2019 in Books

2019 was a good year for reading. Here's most of it:

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls, by Lauren Karcz
I bought this book as soon as it was released -- I've been waiting to read Lauren's book for years! -- but it took me a year to actually sit down and read. Sometimes I make aggressive reading lists, and sometimes I wait for the nudge. In this case, I'm glad I started 2019 with THIS book.

I don't read as much YA as I used to; too often language is sacrificed for plot, and characters are left flat at the expense of a Message. Others have described this novel as "quiet," and I suppose it is, but that is by no means a criticism; I love that the characters drive the story, and I'm invested enough in them to follow them anywhere. The language is lovely but never overdone, and the magical realism works exactly as it should -- I never had to "suspend my disbelief" to believe that a piano could suddenly appear on a front lawn, or that an abandoned building can allow an artist to create great works inside. Mostly what I love is that we're allowed to slip inside the heart and mind of a girl in all her complexity, finding (and creating) her place in the world.

Becoming, by Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama has her say, and I am here for it. I appreciate her perspective, reflectiveness, and honesty in sharing her life story. This was also a tough book to read simply because it made me so painfully aware of what we had and what we've lost and what hot garbage we're left with now.

The hardest part was re-experiencing Sandy Hook and the 2016 election from Michelle Obama's perspective -- both again which served as a reminder of the empathy, compassion, class, grace, and dignity the Obamas brought to the White House and the reality that the current president brought the opposite of those things. It was hard to feel anything but hopeless, reading that. However, because it's Michelle Obama, she doesn't leave us there, calling us instead to be "both tough and hopeful," and to live in the world as it is while working to create the world as it should be.

Martin Marten, by Brian Doyle
"The fact is that there are more stories in the space of a single second, in a single square foot of dirt and air and water, then we could tell in a hundred years. The word amazing isn't much of a word for how amazing it is. The fact is that there are more stories in the world than there are fish in the sea or birds in the air or lies among politicians. You could be sad at how many stories go untold, but you could also be delighted at how many stories we catch and share in delight and wonder and astonishment and illumination and sometimes even epiphany.”

When the world is utter garbage, read Brian Doyle.

Mink River became one of my Favorite Books of All Time when I read it several years ago, and since Brian Doyle died in 2017 I've been collecting his works but I've been reluctant to read them too quickly. All of his words that will ever be in the world already are, and that breaks my heart. That said, this was the perfect time for me to read this book, and it may will be the most joyful, poetic, whimsical, beautiful book I read this year. When I'm ready to give up on humanity, Brian Doyle reminds me to look more closely. Any attempt to summarize this book would fall flat; it's a coming-of-age story, sure, but it's also a love letter to landscapes, to home, to place, to our clumsy attempts to see each other and the spaces in which we live, and to the messily and perfectly imperfect ways we love each other. Every single sentence is poetry. Every single sentence is magic. Brian Doyle's writing is one of the great gifts of the universe.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan
"What is the truth of any human life, Titch? I doubt even the man who lives it can say." I raised my face. "You cannot know the true nature of another's suffering."

"No. But you can try your damndest not to worsen it."

**

Washington Black (or "Wash") narrates the story of his life, beginning with his childhood as a slave on a plantation in Barbados. He escapes with the eccentric brother of his cruel master and begins years of implausible but somehow wholly believable adventures that take him as far as Virginia, the Arctic, London, Amsterdam, and Morocco. He travels in search of freedom and in search of himself; whether or not he finds that is the question.

Edugyan's writing is close to brilliant -- not a word out of place. The novel is well paced, the characters are perfectly drawn, and her prose sings when it should sing without relying on gimmicks that make me all too aware of the author. It's a quick, immersive read, but an impactful one.

Circe, by Madeleine Miller
One need not remember all the details of Greek mythology they might have learned in their freshman high school English class to appreciate this retelling of the story of Circe, daughter of Helios. I didn't remember anything about her, actually, and if she's anything like she appears in this book, I'm a fan. This was a solidly enjoyable weekend read.

Sugar Run, by Mesha Maren
This book checks a lot of my boxes: a fierce love letter to place, grappling with the idea of what it means to call a place home, flawed characters written with honesty and compassion, and beautifully crafted sentences. Throw in a hint of Southern noir and "a queer story set in a place that can be unforgiving to queer people," and I'm all in. Lauren Groff described this book as "brilliant and savage and gorgeous" and she is absolutely right. One of my favorites of 2019.

