2019 Reads in Review
Inspired by the brilliant Paige Burton, every year I try and read 52 books — a book a week — and then on the last day of the year share my reading list for anyone who cares to see it.
This year I overachieved and read 69 books (nice). It’s been a brilliant year for reading — I feel like there have been multiple books this year that have changed my perspective on the world. That’s probably because there have been a hell of a lot more non-fiction reads this year. That being said, I have tried to combine themes with my fiction and non-fiction reading — like following Richard Power’s The Overstory with The Hidden Life of Trees.
Alright — here’s the list. Things in bold are my favourites and the ones I’d recommend.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Living by Anjali Joseph
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo
The Last Wilderness, a Journey into Silence by Neil Ansell
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Looking For Alaska by John Green
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds and Books by Alex Preston
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
Lanny by Max Porter*
When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich*
Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life by George Monbiot
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Wall by John Lanchester
The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend*
Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
Wild by Ben Okri
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell*
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
My Name is Monster by Katie Hale
Wilding by Isabella Tree*
A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West
Circe by Madeline Miller
Educated by Tara Westover
Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty by Nikita Gill
Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems by Audre Lorde
Do Pause: You Are Not a To Do List by Robert Poynton
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez*
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Capital by John Lanchester
The Overstory by Richard Powers*
The Peregrine by J.A. Baker
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard
After the Formalities by Anthony Anaxagorou
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi*
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben*
The Tree by John Fowles
If you were only to read a handful of these, go with the ones with the * by their name.
Please tell me what you read! I need things to add to my list for 2020.
Happy New Year,
Sarah
