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?

Anguilla, or There and Back Again Part III

Another beautiful Meads morning

Waking up on Monday morning was essentially a repeat of the day before.  Up with the sun, early morning coffee and reading in bed with the windows and sliding doors wide open on the balcony.  Listening to the light rain, followed by a walk on the beach while the shadows were still long. It’s a pretty terrible way to start the day, let me tell you.

My second book of vacation: Super Host by Kate Russo.  This debut novel will be published in June 2020. It’s the story of a London artist past his heyday who rents his home on a website similar to AirBnB to make ends meet. Lots of wonderful bits of London color, art, and human insight to boot.  She’s the daughter of famed author Richard Russo, and I’m happy to say that literary talent definitely runs in the family!

Public access path to Rendezvous

I had originally planned to spend Monday on Shoal Bay East but couldn’t find confirmation online anywhere that Elodia’s (my favorite place to park myself for the day on SBE) was open, so I switched gears and decided that Rendezvous would be my destination for the day.  I called The Place to see if they were open, but the reply was “only for breakfast.” Undeterred, I packed a beach bag and headed for Rendezvous anyway and decided to spend a nice chunk of my day at Anguilla Great House instead.

Chairs for rent, or complimentary with lunch

The palm trees that didn’t survive Hurricane Irma were a great loss for this beach

I’ve had many well-loved beaches over the years, and for my last several trips to Anguilla, Rendezvous has reigned as my favorite. Shoal Bay East used to be my top pick, but it’s starting to get a little built up now for my taste.  Rendezvous pleases me with its stunning length, views to St Maarten, casual beach bars and above all, the low density of hotels and resorts.

Click for full view

I set myself up on the far westerly chaise longue for privacy and immediately went for a swim.  Despite this beach having more small rocks & pebbles closer to shore, I appreciated that there was less undertow here than what I’d been experiencing on Meads, where merely getting out of the water without being sucked back in required both sure footing and good timing. After my swim I took a short walk towards The Place in order to dry off a bit, but since the sun was higher in the sky, I was careful about  my exposure.  After all, the one thing that I wasn’t able to do sufficiently on my own for this trip was to apply sunscreen on my back!

Heading east, toward The Place

I’d started a new book earlier that morning and was eager to get back to the narrative, so for the next two hours I stayed under my umbrella until I started getting hungry.  While I’d dined at Anguilla Great House before I’d never before eaten at Coconuts, the restaurant that sits on the beach. I picked out a table in the shade, ordered the BBQ chicken and a Ting, and got lost counting the many shades of blue in front of me.

 It was altogether pleasant, especially with the constant breeze. I completely inhaled my chicken, which was delicious and even managed to eat some of the cole slaw and the Sysco-esque French fries.

I still wanted that little something, so I ordered a frozen rum drink with banana, strawberry, and mango.  It wasn’t, strictly speaking, my favorite adult beverage ever, but it was cold and refreshing and managed to finish it all.  I was pleased with myself that I’d remembered to bring my own reusable straws when dining out!

Moving my chair so that it could stay in the shade of my umbrella, I settled in for a nice long read after lunch. The breeze was perfect - strong enough to keep me feeling quite comfortable but not vigorous enough to be kicking up the sand. Basically it was the Goldilocks of breezes in that it was jusssssst right. Eventually I was feeling too sedentary and so put on my beach coverup and went for another walk - this time in the direction of Cuisinart.

After a decent amble, I walked back, went for another swim, and then settled my tab.  I’m not sure how much the chairs and umbrella are to rent if you’re not buying lunch at Coconuts, but they were complimentary with my meal.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I decided to go for a swim in the pool at Turtles Nest.  The water was actually cold!  Like, teen-chattering cold, at least for the first minute.  It was an utterly new sensation for me. Feeling far too chilled to sit outside in a wet bathing suit after that dip, I hiked back up to my room and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon reading and catching up on work a little bit back home.

The sunset, while pleasant, wasn’t spectacular enough to tempt me down from my balcony. Afterward I spent a little time actually blow drying my hair and and a minimal amount of gussying for my dinner at Veya, which is arguably my favorite restaurant on the island.

It’d been three years almost to the day since my last meal there and I was excited to see a few new things on the menu, and I had a difficult time deciding whether to try something new or go for an old favorite, so I did both. Favorite cocktail (Sandy Hill) for an aperitif, new appetizer (green salad), favorite entrée (jerk spiced tuna), and new dessert (pineapple upside down cake). Their delicious johnny cakes & pumpkin bread, an amuse-bouche of pumpkin soup, and a glass of wine rounded out the meal.

Veya’s signature votives

It was a beautiful evening and before long, Omari’s voice drifted up from the courtyard below to serenade us all. The salad was perfectly fine but nothing out of the ordinary, but the rest of the meal was culinary perfection.  That tuna dish, with its many layers and flavors and textures, is unlike anything I’ve ever eaten anywhere else. 

Despite not finishing the salad or the tuna, I still felt like I needed to roll myself down the stairs to my car after dinner.  I’m definitely not used to eating that much for my evening meal!  The staff were kind enough to wrap up my uneaten banana bread and even tossed in a couple of extra johnny cakes and pieces of pumpkin bread for me to take home for my breakfast the next morning. All in all, it was a pretty damned perfect day. 

Anguilla, or There and Back Again, Part II

They don’t call it Rainbow City for nothing

While I do not strictly identify as a morning person, I transmogrify into one when I’m in Anguilla.  There’s something about the brightness of the morning, the clarity of light, that makes me rise with the dawn. Sunday was my first morning waking up on the island, and there was a light shower right after sunrise, so I turned off the a/c, threw the windows and balcony doors wide open, and got back into bed so I could listen to the raindrops on the palm fronds outside.

