Top 10 Books of 2019

At the end of the year, the Internet gets loud with “Best of…” and “Top 10” lists. So like the good Internet person that I am, I thought I’d add to the noise. 

Admittedly, I didn’t love everything I read last year. I made a Top 10 list and wasn’t too psyched about it.

But this year. Guys. This year is different. I had a hard time narrowing my list down to ten and would chase you down in Times Square to put any one of these books into your hand. 

Without further ado, here are the masterpieces. (Counting down from 10 to 1. The order is important.)

10. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro 

I love Dani’s writing. She is a beautiful and thoughtful memoirist whose essays I could read all day long. Inheritance is the utterly compelling and true account of discovering that her beloved father was not, in fact, her biological father and grapples deeply with the implications of DNA testing, sperm donation, and what it means to belong to a family. 

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land.”

For fans of Ruth Reichl, Carolyn Weber, and Shauna Niequist

9. The Other Americans by Laila Lalami 

Beautiful and heartbreaking, The Other Americans takes a hard look at the unique perspectives that make up the human experiences in this country. Similar to There There by Tommy Orange, each chapter alternates between different characters and the jagged pieces of a love story, a family drama, and a murder mystery. This is a great choice for readers of immigrant experiences, small town family sagas, and stories of grief leading to love.

“Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.”

For fans of Tommy Orange, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Mohsin Hamid

8. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan 

In an effort to hold each other accountable to reading more fiction, my entire family started a book club and read Washington Black together. I was blown away by everyone’s insight and our conversations about freedom, dependency, injustice, and white privilege. This is an adventure story that moves from a sugar plantation in Barbados to a scientist’s camp in the Arctic, exploring the relationship between a slave, his master’s family, and his freedom. This book is The Underground Railroad meets Around the World in Eighty Days and does not disappoint.

“I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something. Everything is bizarre, and everything has value. Or if not value, at least merits investigation.”

For fans of Colson Whitehead, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Yaa Gyasi

7. The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Equally a piece of investigative journalism on the Los Angeles Public Library fire of 1986 and a lovely tribute to libraries everywhere, this book about books was a treat to devour for hours at a time. As historical research and storytelling blend in a space as open and nonjudgmental as a public library, The Library Book is the perfect place for an author to wax eloquent about books and for it to completely work. I read this during hot summer days, sprawled out on a picnic blanket in Central Park, which was, of course, a delight. 

“The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”

For fans of Gretchen Rubin, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Susan Cain

6. Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons 

I love short story collections like this: weird and off-beat, beautifully and painfully written. The characters are, for the most part, unlikable, which is exactly the point. Aren’t we all? These are the stories of mothers and daughters, childhood friendships, teenage relationships, and the intoxicating hope and disappointment embedded in each one. Everyone is trying their best and giving up at the same time; living and dying, rebelling and awakening. A mashup of grief and celebration and inescapable discomfort, this collection tells the story of what it means to be human.

“It's too much," I say. "Beautiful, shattered people everywhere. Is this what it's like to be you?”

For fans of Flannery O’Connor, Joan Didion, and Raphael Bob-Waksberg

5. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

It’s good to be back with Emily St. John Mandel’s writing. I loved Station Eleven with every fiber of my being, and The Glass Hotel felt familiar and brand-new at the same time. Similar to her previous novel, Mandel integrates art with an end-of-the-world plot as an array of characters come in and out of each other’s lives to battle beauty and heartbreak, heaviness and lightness. Also (no spoilers) there is a subtle but brilliant cameo appearance by a Station Eleven character that made me feel like both worlds simultaneously exist on different planes. I’m such a loyal fan of this author and her genius.

“There are so many ways to haunt a person, or a life…”

For fans of Margaret Atwood, Blake Crouch, and Peter Heller

4. The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte 

After discovering David Whyte’s poetry on a podcast, I’ve been enchanted ever since. I read this collection slowly, in the mornings with coffee before the sun came up. I also read it on the subway at rush hour, drowning out the hurry with quiet lyricism. After I finished, I attended one of his readings in a breathtaking cathedral near Central Park and cried tears of I Can’t Believe I Get To Exist In This World. I come back to this collection often, re-reading poems that struck me, matching my breathing with the rhythm of each line. I’ll be reading and re-reading this for a while. It hurts so good.

“Just beyond
yourself.

It’s where
you need
to be.

Half a step
into
self forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.”

