Best Books of 2019

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You know what’s almost as much fun as reading all the books?  Counting down the best books of the year. According to my handy stats at Goodreads, I read 68 books comprising over 21,000 pages. I tried to read with intention for much of my reading this year, making sure that I was getting more non-fiction, YA, and genre into my literary diet. Some stats:

It’s getting trickier to break authors down into binary genders, so let’s just say that of the 68 books, thirteen of them were written by men. 19%

Nonfiction: 22%
Genre (romance, SFF, thriller): 30%
Diversity: 25% (I thought this would be higher)
YA or middle grade: 19%

Best Novels of 2019

   

     

Best Nonfiction of 2019

  

Best Books for Young Readers of 2019

Biggest [Nice] Surprises of 2019

Who could have predicted that a zombie apocalypse narrated by a crow and a pair of lesbian necromancers would be among my favorite books of the year? I should clearly read more genre fiction with this kind of pay off!

And of course I read lots of books in 2019 that won’t be published until 2020.  Here are some titles to consider pre-ordering from your local library or indie bookstore:

What about you, gentle reader?  What did you love in 2019? What did I miss that you would recommend?

2018: Last Year in Review

 

Oh, 2018.  What a wild ride it has been.  2018 was a year of fresh starts and difficult losses and everything else in between. I said goodbye to a beloved job to take a chance on a new one. I moved for the third time in three years (not recommended) to the other end of the state. My father died. My new job was challenging and fulfilling, but also exhausting. I sorely missed my old home and friends in western MA and found it more difficult than expected warming to my new home and making new friends. However, I visited new places and old friends. I joined the board of my regional trade association and felt recognized for my contributions to New England bookselling for the first time. I bonded with my stepmother and realized that I still have family in MS even after my father’s passing. I have friends deep in my heart who helped me through many rough patches, even if I’ve never met some of them in person.

This may also be my last blog post. My new job is more demanding than my last one, and while I’m extremely pleased that my annual reading is back on track, or at least on its way to being back on track, I’m not sure that I will have the time and inclination to continue. We’ll have to see...

Here, then, is a summary of my reading for 2018, and a glimpse or two at some of my travels that I didn’t cover on my blog. I met my goal of reading 80 books and then exceeded it by two for a total of 82. A secondary goal for the year was to read with intention, diversifying my selection of books and the authors who wrote them. Here are some stats:

Books by female writers: 45
Books by male writers: 35
One anthology, one book written by one man & one woman
Books written by non-binary genders: unknown

Fiction: 63
Non-fiction: 19
Short stories: 9
E-books: 7
Graphic Novels: 5
Middle Grade/YA: 15
Diversity challenge: 30

I read so many excellent books this year, giving 4* or 5* to a much higher proportion of my reading than usual.  One thing I delighted in was the freedom to read anything I desired, whether it was previously published or not, once I started my new job, and I think my ratings reflect that.  In no particular order, here are the best books I read this year (not including any re-reads):

Sorry for the formatting issues.  Blogger isn’t cooperating with letting me put more than one image per line.  It’s unusual that three short story collections would make my top ten, but they were all incredible. Four of these books are by debut authors, which also seems like a high percentage. I sometimes have to fudge the numbers to include a children’s book or any nonfiction in my top ten reads for the year, but the Walter Isaacson and the Sy Montgomery, while being radically different, were both superlative. Ditto for Holly Black’s second series installment and Jarrett Krosoczka’s heartbreaking graphic memoir. 

My new work crew, accepting a local award

Despite starting a new job, commuting back & forth for a few weeks and then moving, and then being away to care for my father and my stepmom, I was able to do a little traveling. I started the year in Memphis with a trip for work that I combined with a visit to see my best friends. I made fun day trips to Brattleboro, VT, and Newport, RI, one with my beloved and one with his family. We bought season tickets to Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, NY, and have traveled there to see Les Miserables and other shows (with Hamilton to look forward to later this year!). We also spent a week near Acadia, Maine, reconnecting with a friend from high school, getting to know his family and friends, and seeing some of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever witnessed.