I made coffee and sipped it while reading in bed. A little after 7:00, the rain stopped so I got dressed and went for a walk. My early venture was rewarded with a beautiful rainbow.  With the breeze, I was actually just the tiniest bit chilly and wished I had brought my coffee to the beach with me.

Sidenote: I had the most glorious weather on this trip of any of my many trips to the island.  This was my third November visit (I think) and it was sheer perfection.  There wasn’t a single time where I felt uncomfortably warm, no matter where I was on the island.

After a walk along the beach, a swim, and hanging out under the umbrella to read, it was time to get cleaned up for lunch. My destination for the afternoon? Straw Hat for an early lunch and then to while away a few more hours reading in their complimentary chairs. As always, the staff was so welcoming and solicitous of my comfort.

After much deliberation, I decided to order the blackened lobster and and shrimp tacos with mango creme fraiche and chipotle aioli.  It was just as amazing as it sounds.  I also enjoyed some iced tea (I wanted to hydrate but avoid ordering bottled water) and two ti punches whilst enjoying my book.

Emma Straub is a fellow bookseller and a very good novelist.  Her new book will be published in May 2020, so request it from your library or indie bookstore now! Pulling off a coming of age story for three generations of a family is no small feat and Straub manages it with style.  Whether we have family who aren’t really friends, or friends who are definitely family, we all need second chances at forgiveness, not least of all for ourselves.

After a few hours enjoying everything that Straw Hat has to offer, I ambled back to Turtles Nest for a brief nap before sunset.  Thanks to a tip from somebody on the TripAdvisor forum, I walked east on Meads to get a better vantage point in order to see the sun set into the sea instead of behind the Four Seasons. Well, aside from the fact that I neglected to put any bug repellant on my legs, it was totally worth it.

In front of Jacala, facing inland.

The face of Meads Bay has changed considerably since my first stay there in 2009, when Carimar was my home base. At that time, Turtles Nest stood out a bit like a sore thumb, taller than any other structure on the beach. Now, though, there are humongous luxury villas that intimidate the beach in the same manner, plus the new accommodations under construction at Frangipani which loom a tad higher than Turtles Nest does.

Not creepy. (Said no one, ever.)

 What at first promised to be a somewhat subdued sunset turned into a true spectacle.  I think it’s one of the best I’ve seen in many trips to the islands, and I even caught a tiny glimpse of the green flash!  I’ll include a video here, but I’m not sure how worthwhile it is.  It gets rather shaky in spots because I was alternating standing on one leg while scratching my leg with the other foot because the sand fleas find my ankles delectable.

As soon as the sun sank below the horizon I walked double-time back to Turtles Nest just to keep those damn sand fleas off of me.  I had time to enjoy a glass of the complimentary white wine and to clean up from my beach time before heading off to Dolce Vita for dinner. This was the first dinner reservation I made for myself back home before the trip when I carefully laid out my grid for where to dine on which night. Abbi, the owner, wrote me back the sweetest and most gracious confirmation, so it was with a true spring in my step that I drove to Sandy Ground for my first real dinner on the island.

This photo is from a previous visit, not this trip

So imagine my surprise when I walked in to see a young couple being seated at my table. My surprise turned to shock when the host could find no record of my reservation at all.  He rushed to assure me that they could accommodate me, but I was just bewildered and a little bit mortified that they would think I’d just show up for dinner unannounced, as it were.  I grabbed my phone and quickly skimmed through my emails to find proof, when my jaw dropped.  Apparently I’d made my reservation for Monday night.  Mystified how I’d made that mistake, I checked on the website and realized: the little calendar that one clicks on to select the desired date for a reservation runs Monday-Sunday, not the usual Sunday-Saturday that many Americans are accustomed to.  I hadn’t checked closely enough to see what date I’d selected; I used visually reckoning to select what I thought was the first Sunday of the month but inadvertently clicked on the first Monday.

Lesson learned.

Though disappointed not to have one of the beachfront tables (which were being reserved for people who weren’t too idiotic to book the correct day of the week), I had one nice consolation: I was seated in the second row underneath one of the lamps that gave me ample reading light. I sheepishly explained to Argen, my server, what my gaffe was and he was very kind about it and was very attentive for the rest of the night.

I usually opt for the arugula and bleu cheese salad to start. Not only is it delicious, it’s a sure-fire way to ensure I actually eat a few vegetables. They had no arugula, so I decided to try the tuna tartare.  Alas, it was not for me.  The tuna was a little stringy and the avocados were just shy of being ripe. I ate about half of it before deciding that was enough.  Besides, I had the world-famous lasagna coming for me entree, and we all know that it’s filling enough on its own.

Despite not completing my appetizer, I was not able to finish this delectable bundle of meat, cheese, and béchamel, so I wrapped it up to take home for leftovers later in the week. Which is not to say that I was too full for dessert.  No, sir!  I ordered the pear poached in red wine and accompanied by a white chocolate mousse.

It may not be much to look at, but it’s my favorite dessert I’ve ever had at Dolce Vita and one of the best desserts I’ve ever had on Anguilla, full stop.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect day, and it completely redeemed the lackluster tuna tartare as far as I was concerned. I drove back to Turtles Nest with the windows down to enjoy the feel of the night breezes on my skin, where I tumbled into bed to finish my book.  Yes, I could definitely get used to endless days like these.