I read 130 books in 2019. Here are my favorites.

And everything else I read!

Just a brief subset of the books read this year. Thanks Goodreads!

The clock has struck midnight and 2019 is officially over. For me, 2019 was a year for the books — I got a new job where I get to write everyday, moved into a new apartment in a better area of SF, adopted a puppy, and got engaged! I also kind of went a little crazy with my reading this year, resulting in 130 books read with the majority in the last 6 months of the year.

My original goal for the year was 60 books, which is what I read last year. A completely respectable amount of books — more than 1 per week on average. But, in June, I realized that if I buckled down, I would hit 100 by the end of the year, so I started reading 3 books a week and I kept up that pace (with a little extra) through the end of December.

I wouldn’t recommend reading 3 books a week if you can help it. It is a tough pace to keep up and I definitely don’t remember each book as clearly as I could because as soon as I would finish, I’d be on to the next one. I also had to put aside a lot of time each week for reading, often ignoring my boyfriend (now fiancé — so obviously, he didn’t mind) and great TV.

I’m going to list out my top 13 (10% of the total read) fiction and non-fiction books of the year as well as all of the other books I read so that hopefully you can start 2020 with some recommendations! As for me, I’m going to focus on reading classics in 2020 and not holding myself to any time constraints. If you want to follow me on Goodreads to see what I’m up to in 2020, you can do that here.

Top 13 fiction books I read in 2019 (in no particular order)

1. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
2. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
3. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
4. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
6. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
7. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
8. There There by Tommy Orange
9. Severance by Ling Ma
10. This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
11. Wilder Girls by Rory Power
12. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis
13. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Top 13 non-fiction books I read in 2019 (in no particular order)

1. Becoming by Michelle Obama
2. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton
3. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
4. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou
5. Calypso by David Sedaris
6. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
7. Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
8. In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park
9. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
10. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay
11. Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff
12. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krosnostein
13. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Special shoutout to the San Francisco Public Library for all of the books — I truly could not have done it without you!

See below for everything I read this year and my ratings:

January

1. Becoming by Michelle Obama — 5 stars (non-fiction)
2. Ruby by Cynthia Bond — 4 stars
3. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton — 5 stars (non-fiction)
4. The Nix by Nathan Hill — 5 stars
5. There There by Tommy Orange — 5 stars
6. Spoiled Brats by Simon Rich — 4 stars
7. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler — 4 stars

February

1. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones — 5 stars
2. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer — 3 stars (non-fiction)
3. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman (non-fiction) — 3 stars (non-fiction)
4. The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North — 5 stars
5. The Cider House Rules by John Irving — 3 stars

March

1. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae — 5 stars (non-fiction)
2. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee — 5 stars
3. Bird Box by Josh Malerman — 4 stars
4. Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola — 4 stars (non-fiction)
5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides — 4 stars
6. Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami — 3 stars
7. The Outsider by Stephen King — 2 stars (this book really was disappointing)
8. I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell — 4 stars (non-fiction)
9. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han — 3 stars
10. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang — 4 stars

April

1. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North — 2 stars
2. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer — 3 stars
3. Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann — 4 stars (non-fiction)
4. Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong — 4 stars
5. A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley — 4 stars
6. The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon — 4 stars
7. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon — 3 stars
8. Little Boy by Louis Ferlinghetti — 3 stars
9. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche — 4 stars

May

1. The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling — 4 stars
2. Lord of the Flies by William Golding — 3 stars
3. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — 4 stars
4. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens — 4 stars
5. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krosnostein — 4 stars (non-fiction)
6. Florida by Lauren Groff — 4 stars
7. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi — 5 stars
8. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah — 5 stars
9. The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis — 4 stars

