Year-end reading roundup
Some of my favorite books of 2019
Below are the 32 books I read in 2019. I know many people read 50 or more and some hit 100. For me, more than 30 is a good number—I’m not a fast reader and I mostly read books in the evenings, after my daughter is in bed. There are a couple of books I never finished, so I didn’t include them in this list.
Not surprisingly, given my journalism background and my preference for non-fiction, these are overwhelmingly non-fiction; about a third are in the memoir genre. Not all these books are by immigrants and children of immigrants, but the vast majority are. The authors’ countries include Bosnia, China, Croatia, India, Iran, Korea, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, and Vietnam. This newsletter of course includes many more essays than books, so I’m sure the country list would balloon if I included those. When I read my list of books read, I was pleased to see that most were written by women of color.
It’s hard to pick a favorite memoir, but I loved Grace Talusan’s The Body Papers and T Kira Madden’s Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. Among graphic memoirs, Mira Jacob’s Good Talk stood out. My favorite essay collections were Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, edited by Sari Botton (if you somehow missed it back in 2013 when it came out, like I did, go read it now!) I only read a handful of fictional books, but enjoyed all of them.
So here is my 2019 list:
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Educated by Tara Westover
Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley
The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
Calypso by David Sedaris
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, edited by Sari Botton
I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib
Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester
The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero
The Body Papers: A Memoir by Grace Talusan
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t by Lane Moore
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence, edited by Michele Filgate
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri
My Parents: An Introduction/This Does Not Belong to You by Aleksandar Hemon
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug
Immigrant Daughter: Stories You Never Told Me by Catherine Kapphahn
I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir by Reema Zaman
I Miss You When I Blink: Essays by Mary Laura Philpott
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir by Daisy Hernandez
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir by Cinelle Barnes
For my 2020 reading list, I already have many books I didn’t get to in 2019. A few that come to mind are Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, and Esme Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias.
I’m looking forward to many books that will be released next year, such as the anthology A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home.
Thanks for reading—and happy holidays! Wishing you peace, love, and health in 2020,
Vesna
About this newsletter: Writing about immigrant life—the struggles, triumphs and quirks—by immigrants and children of immigrants. Photo in the logo: Miguel Bruna/Unsplash.
About me: I grew up in the former Yugoslavia, then moved to Canada, and now live in New York, where I work as a writer and communications consultant for nonprofits focusing on human rights. I have written about my immigrant experience for Catapult, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the New York Daily News. Find me on twitter, @vesnajaksic, or on my website, www.vesnajaksic.com.