So, big year for reading! On a personal level, this was a tough year in a lot of ways. But for some reason, I still blew past my previous book record of 55, and ended up with 78 books for the year. Only 1 YA book and no graphic novels, but I did bump up the nonfiction considerably. My numbers:
Women: 43/78
POC: 8/78
Nonfiction: 27/78
So POC dropped precipitously from 2018, largely because most of the nonfiction I read was to feed my burgeoning socialism. Here's to reading more diversely in the year to come. Because I read so much nonfiction this year, I split my lists into fiction and nonfiction so I could actually narrow it down. Out of all the books I read this year, I don't think I'd call any of them a disappointment. So without further preamble:
Nonfiction:
Down Girl - Kate Manne
I don't remember where I heard about this book, but its striking cover and Manne's presence on Twitter led me to add it to my wishlist. It's not an easy read, because the subject matter isn't easy. It opens with an introduction about the ways the physical act of choking women is related to the act of silencing, and it doesn't let up from there. Reading the headlines, it's impossible not to reflect on Manne's concept of "himpathy", unearned sympathy for the men in cases of intersex violence. Powerful, upsetting, and illuminating.
New Seeds of Contemplation - Thomas Merton
This year, I got serious about prayer and meditation and Merton was instrumental in that. But even more than providing much-needed structure to enclose the mysteries of silent prayer, Merton discusses at length the impossibility of building a faith that isn't embodied in justice-seeking and world-changing. More on this below.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee / The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee - Dee Brown / David Treuer
I am, perhaps unfairly, combining these two books because Treuer frames Heartbeat explicitly as a response to Brown's book. While Bury My Heart discusses the truly horrific history of Native Americans in North America, it ends with the end of Indian history. Treuer's book retells the end of Brown's book, but rather than stopping at 1890, it continues moving forward, discussing Indian schools, blood quantum, the reservation system, and showing how Indians have not only survived but even thrived in the years since Wounded Knee.
Thinking About God - Dorothee Sölle
And now, more about Christianity and justice. Solle is a Liberation theologian who came out of the liberal tradition in Germany. She's got the liberal bona fides--she studied under both Barth and Bultmann--and, interestingly, she has no background at all in conservative evangelicalism, which she treats accurately but always with a faint air of disdian (this is a feature, not a bug). But the ultimate takeaway here is that in some ways, liberal and conservative theology are two sides of the same coin in that they attempt to deal with ethics and metaphysics without spending too much time thinking about how faith should be embodied in the real world, in ways that seeks justice for all people. Serving as a mini-systematic, a jeremiad against Capitalism, and a call to action, it does a lot.
The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus - Fleming Rutledge
This is a huge book and I got a lot of value from it, but perhaps what impacted me the most was the discussion of forgiveness in a Christian context. In a year (a decade) where the church, Catholic and protestant, has been embroiled in scandal after scandal, and calls to forgive have been weaponized against victims, Rutledge makes the case, drawing heavily on Archbishop Tutu's work ending apartheid, that forgiveness and healing cannot and should not happen outside of an honest reckoning of wrongs done. Simple concept, perhaps, but one need only read a few of the "I'm sorry for those who were hurt by my actions" apologies to see how rarely it is applied.
Honorable Mentions:
The Jeeves series - P. G. Wodehouse
I read several of these with Liz and we're having a blast working through them. Very light, very funny. If you want to read one of the best, go with Right Ho, Jeeves.
Grand Hotel - Vicki Baum
Fabulous Lost Generation melodrama, in Berlin. Fun and pathetic.
Event Factory - Renee Gladman
I really had no idea what was happening in this book. Exhilarating and unique.
The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro
What kind of year knocks Munro out of the top 10?? Matchless and wise.
Outline - Rachel Cusk
Books about writing where nothing much happens shouldn't be so compelling. Opaque and empathetic.
Iza's Ballad - Magda Szabó
In the first world, we disappear people once they get past 50 or so. Sobering and humble.
July's People - Nadine Gordimer
What do you do when a conflict has no safe sides? Terrifying and merciless.
At the End of the Century: Stories - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Old India meets New India under Jhabvala's unsentimental eye. Brutal and beautiful.
Top 10, in no particular order:
(I know these capsules are shorter than the nonfiction--I was running low on time and brains)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
The greatest gothic novel ever written and much, much darker and weirder than high school kids give it credit for. I read this very early in the year, but it's full of creepy moments and lovely writing.
Milkman - Anna Burns
Like Chris said, this is one of those books that opens new vistas of what fiction can do and how narrators can work. The story of an unnamed woman and the affair she never had slowly breaks a town to pieces, but somehow we never leave her head.
99 Stories of God - Joy Williams
These stories reminded me a lot of Lydia Davis, but easier to connect with. Very funny, very wise, and mostly very, very short. If you've ever wondered if the Humane Society would let God adopt a dog, read this.
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
I read Mrs. Dalloway years ago, but reading Orlando earlier this year really opened Woolf to me. But this is such a tight, purposeful work, with the best interlude in all of literature, probably. It's also funnier than you think.
Possession - A. S. Byatt
Hard to believe I read this only this year. But it's a fun Victorian doorstop of a novel but only half Victorian. The most fun part is the poetic pastiches of Browning, Barrett Browning, and Rossetti, but the whole thing just moves a lot faster than you'd expect. It's a luxurious read.
The Story of a Name - Elena Ferrante
Even better than the first. Class warfare in modern Italy, disguised as a Dickensian chamber epic.
A Collapse of Horses: A Collection of Stories - Brian Evenson
This was my biggest surprise of the year. Evenson's stories unsettled me very deeply, and almost all of them worked. Not quite horror, not quite literary fiction, and not quite right.
Paradise Lost - John Milton
I mean, it's Paradise Lost. Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes boring, occasionally silly (Jesus dropping mountains on demons!), I liked it a lot more after I'd spent some time reflecting on it.
The Mountain Lion - Jean Stafford
One of the most complex and upsetting coming-of-age stories I've read. The story of two children growing up in a world they don't understand, surrounded by people who don't understand them and don't care to. And there's a mountain lion. But don't read the author's two page intro!
Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
Johnson writes the kind of prose I expected to find in writers described as "white knuckled". Even when describing mundane situations, there's always a sense of danger, and even when describing those on the lowest rungs of society, there's always a sense of empathy and hope.
What a great year. Any other year my honorable mentions would've been my top 10. They could've been this year! I can't wait for 2020, if Trump doesn't manage to get us nuked.
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