Florida, by Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff is one of those writers I've thought I should read for a long time, but honestly, I haven't felt particularly called to any of her books. Not even Fates and Furies, which everyone is supposed to love. But I picked this up after I read Sugar Run, knowing Groff was a champion of Mesha Maren, whose debut novel is already one of my favorites of 2019, and also I happened to be shopping at a little indie bookstore and they seemed to love this one...

...And I did too. I loved each one of these stories. I love the way Groff uses language to immerse the reader in a particular experience. I relate to the characters even when I don't love them. I have no desire to visit Florida anytime soon but I made up my mind to follow this writer anywhere.

High Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing, by Ben Austen
This resonated much like Evicted and The Warmth of Other Suns. When we consider issues of race, class, and politics, we cannot ignore the stories of people.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, by Michelle McNamara
This was a perfect book for a snow day. I don't read much True Crime, but McNamara handled the subject with incredible humanity and grace, never flinching from the disgusting nature of the crimes but also never veering into gratuitousness. I loved the way this work revealed a portrait of her as well, and it's a tragedy that she died before she saw the Golden State Killer apprehended.

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, by Valeria Luiselli
A work centered around the forty questions asked of unaccompanied immigrant children facing deportation. Read it read it read it read it read it read it read it.

Late in the Day, by Tessa Hadleyr
I enjoyed Tessa Hadley's The Past and knew I'd want to read more of her work. This book made me glad I did. The novel focuses on two couples, lifelong friends, and opens with the death of one of the husbands. The structure alternates between the past and present, bringing to light all sorts of complications and betrayals -- but it feels simply, messily human rather than melodramatic. The way we grow and grow apart, and back together again. The way it is possible to build and rebuild a life, or lose and find each other again. And while the story centers around two married couples, it's also about the relationships between friends and adult children and their parents.

Hadley's writing is both gorgeous and competent, not a word out of place. She draws the reader so completely into not only the big moments but the ordinary ones. I loved every single moment of reading this.

The Origin of Others, by Toni Morrison
Just a brilliant little reminder that I have more Toni Morrison on my shelves at home to read, and the novels I've already read will deeply reward rereading.

All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer, by Karen Babine
Fun fact -- I graduated from Concordia with the author, which has nothing to do with anything except that I was lucky enough to attend a college that fostered and produced (produces) some great writing and an enduring love and appreciation for stories and language. Anyway. The only reason I didn't read this book in a single night is because I picked it up at nine o'clock on a school night, after my children were in bed, and I finished it the next day. It's SO good. It's a book that will resonate deeply with anyone who has a strong sense of place, of family, for anyone who understands how both food and language have the power to heal and connect us. It's beautiful. This is a book that will likely be categorized in the health/wellness/illness section of the bookstores, depending on which bookstore you're in, but that's a mistake. It should be front and center with any other memoir or essay collections, because what she writes about is human experience and human love. And she does it in absolutely gorgeous sentences. I couldn't put it down.

Note of a Native Son, by James Baldwin
Five stars. Obviously. Lots to digest and I think everyone should. More than once. This wasn't my first reading of many of these essays and it won't be my last.

The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America, by Tommy Tomlinson
Normally I shy away from books that feel like the equivalent of watching Hoarders to make myself feel better about the fact that my house feels kind of untidy at the moment, but I picked this up at the library after listening to an interview on NPR. I appreciated his honesty and the opportunity to listen to a narrative from the perspective of someone actually struggling with obesity, as opposed to the narrative that is too often imposed.

Everything Under, by Daisy Johnson
This is the story of Gretel, a young lexicographer who was abandoned by her mother at sixteen. It's the story of a woman in search of her roots, the story of a woman trying to reconnect with her past, the story of a woman trying to find her mother and the young person who lived with them on their houseboat, years ago...

It's a wonderfully unsettling revisioning of the Oedipus myth (how could it be anything else?), with several allusions to Hansel and Gretel as well. The language is stunning, and it is also, in many ways, the point. Language matters a great deal in this book. I'm in. Anyone can retell a myth, a fairy tale; this one takes some care. The language drives the book. It's weird and beautiful and it works.

Ohio, by Stephen Markley
The novel opens in a small Ohio town with a parade thrown for one of its own, killed in Iraq. The rest of the book focuses on four of the soldiers classmates, none of whom were there for the parade. Markley takes us into their individual stories, showing us who they were in high school and who they've become and the ways in which their lives intersect, culminating in a climax I honestly didn't predict but that left me feeling gutted. All that to say: while as a reader I always knew I was hurtling towards something, the book is really about the people, about the community, about the ways in which fear can take hold in the heart of rural America.