I suppose that 2018’s high and lows weren’t necessarily more numerous than other years, but the lows in particular were certainly more intense. I’ve had much to reflect on, with much more yet to come. Along the way, I was grateful to share the journey with the people in my life who mean the most to me. I’m looking forward to 2019 and the new adventures it will bring, including trips to Albuquerque for work, to Memphis to see friends, and to London for the very first time. I’ve completed my first book of the year on the first day of the year, so I hope that bodes well for a good reading year to come. I thank everybody who is reading this, whether you found me for my book reviews or my traveling writing, and I hope that 2019 becomes a year of possibility and hope for us all. 

Walking in Memphis, AKA Winter Institute

I have just gotten back from my favorite time of year for work: the annual Winter Institute conference for independent booksellers.  It’s a moveable feast, migrating from one urban location to another every year, and I was thrilled that this year we all convened in Memphis.  Not only do I love heading South in the winter, but my two oldest friends in the world live in Memphis, so it was a pretty special week, all in all.

Opening Reception

The conference always has a opening reception, and this year it was held downtown at the beautiful and historic Cadre building.  Even places with truly commodious proportions might seem crowded when you jam 600 or so booksellers, plus another few hundred people from the publishing industry into the space, and within 30 minutes or so, the room was so crowded that navigation was difficult.  Still, this year the food stations and bars were more strategically placed than last year’s venue in Minneapolis, so at least there was that.  I spent a couple of hours catching up with friends from the industry -- when we’re lucky, we might see each other 1-2 times each year, so there were lots of hugs and cheerful exclamations all around.

A gossip of Emilys. AKA All Emily, All the Time

When we’re very lucky, we might run into each other a few more times of year because we’re all part of the same regional conference. I’m told on good authority that the collective noun for a group of people named Emily is called a gossip, and every time the three Emilys of New England Bookselling find each other, we have to document it.  Above, you can see me, the New England rep for Chronicle Books (Emily Cervone) and one of the two owners of Print, a bookstore in Portland, ME (Emily Russo Murtagh).

Tommy Orange, debut author, at the evening reception

What outsiders to the conference probably don’t realize is how much work these things are.  Doors to the ballroom opened at 7:30 for breakfast each morning, and author dinners keep us out until 11:00, 11:30, or even later.  It’s a crazy pace, and it’s equal parts exhausting and exhilarating. In between, the schedule is jam-packed with educational sessions, roundtables, speed dating with books, and keynote speakers. There’s also a room where booksellers can graze all day long for free books, and one of the many highlights is the author reception, where around 100 authors line the perimeter of the room and booksellers bombard them for signed books.  Really, there’s no better gig out there.

Author reception

It can’t be Winter Institute if I’m not made to cry at least once, and thanks to Junot Diaz, I was able to cry over breakfast on our second morning. He gave a heartfelt thank you for the support of indie booksellers like us, who were early champions of his books (my own bookstore selected his first novel and second collection of short stories for our store’s signed First Editions Club, for example), but he also took us to task: looking out at the audience that morning, you’d have to look hard to see anything but a sea of white faces. We’re actively trying to embrace diversity in the books we carry so that all readers might see themselves reflected in the pages of our books, but he’s 100% right when he says we need to work from the top down, and the bottom up, to make sure that people from all backgrounds might see bookselling and publishing as a career for anybody, not just those with traditional cultural capital.

Everybody got a copy of Islandborn, Diaz’s first picture book for children, as well as a coordinating tote bag, courtesy of Penguin Young Readers, and my boss, Joan, even got to pose for a picture with him.  He recognized her right away and was happy to oblige us with a photo:

I learned so much last week, and I’m so grateful to Bloomsbury, Grove, and Knopf, the three publishers whose dinners I attended, where I got to hobnob with some amazing authors, like Carol Anderson, Fatima Farheen Mirza, Tommy Orange, and Aminatta Forna, among many others. The food was good, the conversation was lively, and the drinks were bottomless, but mostly it’s the memories that are priceless.

