This year I surprised myself by reading 29 books. As I started the year off with the VERY LONG biography of Grant, taking over one month to finish, I was sure I wouldn’t break the 20 book mark for the year. Nevertheless, I rallied. Few books were out of this world, but plenty were very good reads.
Here is my list:
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- Ham on Rye by Charlos Bukowski
- Godsend by John Wray
- Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
- The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos
- Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
- Trash by Andy Mulligan
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- What It Was by George Pelecanos
- Down These Mean Streets by Thomas Piri
- The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes
- The Leavers by Kisa Ko
- Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersh
- Calypso by David Sedaris
- Packinko by Min Jin Lee
- Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
- The Double by George Pelecanos
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
- The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
- The Cut by George Pelecanos
- To the End of the Land by David Grossman
- Daddy Was a Numbers Runner
- MacGregor Tells the World by Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Chanson Douce by Leila Slimani
- Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
- Grant by Ron Chernow
Looking at the list, you’d think I was obsessed with George Pelecanos. He’s from DC like me, and his writing is real smooth and easy sailing. He may not be my favorite writer, but I love to use him between books to help clean my mind.
Overall, I would say that Tayari Jone’s An American Family was my favorite read of the year, with Pachinko, The World As It Is and Kindred as runners up. Evelyn Hugo and Sing, Unburied, Sing are also highly recommended.
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