I read all 482 pages in 48 hours because I could not put it down, nor could I stop thinking about it when I was forced to. This may not have been the healthiest choice, because this novel is brutal. But it's so beautifully written, and Markley gets so much about people exactly right.

Parkland: Birth of a Movement, by Dave Cullen
As soon as I saw Dave Cullen had written a book about Parkland, I knew this would be the book I would read about that event. I read Columbine several years ago, and I absolutely trust him as a journalist. This matters to me. It's one of the issues I care about most, but it's also the issue that's most difficult to read about. (I don't think I'm remotely ready to read an entire book about Sandy Hook, no matter the angle, but as a high school teacher, and as a fierce advocate for teenagers, this one seemed necessary.)

Cullen doesn't give any attention to the shooter; this book is all about the teen activists and founders of March For Our Lives, who are much, much bigger celebrities than the one who brought this tragedy into their school. As adults, we have a lot to learn; we're the ones who need to step up. David Hogg says, "We're children. You guys, like, are the adults. You need to take some action and play a role. Work together. Come over your politics. And get something done."

On NPR, Cullen said, "To me, Columbine and Parkland are totally bookends - or, I guess, I have to say hopefully bookends. Parkland won't be the last one. It's already not the last one. But I think it may be the beginning of the end. Hopefully, 10 years from now, we'll look back and say, yeah. That's the moment where we begin to find our way out of this."

I loved every moment of reading this. I cried through some of it, remember the speeches I watched live last year, and remembering my own school district's response to the shooting, remembering the conversations I had with my colleagues and with my children's teachers. But mostly I loved reading about these kids. These kids, the founders of MFOL -- they embody everything I love about working with teenagers. They give me hope when I've run out, when I'm overcome with anger and grief and fear. They remind me that none of us really have the luxury of deciding it's too much, that it's someone else's problem.

Paradise of the Blind, by Dương Thu Hương
Grace Paley wrote, "We have been hearing for many years from Americans who seemed to consider the Vietnamese experience -- life and war -- their own. At last a woman, a Vietnamese woman, tells us Vietnamese life: the village, the city, the repression and expansion, the middle peasant, the poor peasant, the years of exquisite food and no food, working in the Soviet Union -- and all beautifully told so that we can begin to understand not where we were for years, but where and how they -- the Vietnamese -- are now."

Paradise of the Blind is the first novel from Vietnam published in the United States, and banned in its own country. Its author, Dương Thu Hương, is a political dissident who has been imprisoned in her own country for her writing and outspoken criticism. I hadn't heard of this novel until the coordinator of the IB Diploma Program sent me a note about it after a coordinator meeting, letting me know that it was a popular choice for Works in Translation, a required component of IB Literature, which I teach. Next year our curriculum is changing and we need to replace three of the current works in translation, so I used this an opportunity to read this novel. I loved it, and I'm excited for the opportunity to teach it. The story is narrated by a young woman named Hang who has left Hanoi to work in the then Soviet Union; she receives a telegram letting her know that her uncle Chinh (who at that time is in Moscow) is very ill, and she must go to him. From there the novel shifts back to Vietnam to unfurl the story of Hang, her mother, and her Aunt Tam; the focus is really on these three women. Hang's mother, Que, is fiercely loyal to her brother Chinh despite his pettiness and greed. Hang's Aunt Tam hates Chinh for causing the death of her brother Ton, Hang's father and the one love of Que's life. Throughout the novel, the women are the ones who make the sacrifices, and the cost is everything.

I love stories that evoke a strong sense of place, and the descriptions of Hanoi are heavy: sensual, beautiful, oppressive. (The descriptions of Russia are also heavy: icy and oppressive.) Food is clearly central to the way people interact with each other, either with generosity or contempt, and I'll just go ahead and admit right now that this book made me hungry. The descriptions of food are among the best and most memorable I've ever read.

Grace Notes, by Brian Doyle
Every single word is a gift.

There There, by Tommy Orange
Gorgeous writing that more than fills the Sherman Alexie-sized hole in my heart? But seriously, read this for the beauty of the language and the sheer force of the storytelling. He's telling a story we all need to hear.

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country, by Pam Houston
Absolutely all the stars. I read this slowly, and I marked it all up as I read. This is one of those books I know I'll reach for again and again, just to dip into when I need it.

(Also, Pam Houston is both an optimist and given to worst-case scenarios and that, in addition to her writing that reaches every part of my soul, means I want to be her best friend.)

Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, by Nadia Bolz-Weber
“It doesn't feel very difficult to draw a direct line between the messages many of us received from the church and the harm we've experienced in our bodies and spirits as a result. So my argument in this book is this: we should not be more loyal to an idea, a doctrine, or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming the bodies and spirits of people, we should rethink those teachings.”

