It’s nearing the end of 2019 so you know what that means – it’s time to sum up my reading (yay!). 2019 was a good year. Overall, I surpassed my Goodreads challenge of reading 52 books this year by clocking 67 books!
Here’s the list divided into novels, short story collections, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, and graphic novels/comics. The ones I’ve starred are the ones that had a considerable impact on me.
Novels
- Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
- Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan *
- The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
- Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
- Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok *
- Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
- Augustown by Kei Miller *
- Golden Child by Claire Adam
- Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis Benn *
- My New American Life by Francine Prose
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith *
- A House For Mr. Biswas by VS Naipaul *
- Crick, Crack Monkey by Merle Hodge
- Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid *
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery *
- My Enemy’s Cherry Tree by Wang Ting-Kuo
- A View of the Empire at Sunset by Caryl Philips *
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
- Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat *
- Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Short story collections
- Trinidad Noir: The Classics edited by Earl Lovelace and Robert Antoni
- What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
- How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs *
- A Kitchen in the Corner of the House by Ambai
- The Transformation and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
- Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf
- Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link *
Nonfiction
- Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth *
- Thin Places by Jordan Kisner *
- VS Naipaul’s Journeys by Sanjay Krishnan
- Stories that Stick by Kindra Hall
- Online Marketing for Busy Authors by Fauzia Burke
- Writing is Essential by Judine Slaughter
- Elements of Fiction by Walter Mosley
- Footnotes by Peter Fiennes
- We Need New Stories by Nesrine Malik
- Focal Point by Brian Tracy
- Beyond Guilt Trips by Anu Taranath
- An Uncommon Atlas by Alastair Bonnett
- The Bells of Old Tokyo by Anna Sherman
- Cuba Then, Cuba Now by Joshua-Jelly Shapiro
- Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie
- Diasporic (Dis)locations by Brinda J Mehta *
- The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla
- How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
- The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker
- Unconventional Medicine by Chris Kresser
- How to Polish Your Manuscript in 10 Days by Anne Victory
Memoir
- In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
- At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider
- The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
- Autumn Light by Pico Iyer
- Educated by Tara Westover *
- Apple, Tree by Lisa Funderburg
- Malaya by Cinelle Barnes *
- A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid *
- A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand
- Magic Realism for Non-Believers by Anika Fajardo *
- Belonging by bell hooks *
Graphic Novel/Comics
- The Wonderful World of Sazae San by Machiko Hasegawa
Poetry
- Modern Sudanese Poetry by Adil Babikir