reading)
It was a lighter year than most, falling 5 books short of my goal of 18. I credit the low count to a lot of time spent reading Sapiens (nearly two months). Goldfinch also took a long time (or at least it felt like it), and I spent the last month of the year reading a book I didn't end up finishing (Norwegian). My favorites all fell in the second half of the year: Hiddensee, Lathe, and Bernadette. I rated Vita slightly lower than them, but in retrospect I'd like to bump that up to a favorite as well, and it was certainly the most interesting book I read last year. Of the books I finished, I liked Brother the least, but will try Kincaid again. Subtle is not worth talking about, and I will discuss Norwegian next year.
Goodreads would like you to know that Goldfinch was the most read on Goodreads of all the books I read in 2019, and it was also the longest book I read (although it took longer to read Sapiens). Lathe was the shortest, Brother was the least read, and Sapiens was the most highly rated (on Goodreads).
By the authors:
I finished books by 8 female authors and 6 male authors. Eight of them are American and the rest are Ukrainian, Korean, Singaporean, Antiguan, and Israeli. All of the authors whose books I finished are older than me, the youngest being Harari (b. 1976) and the oldest being Le Guin (1929-2018). This was my 6th read of Roach's, my 5th of Maguire's, and my 2nd of Tartt's. All other authors I was reading for the first time, but not the last for Le Guin and Kincaid, and I eagerly await the translations of more books by the Dyachenkos.
By publication date:
The oldest book I read was Lathe (1971), separated by a nearly 30-year gap from the 2nd-and 3rd-oldest books, Brother (1997) and Birds (1998). The rest of the books I finished were published in the 2010s, the freshest being Autobiographical in 2018. Two of the books I read were galleys, although in both cases the books had long since been published.
By setting:
The books took place in various locations around the US including New York, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and Maine, and also in Russia, Korea, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Mexico, Antigua, and Antarctica.
By genre:
Fiction: 8
- Fantasy: Vita, Hiddensee
- Humorous: Crazy, Bernadette
- Sci-fi: Lathe
- Historical: Pachinko
- Short stories: Birds
- Plain old novel: Goldfinch
Non-Fiction: 5
- Science: Grunt, Sapiens
- Memoir/Essays: Brother, Autobiographical
- History/True Crime: Killers
Vita and Crazy are both first books in a series and I will probably continue them both, but the former is more likely (contingent upon more books in the series being translated).
Major awards:
Pachinko, Killers, and Brother were finalists for the National Book Award.
Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Movies and book clubs:
- Page & Popcorn: I read Bernadette and Goldfinch with the Page & Popcorn Book & Movie Club, but did not attend either gathering (there wasn't one for the former). I watched the latter on Prime. I watched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with Page & Popcorn this year, which I read in 2009. I started the HBO series adaptation of His Dark Materials (I read the Golden Compass with Page & Popcorn in 2008 and saw the movie, and I read the Subtle Knife in 2009).
- I read Crazy intending to watch the movie but haven't yet.
- This year I watched the miniseries adaptation of Good Omens (which I read in 2015).
- I read Sapiens and Subtle with an Astoria gay boys book club, and also discussed Less with them which I read in 2018.
Where the books came from, and why I read them:
- Gifts: Vita, Pachinko, and Grunt were 2018 holiday gifts from my parents. Vita came recommended from Bethany and Pachinko from Mary.
- Bought them in a store: Bernadette and Sapiens were intentional bookstore purchases (meaning I specifically set out to buy them) for reading with book clubs. Lathe, Hiddensee, and Brother were thrifts store finds. I had been wanting to try Le Guin and Kincaid.
- Loans from friends: Goldfinch was loaned to me by Josh and I'm holding it hostage until he visits NYC. I borrowed Killers from my brother-in-law by way of my mom, both of whom read it and loved it. A coworker recommended and loaned me her copy of Autobiographical.
- I found Crazy in a giveaway box in Kathryn's apartment building.
- Birds had been on my bookshelf since David Sedaris recommended it on a speaking tour in 2003. I bought it when I was working at Borders and it still has the yellow personal property sticker on the cover.
To 2020!
- Recently acquired: I got Susan Orlean's The Library Book and Randall Munroe's latest How To from my parents for Chanukah. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Emma Donoghue's The Wonder are recent purchases from the Housing Works bookstore. The Island of Lost Maps jumped off of the shelf of Green Hand in Portland (ME) and into my green hands. Lastly, I nicked How Paris Became Paris (DeJean), The Last Girlfriend on Earth (Rich), and How to Talk About Places You've Never Been (Bayard) from Josh's collection before he left.
- From the bookshelf: 2019 was the rare year in which I took a book that's been cluttering up my collection for over a decade and read it (Birds). I don't think I'll go as far back as 2003 this year, but here are the books I've pulled off of my bookshelf for consideration in 2020: Mother Night (Vonnegut), Nocturnes (Ishiguro), Bel Canto (Patchett), A Favourite of the Gods (Bedford), Bean Trees (Kingsolver), Belgravia (Fellowes), The Edible Woman (Atwood), A People's History of the United States (Zinn, which belongs to my brother-in-law and I really should return it eventually)
- In the great beyond: I'm going to try and make time for Dreyer's English this year. I may seek out The Little Friend and finish the Tartt canon. I m hungry for Niffenegger's The Starless Sea and Atwood's The Testaments, but possibly not hungry enough to buy them in hardcover. Although I'll finish Norwegian Wood this year (this month, hopefully), I may want another Murakami. I might read the first books in the Outlander and Song of Fire and Ice series so I can finally start watching those TV shows.
- Still on my list of movies to watch for which I've already read the books are The Namesake and Remains of the Day, along with the previously mentioned Crazy and Bernadette.
