Reading

Here, find a list of (mostly) fiction that I’ve read (or reread) recently; approximately last in, first out. Everything listed is something that I’ve finished, and so have probably enjoyed. Highlights indicate titles that I particularly loved, or recommend, or ones that I recall most vividly and positively from that year.

In addition to the yearly lists below, you’ll find a smaller list of capital F Favorite books. This group doesn’t change often, but it will get an occasional addition. It’s less a set of recommendations and more just books that have brought me some kind of joy. Fiction can be nourishing, transportive, and just plain magical. Magical!

Statistics

Since 2015, the math says I am reading an average of 10.00 books each year. The purpose of this log is, primarily, to help me read more. So, the goal for this year is to read more than 10 books.

The second purpose of this log is to help me read more books written by women and authors of color. Currently, the list below is comprised of 63% ladies and 40% authors of color. The goal is to be above 50% for each going forward.

2022

  • The Once and Future Witches
  • The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
  • The Best American Short Stories 2021
  • The Tokyo Zodiac Murders
  • The Office of Historical Corrections
  • Crying in H Mart
  • James and the Giant Peach
  • The Luminaries
  • The Left Hand of Darkness
  • Tales from Earthsea
  • The Garden Party
  • The Other Wind
  • The Housekeeper and the Professor
  • Charlotte's Web
  • Sourdough
  • The Mermaid from Jeju
  • Station Eleven
  • Mexican Gothic
  • 18 books, 72% women; 39% authors of color

2021

  • Harlem Shuffle
  • The Pine Barrens
  • The Library Book
  • Girl, Woman, Other
  • Imago
  • Adulthood Rites
  • Dawn
  • The Memory Police
  • The City We Became
  • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
  • An Acceptable Time
  • Many Waters
  • A Swiftly Tilting Planet
  • A Wind in the Door
  • A Wrinkle in Time
  • Never Let Me Go
  • Transcendent Kingdom
  • Parable of the Talents
  • Parable of the Sower
  • Purple Hibiscus
  • An American Marriage
  • Acceptance
  • Authority
  • Annihilation
  • 24 books, 71% women; 58% authors of color

2020

  • The Heavens
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing
  • The Water Dancer
  • There There
  • Americanah
  • The Story of the Lost Child
  • Wolf in White Van
  • Tehanu
  • The Farthest Shore
  • The Tombs of Atuan
  • A Wizard of Earthsea
  • Mother Night
  • The Underground Railroad
  • The Witch Elm
  • 14 books, 64% women; 36% authors of color

2019

  • Pachinko
  • Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
  • The Story of My New Name
  • My Brilliant Friend
  • Little Fires Everywhere
  • 5 books, 100% women; 40% authors of color

2018

  • Until the Celebration
  • And All Between
  • Below the Root
  • Lincoln in the Bardo
  • Frankenstein
  • Everything I Never Told You
  • 6 books, 83% women; 17% authors of color

2017

  • The Wind Up Bird Chronicles
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
  • The Stories of Your Life and Others
  • The Bone Clocks
  • Slade House
  • Number9dream
  • Homegoing
  • Dear Life
  • Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
  • 9 books, 22% women; 44% authors of color

2016

  • The Decagon House Murders
  • Watership Down
  • The Thing Around Your Neck
  • Inherent Vice
  • Fox 8
  • CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
  • 6 books, 17% women; 33% authors of color

2015

  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • Tenth of December
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
  • And Then There Were None
  • 6 books, 50% women; 0% authors of color

Favorites

  • Watership Down Richard Adams
  • My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante
  • Homegoing Yaa Gyasi
  • Tehanu Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Pachinko Min Jin Lee
  • The Bone Clocks David Mitchell
  • The Memory Police Yōko Ogawa
  • Tenth of December George Saunders
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater Kurt Vonnegut
  • Mother Night Kurt Vonnegut
  • Jailbird Kurt Vonnegut