What I read in 2019

My goal for 2019 was to read 78 books (52 + 26, or three books every two weeks), but I surpassed that by quite a bit: I read 123 books in all, more than two books per week. I've never read more than 100 books in a year, and most years I read far fewer, so this really surprised me. I started drowning myself in books because I was anxious about the upcoming changes in our lives (i.e., Rocket Boy's move to St. Louis) -- and then just kept on reading, all year long. It got easier to read a lot, quickly, as the year went on. The ability to read is a muscle that benefits from exercise.

I've been keeping a record of the books I read since January of 1980, when I was 19. (My sophomore year college roommate, Karen, got me started. I keep meaning to ask her if she still keeps track.) That's 40 years, and although I've never lost either of the blank books that contain my lists, I thought the time had come to make a digital copy. So now the 2,002 books I read from January 1980 through December 2019 (plus the 1 book I've read so far in 2020) are also in a Google Sheet. That's an average of 50 books a year, or a little less than one book a week. I read an article online about how many books you can expect to read in what's left of your lifetime. Doing my own calculations, let's say I remain an active reader until I'm 85, reading around 50 books a year -- that would only be another 1300 or so. Now I must decide which 1300 books I want to read during the rest of my "one wild and precious life." So much pleasure to look forward to.

For 2020 my goal is just 52 books, because I'm giving myself permission to read long books. I have several in the pipeline already, including two massive biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and The Overstory (502 pages) for our next book group meeting on January 13th. I'm sure I'll read plenty of short books, too, but I'm starting out with long ones. Granted, over the last two days I read an entire Phil Rickman supernatural mystery (589 pages), but I'm assuming the Abraham Lincoln bios will take longer!

Finally, here is a review of what I read in 2019, by category.

Children's Books. Almost everything on this list I read aloud to the kids, though we did also read a few adult books together and I read a few of these on my own. It was interesting sharing some older books with the kids, but I had to stay on my toes to avoid reading aloud the casual racism that kept popping up (yes, Rabbit Hill, I'm talking about you). My favorite was a new book, Hello Universe.

• Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson (read by myself)
• All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson (Kid B and I read together)
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
• Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Upside Down Magic: Weather or Not by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins (Kid B and I read together)
• The Capture by Kathryn Lasky (Guardians of G'aHoole #1)
• Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks
• Steel Magic by Andre Norton
• Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer
• Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly
• The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson (barely a children's book, it prepared me to read The Crucible for the Classics Challenge, see below)
• The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
• Story Thieves: Pick the Plot by James Riley
• Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
• Mr. Lemoncello's All-Star Breakout Game by Chris Grabenstein
• Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman (This was Kid B's favorite book this year.)
• Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds (This was Kid A's favorite book this year.)
• Book Scavenger: The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
• The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
• Book Scavenger: The Alcatraz Escape by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman 
• Story Thieves: Worlds Apart by James Riley 
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead 
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 
• Apothecary by Maile Meloy
• Free Lunch by Rex Ogle (a devastating memoir of growing up poor -- better for older kids, but my two were mesmerized by it)

Books for the Book Group. My book group chose some interesting books this year, some I liked, some I disliked (Elinor Oliphant comes to mind). I liked The Round House a lot, but I'm going to say my favorite was How to Be Both.

January: How to Be Both by Ali Smith
February: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
March: Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
May: Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Carol Honeyman
June: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
July: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
September: Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer
October: The Round House by Louise Erdrich
November: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh


Books for the Classics Challenge.This was really fun to participate in. Some of the books I chose had been on my "to-read" list for decades. I thought I wouldn't do it again in 2020 but she just posted the categories today and I realized I'm totally up for it. My notes on 2019 are below.

