2019 in books
This year, I read 82 books, and for the first time, documented each one in a Twitter thread. It was a good year! Here are my thoughts.
This is what I read in 2019, by author:
- 64 books by women
- 18 books by men
- 23 books by out queer authors
- 18 books by people of color
Aaaand by genre:
- 43 works of fiction
- 19 memoirs
- 9 works of reportage, biography, and other types of non-fiction
- 5 short story collections
- 2 essay collections
- 2 plays
- 1 book of poetry
- 1 cookbook
Some highlights:
- Conversations With Friends was the first book I read where a character’s queerness was a characteristic that existed aside from driving the plot forward or introducing some sort of controversy. Since I read that in January, I made a point of seeking out more books like that (When Katie Met Cassidy, Sugar Run, Mostly Dead Things, etc.), and I think I partially succeeded, though most of the books I read that included queer characters were still about their queerness in relation to plot (which I also enjoyed). I hope 2020 heralds us with books that let queer people exist in ways that may or may not be specifically about their sexualities 🙏.
- Homegoing, Exit West, Asymmetry, and Trust Exercise all stretched my understanding of fiction, narrative, and story creation. Each of these books played with the idea of perspective to shrink down wide-ranging narratives and force the reader to question facts that seemed to form the spine of the story.
- The Animators was so devastating! A book where sadness is cut through with enough joy to make the story seem honest, true, and affecting, unlike some other books (yes this is a subtweet about A Little Life ;) ).
- Don’t Think of an Elephant and Amity and Prosperity were two non-fiction books that burgeoned my understanding of how communicating public policy can result in legislative changes and irreversible effects on people and communities. The first explains how Democrats can use framing and messaging strategy in policy communication and the second shows the results of fracking and pollution in two small Appalachian towns. Both examine how corporations and governments convince citizens that the things they want — freedom! wealth! — can be (conveniently) achieved through policies that benefit those in power.
- As Nature Made Him, Tomorrow Will Be Different, Trick Mirror, God Land, and The Power, among several others I read this year, spanned genre to ask the same questions: what more can we ask from each other and from the systems that formed us? How can we reach beyond and outside our own experience to imagine a different sort of world?
Tweeting each book I read this year was a cool experiment — I’ve read at this rate my entire life but have never dedicated myself to writing down each book — but I’m probably not going to do it again. I’d like to go back to reading without an audience!
Still, I have a couple of goals for next year. I’d like to read more books by people of color, especially queer and/or trans people of color. I also hope to read more non-fiction, especially on topics I don’t know much about. And I’d like to continue reading experimental fiction — and just generally, being more deliberate about the literature I choose to consume. If you have any recommendations, please share!
The true MVP of this year was the Amazon Kindle my girlfriend got me, and the Libby app, through which none of this would have been possible. I tragically just misplaced my trusty old Kindle so I’ll be reading a lot of e-books on my phone or skulking around the Newark Public Library until it’s located.
Thank you for reading! xoxoxoxoxox
