The following is a list of all the books I read in calendar year 2019. Despite it being an extremely busy year, I still managed to squeeze in reading time, mostly by avoiding distractions like sleep. I only listed the books I completed.
In this list are 26 fiction titles, 19 poetry collections, and 5 books of nonfiction. On a five point scale, almost all of these were in the 3 to 5 range. I only scored two books lower than 3. I’m not including scores here because I included them in GoodReads and, less consistently, LibraryThing.
What this list doesn’t show is all of the short fiction and individual poems I read in mailing lists, magazines, websites, literary journals and the like. Those together would probably equal around a thousand pages, or say four additional books.
I can say that it was the poetry books that got me to 50 titles for the year. Not that poetry is trite or easier to read than prose; it is simply that poetry books (the works of Evan S. Connell notwithstanding) are in the main shorter than prose works.
Though each of these books was in some way remarkable, I want to specifically call out five of them for sticking with me well after reading:
- Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin (fiction)
- Here: Poems for the Planet, edited by Elizabeth Coleman (poetry)
- Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang (nonfiction)
- The Language of Saxophones by Kamau Daaood (poetry)
- Becoming Superman by J. Michael Straczynski (memoir)
For 2020 I will track my reading a little differently: I will keep two lists, one for books and the other for short prose. As I ramp up my writing practice I will be reading A LOT of short stories as study for my own work. Keeping an account of this reading will help me figure out my own skills and shortcomings in the art.
| Date | Author | Title |
| 2019.01.17 | Palmer, Ada | Too Like the Lightning |
| 2019.01.25 | Steinmetz, Ferret | Fix |
| 2019.02.12 | Greylock, TL | The Blood-Tainted Winter |
| 2019.02.14 | Tucker, Phil | Death March |
| 2019.02.18 | Clark, P. Djeli | The Black God’s Drums |
| 2019.02.25 | Hernandez, Catherine | Scarborough |
| 2019.02.27 | Link, Kelly | Origin Stories |
| 2019.03.13 | Adams, John Joseph and LaValle, Victor (eds.) | A People’s Future of the United States |
| 2019.03.27 | Oliver, Mary | Why I Wake Early |
| 2019.03.29 | Huey, Amorak | Ha Ha Ha Thump |
| 2019.03.31 | Dickinson, Seth | The Monster Baru Cormorant |
| 2019.04.02 | Ferlinghetti, Lawrence | A Coney Island of the Mind (50th anniversary edition) |
| 2019.04.03 | Ridl, Jack | Saint Peter and the Goldfinch |
| 2019.04.04 | sax, sam | madness |
| 2019.04.11 | Kocher, Ruth Ellen | When the Moon Knows You’re Wandering |
| 2019.04.13 | Montes, Lara Mimosa | The Somnambulist |
| 2019.04.21 | Cooper, Wyn | Postcards from the Interior |
| 2019.04.24 | Evans, CJ | A Penance |
| 2019.04.25 | Vodolazkin, Eugene | Laurus |
| 2019.04.30 | Ostups, Artis | Gestures |
| 2019.05.10 | Palmer, D. Thourson | Ours is the Storm |
| 2019.05.20 | Comola, Jessica | everything we met changed form & followed the rest |
| 2019.05.26 | Townsend, Tracy | The Nine |
| 2019.06.13 | Coleman, Elizabeth J. (ed.) | Here: Poems for the Planet |
| 2019.06.20 | Brace, Kristin | Each Darkness Inside |
| 2019.06.30 | Krieger, Scott | Illyrian Fugue |
| 2019.07.01 | Liu, Ken | The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary |
| 2019.07.04 | Tomlinson, Patrick | The Ark |
| 2019.07.07 | Tomlinson, Patrick | Trident’s Forge |
| 2019.07.12 | Roanhorse, Rebecca | Storm of Locusts |
| 2019.07.17 | Kowal, Mary Robinette | Scenting the Dark and Other Stories |
| 2019.07.27 | Turgenev, Ivan | First Love and Other Stories |
| 2019.08.06 | Kuznia, Yanni (ed.) | A Fantasy Medley 2 |
| 2019.08.23 | Chateaureynaud, Georges-Olivier | A Life on Paper |
| 2019.08.28 | Daaood, Kamau | The Language of Saxophones |
| 2019.09.01 | Serna, Rudolfo A. | Snow Over Utopia |
| 2019.09.06 | Ivanova, Adelaide | The Hammer |
| 2019.09.19 | Jin, Yong | A Hero Born |
| 2019.09.19 | Breedlove, Lynn | 45 Thought Crimes |
| 2019.09.23 | George, Jenny | The Dream of Reason |
| 2019.09.28 | Kooser, Ted | Local Wonders |
| 2019.09.30 | Rhein, Christine | Wild Flight |
| 2019.10.18 | Harrison, Jim | True North (re-read) |
| 2019.10.29 | Pimentel Chacon, Sasha | Insides She Swallowed |
| 2019.11.16 | Straczynski, J. Michael | Becoming Superman |
| 2019.11.17 | Buckell, Tobias | It’s All Just a Draft |
| 2019.12.02 | Ashton, Dyrk | Paternus: Wrath of Gods |
| 2019.12.05 | James, Marlon | Black Leopard, Red Wolf |
| 2019.12.17 | Wang, Jackie | Carceral Capitalism |
| 2019.12.19 | Fisher, Mark | Capitalist Realism |