I could talk about this one for days. As someone who experienced the purity culture of the 90s, even in my mainstream ELCA church, pretty much all of this book resonates, and my copy has the emphatic underlining and marginalia to show it.

On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas
I think I liked this one even better than The Hate U Give.

Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
This book knocked my socks right off. I knew I needed to read it -- I loved Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions -- but I thought it would be a bit of a chore, something I would really have to work through. We're never given the names of the characters, for instance; they're only Mama, Papa, The Boy, The Girl. And yet they're wholly real. The story is told through different perspectives and multiple text types, which could seem gimmicky but serves instead as a fascinating collage of storytelling. It's a story about migrant children seeking asylum, and it's also the story of a family in its own intimate, gradual separation from each other, and the silences in those spaces. And it is also, indeed, a different sort of American road trip novel. Her writing is stunning. I couldn't put this down, and I thought about it whenever I wasn't reading it. This one will linger.

Spring, by Ali Smith
The third installment of Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet could not have been more timely, especially read on the heels of Lost Children Archive. A perfect blend of anger, satire, sweetness, and hope, plus the poetry of her language. I eagerly await the last volume, and then I think it will be necessary to read them all straight through again. I know there are connections I still haven't grasped and discoveries yet to come.

The Valedictorian of Being Dead, by Heather B. Armstrong
The topic is important, and I think her story is, too. I just always liked her blog better than I like her books.

Speak No Evil, by Uzodinma Iweala
I'm conflicted about this one. This is beautifully written and important, and I'd recommend it to almost anyone. Still, I felt rather detached from the characters themselves, and it seemed that the book tried to cover too much territory with not enough depth. There are some incredibly vivid and powerful scenes, and they left me wanting more.

The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
A coming of age novel about finding one's voice, written in poetry. Beautiful. I couldn't wait to share this with my daughter. (She loved it, too.)

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
As soon as I finished this, I bought Vuong's book of poetry: Night Sky With Exit Wounds. That's how much I love every sentence in this heartbreakingly beautiful book. Written as a letter to his illiterate immigrant mother, this book covers a vast amount of territory -- family, grief, sexuality, race, immigration, death, gender -- everything that asks us to grapple with what it is to be messily human, really. And Vuong does this beautifully, not a word out of place.

Tin Man, by Sarah Winman
I read this in a single day. I didn't really know anything about it when I started, only that it called to me somehow when I picked it up in a local bookstore last summer. The story follows two boys who are best friends in their youth, then separated for some years. Much later, their lives intersect again. It's really a story about loving beyond labels and societal boundaries, and it was heartbreaking but also beautifully tender.

The Flight Portfolio, by Julie Orringer
I think Julie Orringer is a gorgeous writer, first of all, and any criticisms of "overwriting" don't bother me in the slightest -- I mean, my favorite author of all time is Pat Conroy, who at one point jokingly referred to himself as a "maximalist" or something. (That said, this didn't actually feel overwritten to me. I simply find her prose a pure pleasure to read.)

Flight Portfolio is part historical fiction, part spy thriller. It's the story of Varian Fry, an American journalist who aided in the escape of anti-Nazi refugees from France during WWII, mostly artists. Orringer clearly did her research, and as a reader, I was thoroughly immersed in the setting and the context, because she can write the sensual details of a place and bring her characters to life like nobody's business. This is an ambitious and perhaps risky approach to take -- fictionalizing a man who actually lived not so long ago, and writing his character so very boldly, letting his bisexuality and a fictional love affair drive so much of the narrative. But in the end, I believe this story is not only beautifully told but relevant, timely, and a necessary mirror -- as literature is really called to be.

The Book of Joan, by Lidia Yuknavitch
This is not a book I'm going to try to recommend to everyone in my life, for sure, but I happen to think Lidia Yuknavitch is a genius. I really do. I'm not sure anything can top The Chronology of Water (for me), but this is also blazingly brilliant, horrifying, and beautiful. If any other writer had written it, I'd probably give it a pass, but it reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness with a bit more poetry and rage.

The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo
A big-hearted novel about loving family dysfunction. I read all 500+ pages in 48 hours and still find myself thinking about the characters. Claire Lombardo does everything Jonathan Franzen does (and I loved The Corrections, a lot, though sometimes I wonder how that would hold up to rereading over a decade later after I've grown up a bit), but with more heart and humanity.

