books of 2019

Hey, when it takes me until August to get last year's list out it feels like I just did this. It feels like that because I just did this. 

What I read in 2019:

January

 The Trouble With Goats and Sheep – Joanna Cannon. I got 2019 off to a good start with this one. Sort of a community mystery story told from the point of view of the two children who decide to investigate. A believable and entertaining story from a child's viewpoint is a rare gem indeed. I got both book clubs and my mom to read this one. You're welcome, Joanna.

Molly On The Range – Molly Yeh. I enjoy Molly's blog and TV show, so I wanted to give this book a look. The styling was great though I'm not too interested in cooking these recipes.

My Name Is Mary Sutter – Robin Oliveira. This was ok but just ok. It suffered a bit from a little too much "Zelig"--putting the ordinary person main character into contact with every famous person and event in the path of the plot.

February

A Piece of the World – Christina Baker Kline. This was a book club choice and I will admit I was a skeptic. Fiction based on a famous painting has mostly left me cold. This was pleasant surprise. Haunting and well-written.

Fashion Climbing – William Cunningham. When we first started reading the New York Times online we were lucky enough to discover Bill Cunningham's On The Street section in time to enjoy several years of it before he passed away in 2016. This is a memoir of his early years in New York as a young designer. Please also watch the wonderful documentary "Bill Cunningham, New York."

Educated – Tara Westover. I thought I was the only person who didn't like this memoir (please see Wild by Cheryl Strayed -- NO DON'T) but luckily I went to a book discussion about it and discovered I wasn't ALL ALONE on this one. Just mostly. I just didn't believe her story. I think I could forgive inconsistencies in someone's telling of their story more if all of the inconsistencies didn't point in the direction of selling a sensational memoir. Fight me.

Stars of David – Abigail Pohgrebin. I have to admit to sampling this one. The author interviewed prominent Jews about their Jewish identity. Interesting tidbits.

Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery. A book club choice -- several of us had never read this as kids. It was fine but didn't really grab me. I'm not sure if it's possible for me to be grabbed by YA books I'm not already nostalgic for.

March

A Ladder to the Sky – John Boyne, read by Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya, Laurence Kennedy. I listened to this via a BBC4 Audio podcast. It was a bit of a thriller with great readers bringing it to life.

American Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld. This was a fictional story about a first lady loosely based on the life of Laura Bush. I thought it was an interesting speculation on what it might have been like to be her. I would love to hear what the real Laura thought of it. Also, listen to the interview with Curtis on Fresh Air.

Between The World And Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates. I am always interested in reading Ta-Nehisi's writing and hearing his perspective. Let me stipulate that I have no idea what it's like to be a black man in 21st century America, but after also reading his earlier long piece about Michelle Obama in the Atlantic in 2009, I feel like this was a little one-sided. But definitely generated a lot of discussion.

Outer Order - Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin. Check previous years for Gretchen's other books. This is her latest. It could just be because I listen to her podcast and had heard this information already, but I didn't think there was much to this.

April

Less – Andrew Sean Greer. I loved this novel about the formerly promising, now middle-aged Arthur Less. Witty and terrific writing.

Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 – James T. Patterson. This is another volume in the Oxford History of the United States series. I am wild about these histories. This one covers an amazing amount of transformation and change in the U.S. The more I read about this period, the clearer it seems that this era we use to define "normal" in American society was actually very unusual.

May

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant. You probably read this one years ago. So did I, but it was really interesting to read it again now that I'm farther into my Jewish journey and more familiar with the biblical subject matter. Especially having spent a lot of time following Torah study with a feminist focus, I got a lot more out of it this time.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple. Every year’s list seems to include a couple that everyone else loved and I did not. Here's another one. I think I was supposed to find Bernadette fun and quirky. Mental illness -- not fun and quirky. Sometimes I am a drag at book club.

Jews and Words – Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzburger. From my Jewish reading list. I wanted to read something by Amos Oz, but I can't say I really retained much from this. Maybe I will look for something else by him next year.

June

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis – Jared Diamond. Fascinating. Diamond examines six countries that encountered upheavals throughout their history and how they coped. The histories of each country were super interesting and the implications for our time in this country were really thought provoking.

Hyperfocus – Chris Bailey. Confession: I bailed out before the end of this one. But I learned something important anyway. I heard an interview with the author and I was really excited to read the book, but by the time I got around to reading it I think I was less interested and it was very disappointing. Lesson: when I'm excited about some new non-fiction I should try to read it ASAP.

A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler. It had been a long time since I had read anything by Anne Tyler. I enjoyed this family drama.

Bee Season – Myla Goldberg. This was a book club re-read for me but I wanted to include it because I like it so much and I want to recommend it. It's about a little girl who turns out to be a spelling whiz. I found her to be a compelling character, there are interesting family relationships, Jewish themes are explored, and the description of one of the final discoveries knocked my socks off. Originally I listened to the audio version read by the author, which is terrific.

The Paris Architect – Charles Belfoure. Meh. This was a book club choice I didn't love -- more Nazis in Paris. 

Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie. I had never read anything by Christie before, but I think I was too late for this one. As I got a little way into it I realized that I was already familiar with the plot twist.

July

Comedy Sex God – Pete Holmes. This is where I applied what I learned earlier in the year with Hyperfocus. I heard Pete Holmes interviewed on a podcast and then hurried right up and read this book. Still a little disappointing, but at least he was fresh in my mind. 

