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.

Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama at the Xcel Energy Center

On Wednesday evening I saw Michelle Obama at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. She was appearing as part of her book tour to promote her excellent book Becoming, which I reviewed here. Obama appeared with Michele Norris, former host of NPR’s All Things Considered. It was a memorable evening, and it was a lot of fun to see Michelle Obama in person. It’s hard to really call it “an intimate conversation” when you’re speaking to about 15,000 people, but Michelle Obama did a good job of making it feel as though we were just listening to her chat with Michele Norris. 

Obama’s humor really struck me—there were several times during the evening when I laughed pretty hard. Michelle Obama seems like a really cool person, and if you have the opportunity to see her in person, you should do it. Obama also does a great job of connecting with young people in whatever community she’s in, and the evening began with several Twin Cities women talking about who they are in the process of becoming. I like the title of Obama’s book, and I really like the idea that we are all “becoming” something. As Obama says in the book, it isn’t like you just become something and then never change or grow after that. We’re always continuing to change and do different things in our lives. It will be interesting to see how involved Michelle Obama stays with public policy and what she does in her post-First Lady career. I know she’s ruled out running for President in 2020, but I think she’d be a darn good President.

Book Review: Becoming, by Michelle Obama (2018)

Cover of Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)

Michelle and Barack Obama, definitely the coolest First Couple ever.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, is surely the most personal book ever written by a First Lady. On every page Obama’s voice rings out with authenticity, and she writes with appealing candor about her life story. 

Becoming is split into three parts, the first covering her life before she met Barack Obama, the second covering their lives before he became President, and the third covering their eight years in the White House. All three sections are fascinating. Obama paints a vivid picture of her childhood and upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. Her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, gave her stability and a strong moral compass. They worked hard to provide her with as many opportunities as they could. And Michelle took full advantage of those opportunities, as she excelled at school and attended Princeton University and then Harvard Law School. 

Obama then chronicles her relationship with a hotshot young lawyer who was a summer associate at the firm she was working at. Michelle was assigned to mentor this guy with the unlikely name of Barack Hussein Obama, who showed up late to his very first day at the firm. It was fascinating for me to read about the Obamas’ courtship, and to imagine them as two young lawyers, from very different backgrounds and upbringings, but both striving to make a difference in the world. These chapters made both Barack and Michelle feel more human and relatable to me.

While reading Becoming I was struck again at how rapid Barack Obama’s political rise was. He went from winning his first election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 to winning the presidency twelve years later. Reading Becoming gives you a sense for how challenging every new step was for Michelle, as she adjusted to having Barack gone so much of the time. 

Barack Obama’s political rise always leaves me with a little feeling of “what might have been.” Not for his own political career, but for mine. In the spring of 2003 I was a senior at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. I was a Political Science major, and the President of the Knox College Democrats. I had volunteered and interned for several local political campaigns and I knew the chair of the county Democratic Party. I would periodically get emails about this guy who was running for the U.S. Senate. He had a really odd name. I don’t think he ever came to Galesburg, but he would campaign in the Quad Cities and Peoria, both about 45 minutes away from Galesburg. I never went to any of his campaign events. Of course, that guy running for the U.S. Senate was Barack Obama. In an alternate universe, where I wasn’t as fed up with politics, I would have met him at one of these events, stayed in Illinois after graduation to work for him, and then become his Chief of Staff or something when he became President. Then I would have written my memoir and would now be a talking head on CNN. 

It didn’t happen that way. I didn’t attend any of Barack Obama’s campaign events, so I never met this up and coming politician. I moved back to Minneapolis after I graduated in June of 2003, and my public introduction to Barack Obama was the same one that many Americans had: his stirring keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I was on a road trip with my Dad, and I remember watching that speech with him and thinking, “Wow, this guy could be President someday.” At some point after Obama’s speech, I remembered that he was the guy with the odd name who had been running for the U.S. Senate in 2003. But I digress. 

Becoming gets a little rushed during the Obama’s eight years in the White House, but that’s understandable, since Michelle could have written an entire book that only focused on those eight years. One thing that comes through strongly in Becoming is Barack and Michelle’s devotion to making sure their daughters Malia and Sasha had as normal a childhood as possible while living inside the fishbowl of the White House. 

Becoming is a fascinating look at Michelle Obama’s life, and the memories it brings of the Obama administration serve as a welcome antidote to the current administration.