I read less this year than last. I read less this year than any year since 2013. I read 126 adult books, 26 other adult titles, and 17 children’s books.
Of the 152 adult books, 81 or 53% were fiction. Ninety-one titles were by women, 61 by men, but the page count shows that books by men were a little longer. Thirty-nine, about a quarter, were by authors of color: Seventeen were by Black or African-American authors, one was by an American Indian (Standing Rock Sioux), and one by an indigenous Australian. The others were by non-Europeans not necessarily of minority cultures, or by immigrants to the USA or UK (from e.g. Japan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Vietnam). About 32% belong to one marginalized demographic or another — authors of color, or queer, or disabled, or not from an Anglo, Norte, or European country (even if mainstream in their natal countries).
Authors came from a wider array of countries and continents than usual. Six were born in Africa (three in Nigeria and one each in Egypt, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), plus Aminatta Forna grew up in Sierra Leone though she was born in Scotland. Eight were born in Asia: two in India, three born in Japan though Kazuo Ishiguro was raised in the UK, one from Saudi Arabia, plus one born in Sri Lanka and raised in Canada and another born in Vietnam then raised in the U.S.A. Twelve were born in Europe excluding the anglophone U.K. (one each from Austria, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, four in Russia, and one in Ancient Rome). Three were born in Oceania (two in Australia and one in New Zealand) and two in the under-Americas, Haiti and Colombia. The balance were born or mostly grew up in the U.S.A, the U.K., or Canada. Of 142 discrete authors, 28% came from places neither Norte nor UK, and 103 were new to me.
After each title, in parentheses, is its medium and source and sometimes reason. The medium is not ownership: audiobooks could be from the library or a paid subscription and paper be owned or borrowed. I explain (each first instance of) abbreviated sources below.
Fiction: 66 novels including three collections and a translation of Beowulf; plus two graphic novels, eight short stories, one collection of poetry, and another of comics. Of all titles, about two-thirds are by women, but by page count, the proportion by female authors is 55%. I read 19 titles on paper and 32 on screen. I listened to 30 works of fiction, 336 hours or about 37% of fiction’s ~30K pages. Seven titles were not originally in English (two in Arabic, two in Japanese, and one each German, Italian, and Norwegian). I read three fiction titles from the Thousand to Read before You Die list, and three from the book Five Hundred Great Books by Women, one National Book Award, no Booker or PEN-Faulkner winners, and nothing from the Feminista, Modern Library or Triangle lists. Novels averaged about 10 years old when I read them (the Dickens and Poe account for the median age being three years). Also paper books averaged 10 years old at reading, audio 20, and digital 13. Five books were the best of the year but nothing this year joined the favorites list.
- Omaima Al-Khamis, The Book Smuggler (digital; DPL because the title included the word “book”)
- Bethany Ball, The Pessimists (digital; The Week)
- Pat Barker, The Women of Troy (audio; author)
- Jennifer Finney Boylan, Long Black Veil (audio; author; RW)
- Caleb Carr, Alienist (audio; fin-de-siecle)
- KJ Charles, Slippery Creatures (library; Kal; BRRH)
- Teju Cole, Open City (audio; RDC)
- Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (library; lists MI and D GBW; RW)
- Don DeLillo, Zero K (audio; author)
- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (audio; author)
- Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter (library; Orange Women’s Prize for Fiction)
- Nawal El Saadawi, Two Women in One (library; list D GBW; RW)
- Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone (audio; recommended by author Rabih Alameddine)
- Edna Ferber, So Big (audio; Pulitzer)
- Aminatta Forna, Ancestor Stones (digital; author)
- Aminatta Forna, Happiness (audio; RW)
- Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees (digital; DPL because bees)
- J.H. Gelernter, Hold Fast (digital; DPL because messing about with boats)
- Eliza Granville, Gretel and the Dark (library; DPL from the cover)
- A.J. Hackwith, Library of the Unwritten (digital; Joel)
- Matt Haig, The Midnight Library (digital; The Week)
- Alix E. Harrow, Once and Future Witches (digital; OLJer)
- Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January (library; author; BRRH)