The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is a literary genius. I really believe this. I thought The Underground Railroad was brilliant, and his new novel reinforces everything I love about his writing even though it's an entirely different novel. This is the fictional portrayal of a real-life horror: the Dozier School in Florida, a reform school for boys that operated for over one hundred years and brutalized thousands of young men. The story centers around two characters, Elwood and Turner, and I will say only that I fell hard for them both and that I don't want to reveal a single thing about the trajectory of their lives. I read this in two sittings. This is a slim novel, but the huge power of Whitehead's writing lies in as much as what he doesn't say, in the way he can evoke an entire scene with only a glimpse: a single terrifying item, a single sound. It's an important story. Don't look away.

Milkman, by Anna Burns
Reading this novel was a fascinating experience; it was also a lot of work. Sometimes it soars. Sometimes I thought I would have enjoyed it much more if I'd been able to discuss it with a class. I think a lot of it is brilliant. I didn't fall utterly in love with it, but I admire it.

Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry
I would compare this to Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, which I read five summers ago -- the writing is staggeringly, devastatingly good. Poetic, even in its rendering of violence. But Barry's novel is also beautiful and hopeful. I loved that the love between the narrator and John Cole is matter-of-fact, true, real -- not overly dramatized, and never tragic, the way so many queer love stories seem to be in literature. The language is stunning. It wasn't so much as novel as a river into which I cast myself, and I let it carry me. Really, every single sentence is beautiful, and yet it never feels overwritten. I loved every single moment of reading this.

Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going, by Ana Maria Spagna
I bought this essay collection as a birthday present to myself months ago when I saw Brian Doyle had written a blurb for it. I read it slowly, picking it up and reading an essay here and there over the course of several months. Each time I returned to it, I felt the deep pleasure of sinking into a familiar place -- at the hands of a writer who writes beautifully about place and what it means to be alive in the world, even as it changes.

Sula, by Toni Morrison
"Show? To who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on it it. Which is to say, I got me."

As always, every sentence is perfection, and Morrison uses her command of language to create characters who are flawed, human, and multi-faceted. I am more aware than ever that Toni Morrison is one of our greatest writers and that I need to make a point of reading everything she wrote. I feel lucky to have shared the planet with her for a little while.

Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
This collection is absolutely everything I love about reading short stories. One of my favorite college professors once said, "We read to remind ourselves of our humanity" (which has become something I say to my own students), and these stories offer human connection in smart, startling, funny, poignant, and devastating ways. I love the way Thompson-Spires drops us into these unique -- sometimes even absurd -- but markedly human experiences. She doesn't keep us comfortable, but I was never ready for the experience to end, either.

I picked up this book because I thought it would be a good way to keep reading at the beginning of the school year -- perhaps just enough every night to take me out of the stress and exhaustion of the new year, and out of my own head a bit. I ended up reading the entire thing in just a couple of sittings, though. Unputdownable.

Gun Love, by Jennifer Clement
I wouldn't have expected a novel about America's fascination with and bizarre love of guns, or gun trafficking, to be so phantasmagorically lyrical. And yet, this reads like part poetry, part fever dream. It almost shouldn't work. But somehow, it doesn't diminish the despair, the sadness, or the strangeness; instead, Clement's novel sharpens these things in a way that allows us to slip inside a story that, tragically, we've already made too common.

Lanny, by Max Porter
I loved every moment of reading this book. I picked it up on a whim after learning it had been longlisted for the Booker Prize, not knowing anything about it. It reminded me of Jon McGregor's Reservoir Tapes, but it's also totally unique, the story of a child gone missing in a small community, told through a strange and whimsical mix of folklore and poetry. And while I wouldn't necessarily assume a "strange and whimsical mix of folklore and poetry" lends itself to such propulsive, unputdownable reading, in this case, it absolutely does. This book swept me up from the first page and I didn't want to come up for air until the last.

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
3.5 stars, rounded down. I'm torn on this. If I'd written about it immediately after finishing it, I'd have given it a higher rating because I had a great time reading it. It doesn't fall into the same category of literary brilliance that my favorite Atwood novels do (The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin) but I didn't expect it to, and it's still a very good book. The thing is, I don't think The Handmaid's Tale needed a sequel. And until Trump was elected, Atwood didn't either -- she made it very clear that she was never going to write it, until everything changed. And I think I understand why she felt the need to write this. I also think I'm grateful. (Also, I attended the live event broadcast in theaters the night the book came out, and I have never been more convinced of Atwood's brilliance. Just listening to her speak, and listening to passages read aloud by their characters, I was about ready to give this five stars before I read the first page.)

