Like I did last year, and the year before, I’ve tried to capture the essence of each of the books I read this year in as few words as possible.
- The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (non-fiction, by Bill Bryson): how the English language developed, its future direction, and funny tidbits about swearing, spelling, and whatnot
- The Hate U Give (fiction, by Angie Thomas): at the age of 16, two of the protagonist’s best friends have been murdered, most recently in an unprovoked police shooting
- A Leg to Stand On (non-fiction, by Oliver Sacks): a neurologist injures his leg and experiences the feeling of limb loss and learning to walk again
- Kilmeny of the Orchard (fiction, by L.M. Montgomery): another charming story on Prince Edward Island
- The Member of the Wedding (fiction, by Carson McCullers): a peak into the mind of a girl on the cusp of becoming a teenager
- The Ecuador Reader (non-fiction, edited by Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler): a collection of essays about the history and culture of Ecuador
- Living Poor (non-fiction, by Moritz Thomsen): a forty-something Peace Corps volunteer lives in coastal Ecuador for several years in the 1960s, working on projects with the local villagers to alleviate their extreme poverty
- The Nest (fiction, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney): a dysfunctional family of selfish adult siblings copes with a sudden change to their financial prospects
- On Beauty (fiction, by Zadie Smith): conflict, romance, and friendship between various members of two families affects their college town community
- Notes from a Feminist Killjoy (non-fiction, by Erin Wunker): reflections on rape culture, friendship, motherhood, and how the “so-called joys of patriarchal culture” affect all of these things.
- My Heart and Other Black Holes (fiction, by Jasmine Warga): teenage suicide partners bond over their shared experiences with depression
- When You Reach Me (fiction, by Rebecca Stead): homage to A Wrinkle in Time involving a mysterious time traveler in New York City
- The Book Thief (fiction, by Markus Zusak): Death tells the story of small-town Germans, centered around one fascinatingly resilient girl, during World War II
- Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman (non-fiction, by Lindy West): a truly laugh-out-loud funny take down of misogynists and fat shamers
Some books on deck for 2019 are A Place for Us: A Novel (by Fatima Farheen Mirza), Brown Girl Dreaming (by Jacqueline Woodson), and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (by Fredrik Backman). Do you have any book recommendations?