- Maria Dahvana Headley, Beowulf (audio; author)
- Joe Hill, NOS4A2 (digital; author)
- Klara Hveberg Lean Your Loneliness Slowly Against Mine (digital; DPL; because that’s the most beautiful title ever)
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (digital; author)
- Elizabeth Knox, Absolute Book (digital; OLJer)
- Gabriel Krauze, Who They Was (library; DPL from the title)
- Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts (audio; author)
- Charlie Lovett, The Bookman’s Tale (digital; DPL. because the title has “book”)
- James McBride, Deacon King Kong (audio; BHO recent fave)
- James McBride, The Good Lord Bird (audio; Joel)
- Nick McDonell, The Council of Animals (library; DPL because of the cover and then it was post-apocalyptic)
- Bich Minh Nguyen, Pioneer Girl (audio; DPL because it was obviously a take on Laura Ingalls Wilder)
- Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through (audio; author; RW)
- Joyce Carol Oates, Hazards of Time Travel (audio; author)
- Yoko Ogawa, Memory Police (library; DPL 3fF; BRRH and RW)
- Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table (audio; author)
- Hiroko Oyamada, The Hole (digital; The Week; RW)
- Helen Oyeyemi, Peaces (audio; author)
- Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching (digital; author)
- Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird (audio; HuffPo)
- Ann Patchett, Patron Saint of Liars (audio; Casey; RW)
- Marisha Pessl, Night Film (paper; UCC Suzy)
- Glynis Peteres, The Forgotten Orphan (a desperate, wasteful paper purchase of what seemed like the least bad of a supermarket’s selection)
- Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (digital; lists MGBE and HB canon; messing about with boats)
- Richard Powers, Bewilderment (digital; author)
- Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, The Discomfort of Evening (digital; DPL)
- Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt (audio; list Guardian M; uchronie)
- Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift (digital; The Week)
- Maggie Shipstead, Astonish Me (audio; DPL)
- Jane Smiley, Early Warning (audio; author; BRRH)
- Kate Stayman-London, One to Watch (library; OLJer; BRRH)
- Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird (audio; NBA; author)
- Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (audio; hype)
- Amor Towles, Lincoln Highway (library; author)
- Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (audio; lists: MBSL, MI, WPF, NC, DJB, C20; BRRH and RW)
- Rebecca Watson, Little Scratch (library; DPL 3fF)
- Helene Wecker, The Hidden Palace (audio; author)
- Alison Weir, The Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine (library; BRRH)
- Martha Wells, All Systems Red (audio; hype)
- Laura E. Weymouth, The Light Between Worlds (library; OLJer)
- Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words (digital; DPL because the title has my keywords; fin-de-siecle)
- Alexis Wright, The Swan Book (library; BRRH and RW)
- Hanya Yanagihara, The People in the Trees (digital; author)
Collections of Fiction
- Jez Burrows, Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings (digital; DPL)
- Shirley Hazzard, Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (digital; author)
- Zora Neale Hurston, Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States (audio; author)
Short Fiction, uncollected
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zikora: A Short Story (audio, author)
- Sigrid Nunez, The Plan (library; author)
Accompanying George Saunders’s A Swim in the Pond in the Rain
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Darling (digital)
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Gooseberries (digital)
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, In the Cart (digital)
- Lev Tolstoy, Alyosha the Pot (digital)
- Lev Tolstoy, Master and Man (digital)
- Ivan Turgenev, Singers (digital)
Verse
- Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems (library; RW)
Comic or Sequential or Humor
- Liz Climo, Best Bear Ever!: A Little Year of Liz Climo (library; author)
- Amy Timberlake, Skunk and Badger (digital; TC)
- Amy Timberlake, Egg Marks the Spot (digital; author)
Nonfiction: 58, plus more applied, reference, graphic, miscellaneous, or skimmed. Thirty-seven by women and 34 by men. I listened to about 40% of my nonfiction by title but nearly 47% by page count, 330 hours of nearly half the nonfiction pages. On paper, I read more nonfiction by women (in titles or pages) than by men, because I actually bought some new titles I knew I needed more time with.This year, nonfiction titles I read on paper or audio nonfiction were older than digital ones.