Now I just need to catch up on my sleep so that I can implement some of the new things I learned!

Best Books of 2017

via GIPHY

I read so much good stuff in 2017.  SO MUCH. I wouldn’t say that my reading mojo is completely back from my pre-divorce days-- I’m not going to hit 100 books read for the year, after all.  But I’ll probably finish somewhere in the 80s, and that’s not shabby.

To say that I haven’t blogged much this year would be to indulge in careless understatement. It hasn’t seemed as urgent to me, what with the political scene and human rights fiascos everywhere I turn. (It’s been much easier to lose myself in watching The Office, or The Crown, or The Wire.)

The thing is, though, most of my favorite books this year speak to the horrifying things that have left me feeling, if not precisely hopeless, then at least hopeless-adjacent; yet each book made me feel a little bit better after finishing it. Thus I’m summoning up what energy I have on a Saturday in December to pay tribute to these books, and if you have ever worked retail during the holidays, then you will know how much this is a labor of love.

First, the stats: I completed 79 books this year. Here’s how they break down. Numbers may add up a bit wonkily because many books qualify for multiple categories.

Fiction: 67
Nonfiction: 12
Female authors: 59
Male authors: 20
Audio: 8
Re-Reads: 13
Books for Young Readers: 19
Diversity challenge: 22
Books in translation: 3
Fan fiction: 4
Short story collections: 2

Curiously, three writers count for almost half of the reading I did by male authors this year: David Sedaris, Bill Bryson, and Frederick Backmann (who incidentally was the author of all three books I read in translation). I had rather more re-reads in 2017, as I often turn to my lifetime favorites of Harry Potter or any of the various Anne of Green Gables novels when in need of a comfort read, and I will not include any of those for my top ten list.

Thus, my top books of the year, in chronological order of my reading them, are:

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Definitely the most important novel published this fall, possibly the most important novel published this year.  I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this in the spring and ever since then I’ve been telling everybody who will listen to read it.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid would be the other novel published this year that could vie for most important of 2017.  Where Jesmyn Ward’s prose is searing, Mohsin Hamid’s is taut. They’re both nearly perfect. I remain disappointed that this book did not win the Booker prize this year.

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire lured me in with descriptions of the part of Massachusetts I currently called home, only to quickly take on greater import on a more global scale. She is compassionate and generous with her characters, who grapple with politics, family, immigration, and fundamentalism.

Local writer Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince is one of only two YA books on my list this year. I pick up Holly’s books to read when I want an escape, since her world building is utterly immersive, but then I remember how sharp an eye she has for politics that transcend the human realm and how much reading her books can inform my current world.

Wiley Cash is one the most gracious authors I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and The Last Ballad brings all of his storytelling powers to bear. Here he plays with the intersection of workers right with the racism and sexism of the era, bringing the story of real-life Ella Mae Wiggins to modern readers.

The author of the Orange-prize winning Song of Achilles returns to the classics with Circe, spanning the centuries-long life of the eponymous witch-goddess who was not content to play by the laws of the Olympians. I debated including it here simply because it will not publish until April 2018, but I liked it too much to exclude it.

Angie Thomas’s debut novel is the other YA book on my list, and it’s probably the most important book published in the world of young adult literature for 2017.  Powerful and emotional, and likely more effective in putting a human face on the Black Lives Matter movement than any work of nonfiction could be. 

Technically it was not published this year, but I was slow to pick up Amor Towles’ towering work of humanism because I had not been enamored of his previous novel, Rules of Civility. More the fool, me. It did flag for me around the 3/4 mark, but overall this meaty novel was immensely satisfying.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is probably the most important voice on the topic of race today, and in this collection of essays, one written for each year president Obama was in office, he probes the political underbelly in the US in clear and persuasive prose.

Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir is the second piece of nonfiction to make my list this year, despite its technical pub date for spring of 2018.  Each of her seventeen brushes with death is the jumping off point for an essay that examines life. Her writing is luminous and soul-searching, whether she’s recounting her childhood or reflecting on adulthood.