In 2018 I read 221 books which was by far the most I have ever read in a year. And then 2019 came and went and I hit an even bigger number – I read 266 books this year! Here are my favorites for the year! What books made your “best of 2019” list??

Poetry

~ Seducing the Asparagus Queen by Amorak Huey — poems capturing the Midwestern landscape

~ Drive Here and Devastate Me by Megan Falley — poems of love and desire and risking it all

~ Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen — poems about a queer Vietnamese-American man’s experience and existence

~ The Insomniac Circus by Amorak Huey — gives a look at circus performer’s lives, the things they keep secret and hidden, sometimes even from themselves

~ boy/girl/ghost by torrin a greathouse — an examination on gender, acceptance, and family

~ These Many Rooms by Laure-Anne Bosselaar — elegies to the poet’s dead husband, this collection of poems focus on quiet grief and loss

~ Made and Unmade by Emily Perez — an excellent collection of poems focusing on womanhood, motherhood, the control of the patriarchy, and the abuse many women suffer

CNF / Nonfiction / Memior

~ Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett — Memoir chronicling the author’s friendship with Lucy Grealy

~ The Library Book by Susan Orlean — the story of the fire that gutted the LA library

~ Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly — Micro-memoirs

~ Nothing Good Can Come from This by Kristi Coulter — Memoir about the author’s decision to stop drinking and lead a sober life.

~ What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About edited by Michele Filgate – Essays about the things people never discuss with their mothers.

~ PR for Poets by Jeannine Hall Gailey – A “how to” guide for poets to promote and market their books.

~ Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden – Memoir about the author’s complicated relationship with her parents.

~ In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado – A memoir told in short vingettes about her abusive ex-girlfriend. Haunting and lyrical.

Fiction

~ Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi — an uprising to bring magic back and save their people

~ Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah — a young girl , who seems otherworldly, shows up on the property a scientist is using for her research

~ The Huntress by Kate Quinn — chasing a Nazi war criminal as it intersects with a female Russian pilot

~ This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel — a family raising a transgender child

~ Everything Here is Beautiful by Mia T. Lee — mental illness affecting one sister impacts the other throughout their lives

~ Wanderers by Chuck Wendig — an apocalypse-type story that is an absolute must read!

~ Miracle Creek by Angie Kim — An explosion at a local company kills two people. Now the murder trial is happening for the mother of the young boy killed in the explosion but her guilt is not as clear as it initially seems.