One of the things I like to do at the end of the year is to reflect on all the books I read. I challenged myself on Goodreads to read 40 books this past year. I ended up reading 52 (see my full list here)—one for each week of the year—so it was a really good year in reading for me. My top 10 personal favorite books that I read this year (if I had to choose):
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (I read this book in one afternoon it was so well-written, funny, and tragic all at the same time)
- The Overstory by Richard Powers (where do I even begin with this novel?! this novel about trees brought me to my knees)
- The Sun is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds by Caroline Van Hemert (about a scientist who studies chickadees in the vast wilderness of northwest reaches of North America, an incredible narrative of going to extremes to do science!)
- Beartown by Frederik Backman (I read 3 Backman books this year, but this one sticks with me the most; I might try to read more of Backman’s oeuvre in the future)
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (an incredibly impressive story about slavery that is told across generations)
- The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon (I wanted to remedy my knowledge gap about the era of the First World War, and this book blew my mind *pun intended, but not sure if it’s appropriate (it’s not)*)
- The Alienist by Caleb Carr (a grisly forensic mystery that takes place in late 1800s NYC where Teddy Roosevelt is a [minor] character, sign me up! Nothing earth-shattering about this for me, but I thought it was just a really well-done mystery novel)
- Dune by Frank Herbert (finally got to it, and it was definitely as good as it was always hyped to be; now I feel prepared for the movie re-make with Timothée Chalamet)
- Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak (I’ve read everything by Zusak and conclude that I just like anything he writes; it’s slow-paced but I feel like he always hits an inner nerve with me)
- Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller (I’ve read a few Alexandra Fuller books now, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite memoirists; she can make any story riveting, and her parents are endlessly fascinating)
This year I tried to read complete series or finish series that I had been working on, including Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea, Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, and Robert Galbraith’s (J.K. Rowling’s) Cormoran Strike. Or, if it wasn’t a series, I tried to read multiple books by the same author, like E. Nesbit, Frederik Backman, Rebecca Stead, C.S. Lewis, and Cormac McCarthy. As much as I like reading someone new each time, there is something comfortable about settling in with familiar authors.
- The most challenging: A toss-up between The Silmarillion (the sheer number of names alone!) and Blood Meridian (incredibly gory and nihilistic, not an easy one to get through)
- The worst (would-not-pick-up-again): I rarely start a book I don’t think I’ll like to some degree (who does?), but if I had to pick it would be First Light (while I liked the other Rebecca Stead books I read, this one just didn’t cut it for me, but I believe it was her debut novel, so she only got better from there)
- The funniest: Born a Crime (Trevor Noah knows how to tell a story and see the comedy in tragedy) and Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness (Alexandra Fuller’s parents are a hoot to read about)
- The weirdest (in a good way): Toss-up between George MacDonald’s Lilith (yay! for books about a demi-god that steals children?!) and Madeleine L’Engle’s The Arm of the Starfish (I’ve read some of the Wrinkle in Time series by L’Engle, but this was just odd, but I sort of still enjoyed it despite its strange allegorical melodrama; it was one of those so-bad-it’s-actually-good books.)
What were some of your favorite books that you read this year? What should I read in 2020? (I already have the new David Mitchell novel, Utopia Avenue, on the docket for June!)