The book itself is a page-turner, for sure. I read it in a single weekend, partly to avoid spoilers and partly because it reads like a thriller. I think the narrative structure works well and the voices felt distinctive and true to what I believe about their characters. I also think it revealed some answers we didn't strictly need, and the ending -- while perhaps satisfying for many readers who may have felt frustrated by the ambiguity at the end of The Handmaid's Tale -- left me a bit less than satisfied.

I'm not sure it's necessary to have watched the Hulu series to appreciate this, but it helps, and in this case I think it's so interesting to think about the ways in which the different stories (and their creators) influence each other while still allowing enough space to be their own creations. And I wonder about the ways in which this book might shape the series going forward. Could Atwood have predicted this momentum in 1985?

The Mother of All Questions, by Rebecca Solnit
“Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. A free person tells her own story. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place.”

This should be on everyone's list of Required Reading.

Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters, by Rebecca Solnit
I think Rebecca Solnit is one of the great and necessary voices in America, and I want everyone to read her. These essays fill me with both rage and hope, and I guess we need both to survive this country.

Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood, by Lisa Damour
I don't read many parenting books -- I get bored, frankly, by both the writing and the content. But this was recommended to me not by parents but by several teachers at a weekend conference I attended. Teachers of teenagers who were also parents of teenagers, or almost-teenagers. So I picked it up. And I really, really appreciate it. I like the author's tone; so many books about raising girls feel sort of alarmist, and possibly for good reason, but this is very down-to-earth and calm about rolling with the normal developmental stages of an adolescent girl's growth from about ages 12-21 while still providing real strategies for dealing with things that feel hard sometimes. I started reading it at recognized immediately that we're experiencing some of the very things she's writing about, and it helped both me and Matt to just take a deep breath and remind ourselves that this is normal, and there are helpful and non-helpful ways to respond. (I also appreciate that Damour includes a "when to worry" section in each chapter and ways to approach that, too, and she doesn't every shy away from acknowledging the realities our girls face today.) Not only did I find it a practical yet fairly engaging book for me as a parent, it was an excellent book for me to read as a teacher of teenage girls, too. I've been teaching teenagers a lot longer than I've been parenting them, but this was such a good reminder to look at how their behavior in my class may be driven by what's going on in their lives (and their brains), and think about ways in which I can better support them instead of getting frustrated.

The Chain, by Adrian McKinty
I was reading a Very Serious Work of Great Literary Merit, and then I came down with my standard beginning-of-the-school-year cold, and then I got my first batch of papers to grade. I was tired and feeling sort of sorry for myself, and I needed some escapism that pairs well with wine and snacks on a Friday evening. This fit the bill perfectly.

The premise is pretty horrifying: a mother received a frantic phone call shortly after dropping off her child at the school bus stop. The caller informs her that her daughter has been kidnapped, and the only way to get her back is to kidnap another child, call that child's parent, and continue The Chain. If she fails to comply, her child will be killed.

"If you don't, I'll kill Kylie and start again with someone else. If I screw up they will kill my son and then me. Everything's off the cliff already for us. Let me be very clear, Rachel: I will murder Kylie. I know now that I am capable of doing it."

Yikes. All of this in the first few pages. As the mother of a thirteen-year-old girl, I wasn't all that sure I wanted to keep reading, but I trust the friend who introduced me to Adrian McKinty and also I REALLY DID want to keep reading. So I did, and as I suspected, it's a great weekend read (I could have easily read it in a day, but I was interrupted by school and sneezing). The story is incredibly fast-paced, but while obviously some things have to happen it never feels gratuitous or graphic, and I didn't feel destroyed or gutted or anything I was worried about. Reading it does require a certain willing suspension of disbelief, especially at the end, but whatever. This book delivered exactly what I needed.

The Turn of the Key, by Ruth Ware
Fun, creepy, and about what I expect when I pick up a Ruth Ware book for a weekend.

A Place for Us, by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Sometimes I hesitate to say what I think a book is "about" for fear of reducing it to a plot summary, which, in this case, wouldn't begin to capture the heart of the story. This story opens with a wedding but loops back and forth, winding its way through the past, until finally we are brought back to the wedding and a critical moment that centers not on the bride and groom but on the bride's brother and their father. And really, we're brought right into the heart of the family, and it becomes the kind of novel I love -- one "about" relationships and identity and the way we're shaped by our families, by their traditions, by where we come from and where we are now. It's about what it means to be a Muslim in America, post 9/11. It's about the messy and imperfect ways we love each other. It's about trying to understand someone with a different perspective, and the tensions that arise when that someone is a member of one's own family.

