Best Books I Read in 2019

A collage of the Best Books I read in 2019.

I read 30 books in 2019, nearly all of which I’ve reviewed on this blog. Here are my eight favorite books that I read this year. The links will take you to my full review of the book. 

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad, 1907. Conrad’s examination of terrorism is a terrific psychological thriller, one that will send chills up your spine 112 years after it was first published. It highlights what an astute writer Conrad was. 

Voyage in the Dark, by Jean Rhys, 1934. Jean Rhys, the pen name of Ella Williams, was a terrific modernist writer whose novels mostly languished in obscurity until the publication of her novel Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966. Voyage in the Dark was her third novel. Written in the first person, it is an evocative trip through the mind of Anna Morgan, an 18-year-old chorus girl. It’s a bleak book, but not without moments of beauty. 

Becoming, by Michelle Obama, 2018. Surely the most personal book ever written by a First Lady, Becoming sheds a lot of light on Michelle Obama’s life before she became First Lady. It’s a fantastic book that everyone should go out and read, if you haven’t already done so. 

Burn Baby Burn, by Meg Medina, 2016. A young adult novel that is set in Queens in 1977, one of the worst years in New York City’s history. The city was on the verge of bankruptcy, a 25-hour blackout on one of the hottest days of the year sparked rampant looting and arson, residents were terrorized by the serial killer eventually known as Son of Sam, and the Mets traded their ace pitcher Tom Seaver to the Reds. All these events play a part in Burn Baby Burn, which tells the story of Nora Lopez, a bright girl who is ready to leave high school behind but isn’t quite sure what the future will bring for her. Medina’s evocative writing brings a strong sense of place and history to this novel. 

Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, by Matthew J. Bruccoli, 1981, Second Revised Edition 2002. Well, there has to be at least one book related to Fitzgerald on this list, old sport. Matthew J. Bruccoli was the leading expert on the life and career of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and he wrote or edited over 30 books related to Fitzgerald. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur is the most comprehensive biography of Fitzgerald. Some readers may be put off by Bruccoli’s habit of including seemingly every fact he can find about Fitzgerald, but for Fitzgerald devotees there is a lot of great insight here. Do you want to know Scott’s grades at Princeton, and an explanation of the complicated grading system that was used when Fitzgerald was a student there? Then you’ve found the right book! One quote from Fitzgerald to whet your appetite—in an April, 1934 letter to H.L. Mencken, Fitzgerald wrote: “It is simply that having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.” (p.368)

I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe, 2004. Tom Wolfe takes on college life at the turn of the millennium! Yesss! Heeeeyyyyaaaa! He breaks it all down for you—why does the school café have such crummy food?? What’s the best time to get snacks at the Gizmo?? The man in the white suit fills you in!! The novel follows Charlotte Simmons, a nice young girl from Sparta, North Carolina, who ends up attending the prestigious, and fictional, Dupont University. The novel follows Charlotte through her first semester of freshman year, as she makes the difficult adjustment to life away from home. Wolfe’s ability to convincingly write about characters fifty years younger than himself is amazing. I attended college during the time Wolfe was writing his novel, and although the school I went to was very different from Dupont, Wolfe hits the nail right on the head often. 

The White Album, by Joan Didion, 1979. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” is the first sentence of The White Album. Boom, Joan Didion has thrown down the gauntlet. The White Album is her second collection of essays, and it’s superb. Joan Didion has many obsessions. Shopping malls, orchids, the Santa Ana winds, traffic, dams. We learn about many of these obsessions in The White Album. The book’s centerpiece is the title essay, a 35-page sprawl through the tense paranoia that was California in the late 1960’s. The White Album is one of Didion’s signature works, and deservedly so. 

Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, by Jay Maeder, 1990. This book is just a fun one, as it’s the history of one of my favorite comic strips, Dick Tracy. Maeder’s book is a deep dive into the first 46 years of Dick Tracy, from 1931 to 1977, when it was written and illustrated by Chester Gould. Dick Tracy was a fascinating comic strip, as it presented the square-jawed titular hero, grotesque villains, and a ton of action and violence. A continuing theme of the strip is Gould’s keen interest in technology—Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio, first introduced in 1946, is basically a prototype of an Apple Watch. 

I’m pleased with the books I read in 2019, and I’m looking forward to adding more books to my list in 2020.