Year in Reading – 2019

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