Despite the non-linear structure, the story flows smoothly, and reading it was a beautifully immersive experience. I wish the character of Huda, the middle sister, could have come through a bit more -- but it's a minor complaint, indeed.

Know My Name, by Chanel Miller
Listen, I want ALL of you to read this.

Chanel Miller was a writer before Brock Turner raped her. In one of the interviews she gave after her book was published, someone said -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "This isn't the story you would have chosen to write." And she said, "This isn't the story I would have chosen, but it is the story I was given."

This might be the most important story you will read this year. But it's also one of the most beautifully written. I read it in two sittings and ran a blue papermate pen jotting down her words in a journal. I want EVERYONE to read it. My own children, soon. All of my students, now. All of my colleagues. All of my friends. Everyone raising a daughter, and everyone raising a son. Everyone who belongs to a community, and everyone who cares about an individual. Stories matter. Who gets to tell them -- it matters. One of the bravest things a human being can do is tell the truth about their own life, and in this case, one person's story also holds up a mirror to who we are. Don't look away.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
Insanely fun Halloween reading. I think Shirley Jackson is perfection as a prose stylist.

Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson
This book is less than 200 pages and it manages to tell such a beautifully complex, layered family story with as much depth and perspective as many books twice its length. And it's pure poetry.

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado
Brilliant, start to finish -- dark, funny, unsettling, sometimes horrifying, burning with furious truth and blurring the lines between genres. I loved these stories.

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, by Abraham Verghese
I picked this up at a used bookstore after reading and enjoying Verghese's novel Cutting for Stone several years ago. This is Dr. Verghese's memoir, the story of his work as a physician specializing in infectious disease as the AIDS epidemic took hold in America. I've read other stories centered in major cities, but this work is grounded in rural Tennessee, and he exposes small town community prejudice at the same time he recognizes the huge love and warmth and what it really means to show up for someone. My favorite parts of this book are the stories of his patients, but I also appreciate his own grappling with finding his own home in America.

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, by Michael Dyson
This is not a comfortable, feel-good book for white people, but it's one of those books I wish we would ALL read.

A couple of years ago, my school district brought in some speakers for "Equity Training." One of them was Dr. Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility. Another was an "angry black man" who made the white teachers "feel like they were evil." That's a direct quote from one of my colleagues, by the way. A progressive man I've always respected a great deal.

I actually had the opportunity to listen to both speakers. Both were powerful, and both trainings were uncomfortable. But let's be honest; if "equity training" leaves a couple thousand educators--most of whom are white--comfortable and feeling good about themselves at the end of the day, it's not very effective training.

The message from both speakers was more or less the same, but the reaction from "progressive" educators in my school district (we white folks love to brag about how it's one of the most diverse in the country) was startlingly different, and my takeaway was this: we want to believe we're antiracist, but we're still really hesitant to hear anyone talk to us about race. A white lady and a black man can say essentially the same thing, and we're a lot more receptive to the white lady...maybe her "tone" is more "moderate." (I read a few reviews of this book that stated basically this; they appreciate the message, but perhaps the tone could be a bit more moderate! Nevermind the fact that folks actual lives are at stake...what about white people feeling badly about themselves?) This book isn't going to keep anyone comfortable, nor should it, in my opinion. I didn't always love reading it, and in those moments, I had to stop and ask myself--why? And I believe those are the points at which I need to reflect on what is asked of me, and what I believe is required. I have a lot of work to, and I can't do that work if I believe I've already done enough. We haven't done enough, and white people would do well to listen to the folks willing to call us out -- and then call us back in to do the work.

Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout
If you loved Olive Kitteridge (as I did several years ago), this is a return to familiar territory. I still love Olive in her cantankerous old age, and I love the way Elizabeth Strout writes about her and this small community in Maine. She humanizes characters we could easily love to hate, and she writes about loss and loneliness -- but also about noticing, say, the light of an ordinary February day -- in such a way that I'm grateful for all our messy humanity. All the stars for this one.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, by Haruki Murakami
I haven't read Murakami in several years, but I'm playing with the idea of adding more short stories to my IB Literature curriculum and we needed another work in translation. Rather than fall back on the collection I've already read, albeit years ago (The Elephant Vanishes), I thought I'd take the opportunity to read something new. This collection of 24 stories gives me a lot to choose from.

Murakami reminds me of John Irving in that there are certain bizarre and very specific things he just likes to include in stories -- I could keep a checklist as I read through his work. Things like ears, red wine, twins, cooking pasta, cats, kangaroos, talking animals, mysteriously vanishing people, wells...

