Best Books I Read in 2019

I have mentioned before how great the Saskatoon Public Library is for facilitating “excessive” reading – on December 31 I crossed the $3000 mark in borrowing for 2019! There is no way I’d spend three grand on books if I wasn’t using a library, which means I just wouldn’t read as much without it. So thank you again to the SPL!

I really like reading other people’s book recommendation posts, so in celebration of basically paying for my 2019 property taxes in borrowing, I want to do a post about my favourite books that I read this year. I’ll keep it to the six best fiction and non-fiction/memoir/etc. This is hard to narrow down because I finished 87 books in 2019, but these are my top recommendations. (Links to my Goodreads reviews – note that I didn’t give these all 5 stars, but they’ve stuck with me enough that I am considering them higher than some of the five star books I read).

Fiction

The Book Thief – This is probably the best book I’ve read in years. I’ve never been moved by a book so much – I was actually sobbing at the end (that’s not a spoiler). The story was so lovely and heart warming and sad. The writing is a little “experimental” but didn’t take too long to get used to. I absolutely loved it and couldn’t stop talking to people about it.

Truly Madly Guilty – Something about this book, one of Liane Moriarty (of Big Little Lies fame)’s lower rated by the masses, really spoke to me. The characters got in my head and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. It is a very well done character study on guilt, and I just found it so interesting and relatable. I am such a fan of Liane Moriarty’s books but I keep putting off reading another one because I don’t want to finish them all too fast.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing – This book is legit art. It is not an easy breezy read, but it’s definitely rewarding if you commit. I actually didn’t have trouble getting into the story like many other readers have stated, but it did take me about two weeks to get through. I’m a bit embarrassed to say (or should I be? Society failed me) that I really didn’t know anything about the Chinese Cultural Revolution until I read this book. It shocked me. I felt so ignorant. I cried on the bus during a very sad scene. This is truly a book for people who love to read.

The Traveling Cat Chronicles – Three of my top fiction reads from the year made me cry, and this is the third. It is a Japanese translation, a short novel from the perspective of a cat who goes traveling with its owner who is trying to find it a new home. Eventually you find out why, and it breaks you and you cry and then the cat makes you feel better, as they do. So lovely.

The Saturday Night Ghost Club – What a treat to discover Craig Davidson this year! What a disappointment to find out most of his books are terrifying horror novels that I am too scared to read.
This one was really wonderful, a tad spooky but mostly just a great coming of age story set in Niagara Falls in the 80’s. It’s really short too, so if you don’t have a lot of time for reading but want to at least plug through one book on vacation or something, this is a good one for that.

East of Eden – John Steinbeck’s magnum opus, I maybe broke my book club by picking this one as we had to hold over a whole month because it took so long to read, and one person quit (hopefully not over this book though). A reading experience that is definitely about the journey, not the destination. Everyone should probably read this at some point in their life.

Non Fiction

The Invention of Nature – I knew of Alexander von Humboldt's existence, because I grew up in a town named after him, but not much else. He immediately became one of my favourite historical figures. He is possibly the historical figure who has influenced your life the most who you don’t know anything about. Read this book! AVH is amazing.

Walkable City – I’m very into learning about urban planning and active transportation. I read quite a few books on the subject this year, but this is the one that kicked it off and led me down all sorts of other rabbit holes. The author also published sort of a condensed, pictorial sequel this year called Walkable City Rules which is a bit more of an accessible coffee table version.

Invisible Women – If you are involved in any kind of decision making that affects humans, this is a pretty important book. Tons and tons of examples of how gender-based unconscious bias (i.e. just assuming women can be approximated as shorter men with no penises, or ignored completely because hormones make the science too hard to control) has and is unintentionally harming and killing women. This book got brought up a couple times at various occupational health conferences I was at this year.

Where Am I Now – My second reading of Mara Wilson’s WONDERFUL memoir. Can she please write another one? I just adore this book. So many celebrity memoirs are full of boring fluff but this one holds up.

Save Me The Plums – Another very lovely and fun memoir! I loved getting to read about what it’s like to run a high-end food magazine in New York City, and I think anyone who enjoys food writing will be charmed by this book.

Good Morning, Monster – One of the last books I finished this year, and it blew my mind. It might be the most disturbing book I’ve ever read, but also very inspiring. I can’t stop thinking about it, and how lucky I was to have an abuse-free childhood. This one will shake you to your core but I highly recommend it.

Finally - a bonus shoutout to two very prolific authors who I read for the first time this year, Stephen King and Agatha Christie! While their books are not on this list, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know their writing this year and there’s clearly no shortage of books by either to check out.

I've set my reading goal at 85 books in 2020! A busy Christmas "break" has me off to a bad start, but I'm glad I spent some time drafting this post before the craziness hit. If you read any of these on my recommendation please get in touch and let me know what you thought!