June

1. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe — 3 stars (non-fiction)
2. The Love Object: Selected Stories by Edna O’Brien — 2 stars
3. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy — 5 stars (non-fiction)
4. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis — 4 stars
5. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton — 5 stars
6. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline — 4 stars
7. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou — 5 stars (non-fiction)
8. The Mothers by Brit Bennett — 4 stars
9. Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis — 3 stars (this book is not for the faint of heart and I wouldn’t recommend it to most people)
10. Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche — 5 stars (non-fiction)

July

1. Awayland by Romona Ausubel — 5 stars
2. Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim — 4 stars (non-fiction)
3. The King Is Always Above the People: Stories by Daniel Alarcon — 4 stars
4. The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara — 4 stars
5. Calypso by David Sedaris — 5 stars (non-fiction)
6. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler — 3 stars (non-fiction)
7. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris — 5 stars (non-fiction)
8. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews — 3 stars
9. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh — 4 stars
10. Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Akner-Brodesser — 2 stars (this is my least favorite book that I’ve read all year!)
11. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond — 5 stars (non-fiction)
12. Lot by Bryan Washington — 4 stars
13. Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach — 5 stars (non-fiction)
14. Little Fish by Casey Plett — 4 stars

August

1. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut — 5 stars
2. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach — 4 stars (non-fiction)
3. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness — 5 stars
4. Dear Life by Alice Munro — 3 stars
5. Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides — 4 stars
6. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez — 4 stars
7. All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung — 4 stars (non-fiction)
8. You by Caroline Kepnes — 4 stars
9. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan — 5 stars
10. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg — 5 stars
11. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai — 3 stars
12. Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn — 4 stars
13. Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett — 3 stars

September

1. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi — 5 stars
2. Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide by Karen Kilgariff — 3 stars (non-fiction)
3. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams — 3 stars
4. In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park — 5 stars (non-fiction)
5. Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward — 5 stars
6. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis — 5 stars
7. Ayiti by Roxane Gay — 5 stars
8. Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli — 4 stars
9. The Book of Delights by Ross Gay — 5 stars
10. Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky — 4 stars
11. What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi — 4 stars
12. Severance by Ling Ma — 5 stars
13. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides — 4 stars

October

1. The Farm by Joanne Ramos — 4 stars
2. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — 5 stars
3. Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey — 3 stars
4. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates — 5 stars (non-fiction)
5. The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh — 5 stars
6. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christy — 4 stars
7. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi — 5 stars (non-fiction)
8. Normal People by Sally Rooney — 3 stars
9. We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby — 5 stars (non-fiction)
10. This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel — 5 stars
11. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin — 4 stars
12. Internment by Samira Ahmed — 3 stars
13. The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esme Weijun Wang — 4 stars (non-fiction)
14. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander — 5 stars (non-fiction)

November

1. Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh — 4 stars
2. The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace — 4 stars (non-fiction)
3. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay — 5 stars (non-fiction)
4. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson — 4 stars
5. Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley — 4 stars (non-fiction)
6. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher — 3 stars
7. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris — 4 stars (non-fiction)
8. The Girl in Red by Christina Henry — 3 stars
9. What If This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky — 3 stars (non-fiction)
10. Watching You by Lisa Jewell — 3 stars
11. Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson — 5 stars
12. An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks — 4 stars
13. Under the Sea by Mark Leidner — 5 stars
14. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett — 3 stars

December

1. Call Me By Your Name by Andre Acimen — 5 stars
2. Butterfly Yellow by Thanhha Lai — 5 stars
3. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris — 4 stars (non-fiction)
4. Violet by Scott Thomas — 3 stars
5. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin — 5 stars
6. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern — 4 stars
7. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood — 4 stars (non-fiction)
8. Wilder Girls by Rory Power — 5 stars
9. Exhalation: Stories — 4 stars
10. Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff — 5 stars (non-fiction)
11. We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction by Nic Sheff — 4 stars (non-fiction)
12. All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg — 4 stars

Producer who loves TV, looking for my next opportunity to be creative & pet dogs. View all posts by lizziekreitman

Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on January 1, 2020.