Mormon Country – Wallace Stegner. I found this pleasant surprise in Powells in Portland OR. It was part of the American Folkways series about the history of different regions of the United States. Each was written by an author familiar with their particular part of the country, and Stegner covered the area of the mountain west settled by Mormons in the 19th century. It was published in 1942 and tells all about a part of the country I love in Stegner's gorgeous prose. Heaven.

Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead. I can't tell you too much about this book because I don't want to give away its secrets. Just read it. Let's just say I thought it was going to be a straightforward historical novel about a gruesome and shameful part of American history. Gruesome and shameful: yes. Straightforward: no. Pay close attention because it is not what it seems. You will not be disappointed.

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots – Deborah Feldman. Memoir by a woman about her life growing up in an ultra-orthodox American Jewish community. Interesting experiences. I'm a little curious to go back and see why this memoir seemed believable to me when Educated didn't. Thoughts?

August

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland – Patrick Raddon Keefe. This was another author who made the rounds of nearly every podcast and publication I follow. After so many glowing recommendations I couldn't wait to read this -- I could not put it down. SO GOOD. The history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland framed by the story of a 38-year-old mother of 10 abducted from her home by the IRA. Was she an innocent bystander or a terrorist collaborator? Like the whole history, the answer is complicated.

Becoming – Michelle Obama, read by the author. I held out reading this until I could get the audiobook from the library and I'm so glad I did. I loved hearing Michelle narrate her own story and getting her perspective on events I watched from the outside. I was particularly interested in her take on being a working class kid who went way outside her comfort zone to an Ivy League university -- I didn't go through it as a person of color, but we had some similar experiences.

Garlic and Sapphires – Ruth Reichl. My whole book club enjoyed Ruth Reichl's memoir about her years as a restaurant critic and the crazy lengths she went to to preserve her anonymity. As a reader, you eventually get tired of her shtick -- it's satisfying when one of her friends calls her out for it right about the time you want to.

The Bullet Journal Method – Ryder Carroll. A few years ago I became a bullet journal devotee after my friend Mercedes told me about them. I had gotten the basics from Carroll's website but had never read his book. This is informative if you don't already know about bullet journaling, but there's not much more here. 

The Past – Tessa Hadley. I literally picked this book by its cover. Not bad. Another dysfunctional family story, this one set in the English countryside. Pretty jacket design.

September

The Library Book – Susan Orlean. All about the history of the Los Angeles Public Library framed by an account of the catastrophic fire in 1986. Both book clubs loved this one and both followed up with tours of the LAPL afterward. It left me even more devoted to the entire concept of libraries in America.

Counting By Sevens – Holly Goldberg Sloan. A YA novel that had been hanging around on my list for a long time. I thought it was ok, but nothing that memorable.

Modern Lovers – Emma Straub. A winner. I really liked this novel about a group of middle-aged friends and their coming-of-age kids.

East of Eden – John Steinbeck. After my ?th reading of this book, I will no longer deflect the question What is your favorite book. This. This is my favorite book. It is perfect -- a story you want to gobble up like chocolate cake, the most beautiful writing in the world, characters you want to name your future babies after. Just thinking about it makes me want to start it again right now. Timshel!

October

This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared – Alan Lew. More Jewish learning. This book about preparing spiritually for the High Holy Days made me think.

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley. We tackled this classic for Halloween book club. It was interesting to map the original story onto the plot of "Young Frankenstein," which I'm very familiar with. I also enjoyed reading an annotated edition, which fleshed out things not familiar to twenty-first century readers.

November

Kitchens of the Great Midwest – J. Ryan Stradahl. This was a light novel in the manner of a set of connected short stories that eventually interconnect. It was ok.

24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week – Tiffany Shlain. I did like this book about the notion of taking a tech Shabbat, though I think I probably got most of the information from an interview with the author. But her ideas have stuck with me and I continue to think about how and why to set aside some time each week.

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens. This super-popular novel was a book club choice -- I have to say that I was not impressed. Some significant plot holes and the author just skips over the part where an elementary schooler cares for herself in swamp for about 5 years. Sorry if I spoiled that for you. I warned you that sometimes I am a drag at book club.

Mrs. Everything – Jennifer Weiner. I had tried another of her novels a long time ago but I didn't really like it much. After a ton of great reviews and a charming interview on the podcast "Call Your Mother," I deciced to try this one. Jennifer Weiner seems very nice but I don't think her books are really my cup of tea.

December

There There – Tommy Orange. This was a difficult book with important things to say about the Native American experience in our time. I had a hard time getting through the violence and misogyny, but there were a couple of story-setting chapters that gave more of a sweeping view that I loved. The writing there was great. A book I think I'd rather read about than actually read.

Normal People – Sally Rooney. This novel about a young man and woman coming of age in Ireland who come together and fall apart over and over. It was sort of lost on me since I didn't find either of them very appealing.

Mister Rogers Neighborhood: A Visual History – M. Wagner, T. Lybarger, and J. McGuiggan. I am the world's biggest Mister Rogers fan and I absolutely loved this coffee table book all about the beloved PBS show. 

The Dutch House – Ann Patchett. One year I said that every year's list should include something by Ann. I'm sticking with that. Another crazy family story, my favorite kind. 

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern – Stephen Greenblatt. This was not at all what I expected -- but it was really interesting and I'm glad I read it. About the Renaissance rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman thinking and writing in general, and one particular text and book hunter in particular. Great history.