Here’s my annual list of the books I’ve read this year. I keep these lists in part because self-guided reading has gaps and in the past, fellow readers have reached out to talk about books both read and overlooked; if you’ve read any of these and want to chat about them, or if there are books you think I should read, please email me! Sometimes I write short notes over on my Goodreads page.
This year I’ve put ** next to my absolute favorites.
Selected 2019 Reading (by genre, then alphabetical by author/editor last name)
Fiction/Novels
- Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
- Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
- By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño**
- Milkman by Anna Burns
- My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
- All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang
- Famous Men Who Never Lived by K Chess
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin**
- Fruit of the Drunken Tree: A Novel by Ingrid Rojas Contreras**
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi**
- Bloomland by John Englehardt**
- Sludge Utopia by Catherine Fatima
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson**
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
- Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel by Rachel Khong**
- The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
- If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim
- At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee**
- Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
- Mercury by Margot Livesey
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
- Severance by Ling Ma**
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng**
- The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison**
- Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw by Leah Stewart
- The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg
- Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson**
- The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
Nonfiction/Essays
- Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison**
- Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin
- Dead Girls by Alice Bolin
- The Art of Mystery by Maude Casey**
- The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story by Edwidge Danticat
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- On the Rez by Ian Frazier
- The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert
- Little Labors by Rivka Galchen
- Hunger by Roxane Gay
- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Triggering Towns by Richard Hugo
- The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson**
- The Other Side: A Memoir by Lacy M. Johnson**
- Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir by Chelene Knight
- Heavy by Kiese Laymon**
- The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy**
- The Hidden Machinery by Margot Livesey
- Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli**
- An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken**
- Bluets by Maggie Nelson
- White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination by Jess Row**
- Against Memoir by Michelle Tea
- Sex Object by Jessica Valenti
- The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang
- Notes from a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life by Erin Wunker
Short Story Collections
- The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018
- Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis
- Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans**
- Half an Inch of Water: Stories by Percival Everett**
- Florida by Lauren Groff**
- Sing to It: New Stories by Amy Hempel**
- No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
- The Isle of Youth: Stories by Laura van den Berg
Lit Mags
- American Short Fiction Volume 21 Issue 67
- The Conium Review Vol. 7
- Paper Darts Vol 8
- Sonora Review 72
Poetry
- When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
- Currents by Bojan Louis
- My Private Property by Mary Ruefle
- The Möbius Strip Club of Grief by Bianca Stone**
- Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
- Arsonist by Joaquin Zihuatanejo
Plays
- How to Defend Yourself by Lily Padilla**
- The White Card: A Play by Claudia Rankine**
- How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel**
Zines/Chapbooks/Visual Art/Graphic Novels
- Americans in Paris 1860-1900 by Kathleen Adler, H. Barbara Weinberg, Erica E. Hirshler
- #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women by Lisa Charleyboy, Mary Beth Leatherdale
- Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home by Nicole J. Georges
- Parting Gifts for Losing Contestants by Jessica Mooney**
- Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke**
- Aug 9 – Fog by Kathryn Scanlan