• 19th Century Classic: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe, 1838. I found this hard to read, but fascinating, mesmerizing, especially the ending.
• 20th Century Classic: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, 1924. I'd wanted to read this ever since I read Forster's thoughts on it, maybe 35 years ago? I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped, but I was relieved to cross it off my list. The movie was fun.
• Classic by a Woman: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, 1915. Rocket Boy and I both read this book this year, in part because the heroine visits cave dwellings like those in Mesa Verde (which we visited in August). Not my favorite of her books, but worth reading.
• Classic in Translation: Pietr the Latvian and Maigret and the Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon, both 1931. It was fun to read some very early Simenon. They're so short that I read two.
• Classic Comic Novel: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1884. I'd wanted to read this forever, but kept putting it off. I enjoyed it very much.
• Classic Tragic Novel: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850. My friends read this for a high school class that I dropped out of. Finally, I know what they were talking about all those years ago. But I didn't really care for it, didn't feel sympathy for the characters, probably didn't understand it.
• Very Long Classic: Moby-Dick or the Whale by Herman Melville, 1851. I loved it, all 822 pages of the edition I read. Not what I expected at all. One of the most amazing books I've ever read. It was amusing to note that Melville was a neighbor and huge admirer of Hawthorne.
• Classic Novella: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895. This was the first book I finished in 2019 --  Rocket Boy's choice for a book to read to the twins. I found its basic ideas very depressing. It packs quite the punch for a novella.
• Classic from the Americas: The Nymph and the Lamp by Thomas H. Raddall, 1950. I found this book when trying to figure out what the tiny dot southeast of Nova Scotia on the National Weather Service hurricane map is. That dot is basically a sandbar, called Sable Island, and while I was researching it I came across a mention of Raddall's book. I read the novel (set on Sable Island) and now I am quite sure I will never forget what that dot on the map is.
• Classic from Africa, Asia, or Oceania: To the Islands by Randolph Stow, 1958. I probably never would have encountered this if I hadn't been trying to find a book from "Oceania." Very interesting book set in northern Australia, rather ahead of its time.
• Classic from a Place You've Lived: The Valley of the Moon by Jack London, 1913. A strange book to read in our current political environment. The book's northern California characters are proud to be descendants of early New England settlers, but find themselves doing badly compared to more recent, darker immigrants. In the end, white people triumph. Very weird.
• Classic Play:The Crucible by Arthur Miller, 1953. Another work that my friends read in high school and I didn't. Having read The Witchcraft of Salem Village earlier in the year, I knew what was going to happen, and I dreaded it. I found this short play physically painful to read.

Mystery/Thriller. I broke this into sub-categories this year, because my favorite mysteries were not the usual run of the mill type. Obviously I could break it down further -- historical mysteries, cozy mysteries, etc. I loved the Last Policeman trilogy, especially the first book, and I also loved The Remains of an Altar, which is part of a 15-book series that I'm now going to try to read in its entirety (finished the first one today).

• The Little Dog Laughed by Joseph Hansen
• Dr. Knox by Peter Spiegelman
• The Seagull by Ann Cleeves
• Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster by Karen Lee Street
• Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
• The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem
• The Next to Die by Sophie Hannah
• In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
• Cave of Bones by Anne Hillerman
• The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman 

Mystery with a Science Fiction/Dystopian Aspect

• The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
• Countdown City by Ben H. Winters
• World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters

Mystery with a Fantasy/Supernatural Aspect

• The Devil's Hearth by Phillip DePoy
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark
• What the Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart 
• Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
• The Remains of an Altar by Phil Rickman

Science Fiction. Didn't read much of this category, unlike some previous years. I found Perihelion Summer very scary. It seems almost prophetic, with the fires burning in Australia right now.

• Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein (read with the kids; Rocket Boy's favorite book we read together this year)
• Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Fantasy/Horror. Nothing too special here. Supernatural mystery eclipsed it thoroughly.

• Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink 
• The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

General Fiction. This is kind of a random group of books (and of course the list really includes several others that are up above under what I read for my book group and the classics challenge). For a favorite I'm going to go with Good Things I Wish You, which reminded me that I want to catch up with Manette Ansay -- I've missed her last few books and she's such a good writer.