For fans of Mary Oliver, Madeleine L’Engle, and John O'Donohue

3. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

I started this book at my desk, staying late to read after everyone else had gone home. I expected it to be a solid, well-written humorous book of essays, enjoyable but unmoving, but it is so much more. Packed with brilliant, outrageous short stories and full of quirky, deep wisdom about being a person, this book made my heart swell and break in the best of ways. I want to read it 17 more times.

“Life is terrifying and overwhelming and it can happen at any moment. And when you’re confronted with life you can either be cowardly or you can be brave, but either way you’re going to live. So you might as well be brave.”

For fans of David Sedaris, Samantha Irby, and George Saunders

2. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

This is the story of a marriage, a divorce, and a midlife crisis. This marriage doesn’t have good guys or bad guys, only people, and we see that there are always two sides to every story of falling apart. While the narrator, a female friend of the husband, grapples with her own midlife crisis, you wonder if you can trust her point of view. Or your own. Or anyone’s. Because maybe we can’t help but see each other’s stories through the lens of our own pain.

This book isn’t for everyone. The narrative point of view is odd and the beginning dabbles with weird, adult-ish, middle-aged-man-sexting. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But if you enjoy looking past DEEPLY flawed characters (except for Solly, Solly is everything) and wrestling with what the author is telling us about the world and what is wrong with it, it’s well worth the read.

(Annie Jones and I had almost identical reading experiences and opinions on this book. Listen to the November reading recap on her podcast, From the Front Porch, for more discussion.)

“A wife isn’t like an ultra-girlfriend or a permanent girlfriend. She’s an entirely new thing. She’s something you made together, with you as an ingredient.”

For fans of Lauren Groff, Meg Wolitzer, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine

1. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall 

I am so moved by this book. Rarely do you read something that poignantly captures the lifelong wrestle of faith, the inescapable nature of suffering, and the relief of not being alone. These four characters, all from disparate backgrounds and beliefs, undergo decades of change and their faith changes with them. In the end, dealing with God and people are not easy, but wrestling with it all is worth it.

“Because only in the quality of your struggle with one another will you learn anything about yourself.”

For fans of Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, Sarah Bessey, and Marilynne Robinson

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Full List

I’ve *ed my 5 star ratings, meaning there wasn’t room for them on the Top 10 list, but I still think about them regularly and would chase you down in Times Square to put them in your hands just maybe not as aggressively…

1. The Wondering Years by Knox McCoy 

2. Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami 

3. Felicity by Mary Oliver

4. Educated by Tara Westover

5. The Glitch by Elisabeth Cohen 

6. Encounters with Jesus by Tim Keller 

7. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan 

8. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler 

9. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro 

10. What if This Were Enough? By Heather Havrilesky 

11. The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri 

12. Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions by Chimamanda Adichie*

13. Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating 

14. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor (re-read) 

15. You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero 

16. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje* 

17. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie 

18. The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie 

19. The Other Americans by Laila Lalami 

20. Beverly, Right Here by Kate DiCamillo

21. The Great Cake Mystery by Alexander McCall Smith 

22. Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi 

23. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss 

24. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou*

25. Kate, Who Tamed the Wind by Liz Garton Scanlon 

26. The Library Book by Susan Orlean 

27. Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons 

28. Becoming by Michelle Obama* 

29. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens* 

30. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall 

31. Things Are What You Make of Them by Adam J. Kurtz 

32. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie 

33. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors 

34. Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin 

35. Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis 

36. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (re-read)*  

37. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng*

38. Waiting For Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey 

39. The Rock Blaster by Henning Mankell (on sale in February 2020)

40. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 

41. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (re-read) 

42. Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby (on sale in March 2020) 

43. The Bell and The Blackbird by David Whyte 

44. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes 

45. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (on sale in March 2020) 

46. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (re-read) 

47. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson*

48. No Filter by Sarah Frier (on sale in April 2020)*

49. Silence in the White City by Eva Garcia Saenz (on sale in July 2020)*

50. Letters to Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien 

51. Emma by Jane Austen 

52. The Body Lies by Jo Baker 

53. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

54. Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings by Madeleine L’Engle

55. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

56. The Reason for God by Tim Keller* 

I’m currently reading The Water Dancer by Ta-Nahisi Coates, The House of Belonging by David Whyte, and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (the Vintage edition with the adorable new cover). I’m trying to get to 60 books by the end of the year, so I’ll also read a couple of short Christmas-y books while I’m home for the holidays.

Farewell my bookish friends. If you need more reading recommendations, please reach out and don’t forget about the Reading Guide that Audrey Elledge and I poured our blood, sweat, and tears into.