Anyway, some of these stories really worked for me and some of them didn't. My favorites were actually the ones at the very end of the collection; I felt a little bogged down in the middle (this is not one of those collections that made me want to keep reading the next story as soon as I finished one), but the last stories lingered. It's not my favorite collection, but I think students will enjoy it, and I think he'll be unlike anything most of them have read.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, by Rachel Held Evans
I'm so sad to have come to the end of Rachel Held Evans's published works. I've said it before: she is one of the reasons I still believe there is space for me in church and a place for me at the table. This book embodies what I have loved about her for years, and I'm grateful to have shared the planet with her for a little while.

Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, by Benjamin Dreyer
What, you've never read a style guide cover-to-cover like it was a most delightful novel? I haven't either, until now.

My husband rolled his eyes at me when I suggested he read this. Then he picked it up and glanced through the first few pages and admitted that it is, in fact, pretty awesome.

If there's one book I could afford to buy every single one of my graduating seniors, this is it.

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, by Nancy Jo Sales
As a high school teacher, I can tell you right now that phone addiction is a problem that isn't going away and isn't getting better, because our humanity just isn't keeping up with our technology. That's a longer conversation.

This is an incredibly depressing book in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the reminder that--among other things--one of the most tragic things about our addiction to our screens is that we are depriving our children of a rich interior life. That's not even remotely the thing this book emphasizes the most, but it's honestly so sad to me. I thank God all the time that I didn't grow up with the pressures of social media, the pressure to be on it LITERALLY EVERY WAKING MOMENT, and that I learned how to sit with whatever I was feeling--loneliness, sadness, melancholy, disappointment, whatever--instead of just losing myself flipping through screen after screen of internet noise to drown it out. (I honestly worry that we're depriving the world of more poets and artists.)

If parents aren't aware of the pervasiveness of sexting and online porn in sixth grade, or if they're tempted to think their kids would never be asked to send nudes (much less actually send them), well, there's that.

And to all of my kid's friends' parents who make fun of me for being "too strict" regarding our limits on her screen time and (lack of) social media at age thirteen, your kids are going to be the ones who literally can't put down their phones during class without a panic attack. Trust me. I tried a little experiment with my IB seniors (the "good" kids who care about their grades, blah blah blah, etc.) and came away horrified at the extent to which they'll fight to stay completely plugged in. It affects their time management, their work ethic, their stress and anxiety. I am FINE with my daughter complaining to her friends that her mom is soooo strict; I'm happy to be the bad guy. And I don't care if y'all laugh and roll your eyes. (I see you.) Our kids have the rest of their adult lives to be addicted to their phones, just like most adults are. This book focuses on implications for teenagers' lives, but their parents are just as addicted (if less social-media savvy), so maybe we should consider that, too.

The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
I had every confidence that I would enjoy this, because Ann Patchett is a writer I just trust. When I pick up her books, I expect to be immersed in a deeply pleasurable reading experience. I didn't necessarily expect to love this as much as I did, though; I thought this would be a perfectly fine library read. But something nudged me to buy my own copy and I'm glad, because I want to reread and underline and hug this one. It is my favorite of her novels by far. The cadence of her sentences, her fully realized characters, her sense of place -- things that matter most to me -- are just about flawless. I loved every sentence.

And then! I learned that Tom Hanks narrates the audiobook. I don't normally listen to books unless they're plotty mysteries on a road trip, but I will tell you that as soon as I finished reading this I downloaded the audiobook and I've listened to Tom Hanks telling this story during multiple walks around my neighborhood, and that's pretty wonderful too.

Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann
This is a giant brick of a book -- nearly 1,000 pages. And most (not all) of it is written as a single continuous sentence. By that description, I probably won't sell a lot of people on this novel...and part of me wants to leave it there, because I feel that this book was written straight to my soul and I almost don't want to even share it. That's not a logical response, I know. But while it seems like this would be a difficult read, I fell into this book and let it carry me. I didn't want to put it down, and when I had to put it down, I couldn't stop thinking about it. This book captures so much of what it means to be a woman, a mother, in Trump's America. And I feel it honors motherhood and a rich interior life (it was weirdly fitting to read this at the same time I read American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers) in a way that seems increasingly dismissed. I loved every moment I spent with it, and I think Lucy Ellmann is a brilliant writer. This was a perfect book to end the year with.

My list for 2020 is already extensive. 2019 was rich for writers, and some seriously spectacular work has spilled onto my 2020 list. 2020 also promises some exciting releases. Also! This is the year I read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and/or Bleak House by Charles Dickens, as well as at least one poetry collection each month.

Cheers to reading. It matters. I'd love to know what you loved this year.