• The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (awful)
• Good Things I Wish You by A. Manette Ansay
• Miss Bishop by Bess Streeter Aldrich
• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (I like to re-read Barbara Pym every February)
• No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (did not like this, did not understand the hype)
• Transcription by Kate Atkinson
• The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble
• Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins
• The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
• Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss 
• Of Lena Geyer by Marcia Davenport 
• LaRose by Louise Erdrich
• Carry the One by Carol Anshaw (another writer I'd like to catch up with)

Christmas Books. After I finished Moby Dick in early December, I decided that I would read nothing but Christmas books for the rest of the year. I didn't know at the time how very many Christmas books there are out there, and how dreadful most of them are. Several that I got from the library I didn't manage to finish, they were so gruesome. I realized that there is a formula to these books, similar to that found in cozy mysteries (many Christmas books are cozies). They all include recipes, which is fine, but most of them also have a world view that creeped me out -- all the women live for shopping and having their nails done, all their husbands live for having sex with their wives (permitted by the wives only after the husbands have helped out with Christmas preparations), nobody has any deep thoughts, and love, heterosexual sex, and baking conquer all. Here are the ones I finished.

• Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan (pleasant)
• Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson (worth reading, definitely does not follow the creepy world view described above, despite the recipes)
• Spirit of Steamboat: A Longmire Story by Craig Johnson (fun, I might check out the main mystery series)
• Portrait of a Murderer: A Christmas Crime Story by Anne Meredith (not much fun)
• Christmas by Accident by Camron Wright (appallingly awful)
• A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry (OK, kind of weird)
• A Rumpole Christmas (stories) by John Mortimer (sweet and funny)
• The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank (pretty bad)
• Aunt Dimity's Christmas by Nancy Atherton (pretty bad)
• An Old-Fashioned Christmas: Sweet Traditions for Hearth and Home by Ellen Stimson (pleasant, enjoyed reading the recipes though I didn't copy any out)
• On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts (some interesting ideas, but creepy)
• Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham (not his best book, but a great relief after reading all the creepies)

Graphic Novels/Memoirs. Not a usual category for me, but I read a few this year, and how do I choose a favorite? I loved them all, especially the first three on the list. I'm going to go with Are You My Mother?, which I really ought to own so that I can study it some more. But all were good, all were fun. I plan to read more in 2020.

• Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
• Goldie Vance, Volumes 1 and 2, by Hope Larson, Brittney Williams, and Sarah Stern

Memoir/Biography. This is always a favorite category for me, and it's really hard to figure out which one I liked the most. I'm going to pick Shirley Jackson as my favorite, because that really is a good book, but I liked some of the others almost as well.

• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
• Late-Life Love by Susan Gubar
• Memoir of a Debulked Woman by Susan Gubar
• Eating Pomegranates: A Memoir of Mothers, Daughters, and the BRCA Gene by Sarah Gabriel
• The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson
• Rocket Boys/October Sky by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. (read with the kids)
• My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmai
• The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale by James Atlas
• American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus (a Boulder author, lives in our neighborhood)
• H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Presidential Biography. Only made it through two of these this year, but in 2020 I get to read about Abraham Lincoln, so I'm looking forward to that. The Buchanan bio was terrifying.

• Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son by Peter A. Wallner
• James Buchanan by Jean H. Baker

General Non-Fiction. This is a pretty sad list -- I should try to do better in 2020. For a favorite, I'm going to go with Mozart's Starling, which is a wonderful book (thank you, Marina!).

• Total Cat Mojo: The Ultimate Guide to Life with Your Cat by Jackson Galaxy 
• Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish 
• Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya
• How to Hold a Grudge by Sophie Hannah
• Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore
• Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
• Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent... by Lara Lillibridge