- Kathryn Aalton, The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Landscape that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood (paper; DPL store; RW)
- Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (paper; list D GBW)
- William H. Armstrong, Study Is Hard Work (digital; DPL)
- Chris Arnade, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America (library; DPL)
- Diana Athill, Somewhere Towards the End (library; WaPo)
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (audio; LOLHS)
- Regina Barreca, ed., Fast Funny Women: 75 Essays of Flash Nonfiction (paper; UC Barreca; BRRH and RW)
- Mary Beard, Women and Power: A Manifesto (audio; list MG best C/C21)
- Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture(audio; LOR)
- David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (audio; BHO; NYT best of 2018, Pulitzer nominee)
- Jessica Bruder, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century (digital; hype)
- Gabrielle Burton, Searching for Tamsen Donner (library; author Kate Washington)
- Spike Carlsen, Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day (And Know Nothing About) (digital; DPL)
- Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World (audio; audible; BRRH)
- Edwidge Danticat, Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (library; author)
- Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (digital; author; also IXK and RW)
- Vine Deloria Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (audio; RDC)
- Judith Flanders, A Place For Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order (library; The Week)
- Judith Flanders, The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London (digital; DPL)
- Eric Forner, A Short History of Reconstruction, Updated Edition (audio; TNC)
- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (audio; list LOR)
- Amitav Ghosh, Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (library; author; BRRH)
- Paula J. Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (paper; lists TNC and IXK)
- Peter Godfrey-Smith, Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind (audio; author)
- Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Volume I (paper; UC PolS 201 and D GBW)
- Thor Hanson, Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees (library; DPL; beekeeping)
- Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (audio; author)
- Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road (audio; author)
- Mariame Kaba, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (digital; OLJer; RW)
- Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 (audio; author)
- Alex Kotlowitz, There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (audio; hype)
- Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (audio; author)
- Meg Lowman, The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us (audio; DPL because trees)
- Timmy Mallett, Utterly Brilliant!: My Life’s Journey (audio; RDC)
- Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design (digital; DPL)
- John McWhorter, What Language Is: And What It Isn’t and What It Could Be (library; subject)
- Lorrie Moore, See What Can Be Done: Essays, Criticism, and Commentary (audio; author)
- Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (paper; UC WS and lists D by Women and DPL AC): especially Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House (library; author)
- Sten Odenwald, Space Exploration—A History in 100 Objects (digital; DPL)
- Andrea Pitzer, Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World (digital; DPL; messing about with boats)
- Cara Robertson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden (digital; DPL; for Cindi.)
- Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (audio; IXK; BRRH)
- Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity (audio; RDC)
- Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar, You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism (digital; DPL)
- George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (digital; author)
- Harold Schechter, Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original “Psycho” (audio; audible)
- Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 (audio; list: Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence)
- James Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America (audio; NPR)
- Zadie Smith, Intimations (audio; author)
- Jessamyn Stanley, Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear. Get On the Mat. Love Your Body (digital; yoga)
- Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (audio; IXK’s syllabus for wypipo; DPL AC)
- Alison Stewart, Junk: Digging Through America’s Love Affair with Stuff (digital; DPL)
- David von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (digital; DPL)
- Elizabeth Warren, Persist (audio; RW)
- Kate Washington, Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America (library; author)
- Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (audio; list D GBW)
- Criag Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War (audio; UCC Suzy)
- Simon Winchester, Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (audio; author)
Nonfiction, applied (needlework, cookery, and ceramics)
- Jenny Hart, Sublime Stitching: Hundreds of Hip Embroidery Patterns and How-To (digital)
- Shirley O. Corriher, KitchenWise: Essential Food Science for Home Cooks (digital)
- Ben Carter, Mastering the Potter’s Wheel: Techniques, Tips, and Tricks for Potters (library)
- Emily Reason, Ceramic Studio Wheel Throwing (library)
- Bill van Gilder, Wheel-Thrown Pottery (library)
- Marylin Scott, Potter’s Bible: An Essential Illustrated Reference for Both Beginner and Advanced Potters (library)
Nonfiction: graphic, humor, miscellany, reference, short, or skimmed
- Eugene Ehrlich, Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate (paper; still a mystery)
- Erin McCarthy, ed., The Curious Reader: Facts About Famous Authors and Novels (library; DPL)
- Randall Munroe, What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (digital; author)
- Sigrid Nunez, Most Important Thing (library; author; an essay about choosing not to raise a child)
- Ethan Rarick, Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West (library; subject; skimmed)
- Sharron Shatil, Capitalism: A Graphic Guide (Introducing…) (digital; DPL)
Juvenile fiction
- Tracy Deonn, Legendborn (digital; OLJer; BRRH)
- Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone and This World We Live In (digital; post-apocalyptic)
- Ann Braden, The Benefits of Being an Octopus (digital; while searching for Cynthia Voigt, could have used more octopuses)
- Gloria Susana Esquivel, Animals at the End of the World (digital; BRRH and RW)
- Virginia Hamilton, The House of Dies Drear (library; TBR for BRRH)
- Tae Keller, When You Trap a Tiger (library; this year’s Newbery medalist)
- Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies: The Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, abridged (paper; MI)
- Jennie D. Lindquist, The Golden Name Day (ALA NH); Little Silver House, and Crystal Tree (digital)
- Miriam E. Mason, The Middle Sister (digital; Loganberry)
- Nicole Panteleakos, Planet Earth Is Blue (library; RW)
- Louise Dickinson Rich, Three of a Kind (digital; OLJer)
Explaining sources and reasons and my initialisms:
- ARRG: Anti-Racism Resource Guide.
- Author Rabih Alameddine, because I loved his Unnecessary Woman.
- Author: I’ll read almost anything by this person.
- Awards:
- ALA NH: The American Library Association sponsors an annual Newbery Medal (and Honors) for achievement in juvenile fiction.
- BHO: President Obama lists his favorite reads of the year.
- NBA: National Book Award:.
- WPF: Orange Women’s Prize for Fiction.
- BRRH: The Book Riot Read Harder challenge.
- DPL: Just browsing at the ‘brary, in person or online. My starting criteria are the same, though: if I recognize the author or the title, or if the title or cover appeals to me.
- DPL AC: DPL compiled a list of alternative classics.
- DPL 3fF: Denver Public Library has a Three for Three Friday, where you tell a librarian what you like and zie recommends titles based on that.
- Genre: books set at the end of C19, or that mess around with boats, or that feature a nice dystopia or post-apocalyptic scenario, or that play with alternative history, appeal to me.
- IXK: Ibram X. Kendi.
- Lists:
- C20: Best-sellers of the twentieth century.
- D GBW: I bought a book in the late ‘90s called 500 Great Books by Women.
- DJB: a favorite book of David Bowie’s.
- HB: Harold Bloom canon.
- LOR: Library of Resistance.
- MBSL: shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
- MG: Manchester Guardian.
- MG best C/C21: Manchester Guardian’s hundred best of this century so far.
- MGBE: Manchester Guardian’s best ever in English.
- MI: The list (or book?) One Thousand and One Books You Must Read Before You Die.
- NC: The book Novel Cure.
- Loganberry: A bookstore (in Ohio?) that posts customers’ queries trying to remember a mostly-forgotten book. There’s a similar query group on Goodreads. One of these helped me to identify a book of which I remembered only vague details.
- LOLHS: Ninth grade, ancient and medieval [European] history, to be exact.
- OL-PGN: My hometown library.
- OLJer: Someone I know through online journaling.
- RW: The Reading Women Challenge.
- Tattered Cover: the blessedly nearby independent bookstore.
- TNC: Ta-Nehisi Coates.
- UC Barreca: An English professor at UConn is its editor.
- UC PolS 201: Not on the syllabus of Ancient and Medieval Political Philosophy but recommended to me individually by that professor.
- UC WS: UConn Women’s Studies.
- UCC Suzy: The lead bookbuyer at the UConn Coop during my years there and for some time after.
