2019: The Top Ten

This year's Top Ten is extra fun because these are the books that will define the end of a decade for me. Numbers-wise, this has been the worst year in recent memory, with only sixty-five books read. I can't remember the last time I read less than seventy, and only a shocking few--twenty-two--were print. In general, the books were far shorter than normal as well. If you would like to see my complete list of 2019 reads and my stats, you will find them HERE. A list of all my five star books is HERE. On the plus side, for the first time in a very long time, I completed a fairly sizable challenge, the Reading Women Challenge. My results are HERE. Despite having a smaller pool of contenders, this year's Top Ten could easily have held their own in any reading year.

Top Five Fiction:
It was a difficult decision settling on the best of my five fiction selections. The first three books on this list were all strong novels, and I loved them all for different reasons. In the end, my number one fiction of 2019 is Signe Pike's The Lost Queen.

The Lost Queen is one of those genre bending novels that will appeal to a variety of readers. Between its covers you will find an historical fiction telling of the life of a real queen, Languoreth, in sixth century Scotland. Set in the era of the confluence of ancient pagan beliefs and Christianity, the novel is imbrued in a spirit of mysticism and taut with the kind of conflict that only an all out brawl to preserve ones' way of life can render. This novel will obviously find favor with readers of historical fiction and those who have a fascination with ancient Scotland, but those who love fantasy, myths and legends, strong woman protagonists, and atmospheric writing will also find much to love here.










The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich was also a huge hit for me this year. Storytelling at its finest is on display in this story of a priest, Father Damien, who has spent his life serving the Ojibwe. An intricate web is woven out of the priest's own secrets and those of a nun, Sister Leopolda. The twining together of their lives and Father Damien's end-of-life wrestling with truth at all costs is told against the backdrop of the dissipation of traditions and the dying of a way of life. This novel is all about character and moral dilemma.





Roses by Leila Meacham was a huge surprise for me and another that spoke loudly in my mind as I tried to select the number one novel of 2019. I had never heard of this novel or its author and selected it on a whim while perusing ideas for a multi-generational novel for the Reading Women Challenge. I was in Texas at the time and wanted something that was set there. This novel follows three founding families of a small east Texas town, spanning the twentieth century and three generations. All about legacy, this narrative is centered around choices made at pivotal moments and the trickle down affect they can have on the ones we love the most.



Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, while not at the top of my list, was a novel that I pondered a lot while I listened to it and after. Its immigrant subject matter is definitely timely, but I think it will hold its own in any decade, as there will always be movement of peoples around the globe. I loved how unapologetic this novel is and feel that that is what sets it apart from other novels I've read in this genre. Even though I have never been an immigrant in the US, I was raised overseas and laughed aloud at how Adichie's characters perceived their adopted country and its natives. The point that she makes--that everything American isn't the only way or even the best way--is very valid and makes for reading that is in turns humorous and poignant.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy seems to be one of those books that is either a hit or a miss with people, and I can see why. The first half of this story--about an Indian family and how caste and racism can result in a chain of events that begins slowly and gains momentum until the climactic moment that ruptures their lives--was slow moving and full of nebulous plot lines. That, combined with prose that was a bit too formulaically sprinkled with figurative language for me at times, left me doubting the book would get more than three stars out of me. However, once those plot lines began to weave themselves together, Arundhati Roy's ingenious grasp of story crafting swept all other considerations away and sealed this novel's spot in my Top Ten.


Top Five Nonfiction:
Choosing my number one nonfiction is always tricky because there is such a vast variety of material. This year was different in that one book really grabbed me. The biggest surprise came by way of the book's genre. Brian Garfield's The Thousand-Mile War had me from start to finish.

The Thousand-Mile War by Brian Garfield is a work of military nonfiction, which isn't usually my favorite genre by a long shot. However, Garfield, who wrote fiction thrillers, was clearly passionate about his subject and brought all his storytelling skills to the table. The book, a history of Alaska's Aleutian Islands and the role they played in World War II, was chosen by me as part of a high school Alaska History curriculum I wrote and taught last school year. All of my students and I approached the book with a bit of hesitation due to its length, boring cover (shallow, I know), and potential to be very dry. We were all pleasantly surprised and soon found ourselves immersed. Garfield showed his suspense writer chops, keeping up a brisk pace and setting a vivid scene, but what he did best is something not all thriller writers do well: he made us really, really fall in love with the men at the heart of his tale and care about what happened to them. Despite its length and 1960s publication date (mid-20th century history books tend to lack the narrative flair of those written in the 21st), this work is highly readable and engaging.



Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides would have been the book that all my reading friends, having seen my list of 2019 five star reads, would have predicted would be my top nonfiction pick of the year. Don't get me wrong. I loved this book about the conquest of the American West, focusing on Kit Carson's three pivotal decades from the heyday of the mountain man to the dying of both his way of life and that of the Navajo and other Native American tribes. That said, I feel like Sides chose a topic that was a bit too vast with this one. In his other books such as Ghost Soldiers and In the Kingdom of Ice, Sides was able to tell a tighter story that focused on the men at the heart of his tales. While you do get a good feel for Carson, I think I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't on the same visceral level that you get to know the men in Garfield's Alaska, the level that Sides normally delivers on. As a history, Sides definitely still delivers in his fantastically narrative five-star way, but because history is, for me, about the people who made it, Garfield gets top billing.

Spineless by Juli Berwald was bound to be a winner for me as I am endlessly fascinated by the creatures at its heart: jellyfish. This is one of those books that the entire time I was reading it I was constantly saying, "Did you know...?" to anyone who was nearby. In addition, I related in an intimate way with the author of this natural history memoir. Juli Berwood, like me, put her own academic pursuits on hold to raise her family and then gradually drifted back to them as her children grew more self-sufficient and made fewer demands on her time. The biggest complaint reviewers have about this memoir is that there is either too much personal narrative or too much natural history, dependent upon what the reader wanted or expected. I found it the perfect balance of both.

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward was one of the first books I read for the year and one that stayed with me. While I could not identify at all with the subject matter--the author's loss, over the span of five years, of five young men who were important in her life, losses that stemmed from growing up black in the poverty and racism of rural Mississippi--I felt that reading this book helped me to better understand and sympathize with their reality. We cannot walk in each other's shoes, but books by someone from the inside which so clearly, for the understanding of outsiders, unpack the experiences of their people can go a long way towards building a bridge across racism and class divides. This is a beautiful eulogy that gives a greater meaning to the all too brief lives of those young men.

Heartland by Sarah Smarsh is another such book. When I first read about the book, I thought that is sounded like one big long excuse. I couldn't have been more wrong. Just like Jesmyn Ward, Sarah Smarsh is able to look at herself, her community, and her country and see, without excuses or judgement, both the micro and macro picture of poverty in working class middle America. While Ward's book is about black poverty, Smarsh's tells the story of white poverty. As with Ward's book, this is cultural commentary at its finest and from someone on the inside. Reading these two books together was extra eyeopening. 



Top Audiobooks:
This year two audiobooks, both from books that made my Top Ten, both so different from each other, really stood out equally among this year's listens:

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is narrated by Anna Fields, a narrator that was completely new to me. Everything from her individual voices to a tone that leant the novel just the right amount of gravity made this the perfect road trip listen as we drove through the area in the US where the book is set.

Americanah is narrated so ably by Adjoa Andoh that at times I would have sworn there was more than one narrator. Not only did she master and consistently deploy all the many accents of this vast cast, she gave each of those voices character attributes that made them breathe: the jaded, exhausted med student single mother, the impatient elderly relative, the opportunistic house-husband.