Oh, and another thing. I wrote about almost all of these books soon after I read them, and I link the original posts here. But most of the original posts are not only about the books. If you click on a title to read about a book, you might have to dig through 600 or so words about swim meets and handbags and anxiety attacks and Mary Tyler Moore reruns first. Don't say you weren't warned.
Without further ado, here is my 2019 book list.
Milkman, Anna Burns. This was my favorite book of the year, and I read some pretty darn good books in 2019. So congratulations to Anna Burns for winning the prestigious honor of a mention in this obscure blog, my everlasting esteem, and absolutely no cash whatsoever. Well done. I wrote about Milkman here, and I'll be writing about it again. If you have read any reviews of Milkman, then you might think that it's a difficult read. It's not at all difficult, though it is different from any other novel I've ever read. Comparisons to Joyce are apt, but it's much more closely akin to Dubliners than to Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses. Like Dubliners, it's a book that could take place in no city other than the one in which it is set. And like Dubliners, it's a book that only an Irish person could have written.
Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe. A very close second to Milkman, and something of a companion piece. Another of the few books that I dedicated an entire post to.
Thatcher, Jacob Bannister. The very opposite of an in-depth biography; and completely appropriate for my level of interest in Margaret Thatcher, which is low. I read it right after Say Nothing, and learned almost nothing about the British perspective on the Troubles. I did learn that Margaret Thatcher began her working life as a chemist. Maybe she should have stuck with science. I don't know. I don't even want to debate American politics in 2020, let alone British politics in 1982. Anyway, there's lots more to learn about Margaret Thatcher, but this will probably represent the extent of my reading on this particular subject.
The Woman in White, Willkie Collins. I would never have chosen this. I read it because Nora Ephron liked it. She was quite right.
Heartburn, Nora Ephron. A book about everything that was wrong with the 1970s and early 1980s, disguised as a comic novel about the breakup of a marriage. Not Nora's best.
I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron. If you have a choice between Nora in novel form and Nora in essay form, choose the latter. I never tire of reading Nora Ephron's essays.
I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron. Yes, it was my year of Nora Ephron. Handbags and hospitals and strudel with noodles.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. I couldn't tell at first if it was brilliant or lazy. I lean strongly in favor of brilliant now, but I still have some reservations. I might read it again. But then again, I might not.
The Abolition of Woman, Fiorella Nash. I wrote about this one way back in January (it seems so long ago), but if you don't feel like reading what I wrote then (what?!?) then I will leave you with this quote: "It is the fatally disastrous blind spot in current human rights campaigning, the failure to acknowledge the rights of every member of the human family, but prolife feminism represents a human rights movement which excludes no human life under any circumstances." People on both sides of the political divide might do well to note the emphasis (which is mine).
Resisting Throwaway Culture, Charles Camosy. A+ for ideas, C+ for execution. When I started writing this, I had execution at a B-, but I just knocked off a few points because I'm mean.
Becoming, Michelle Obama. This was a Christmas gift from my husband--Christmas 2018, that is. I read it early in the year. I was carrying it with me one day and a young black man stopped me and asked me if it was good. I told him that it was, and I told him that Mrs. Obama had an upbringing (working class, inner city, magnet high school) similar to mine. And then we commiserated about how much we missed President Obama, and even President Bush. It was a nice conversation.
Elizabeth the Queen, Sally Bedell Smith. Poor QE II. 2019 was not such a good year 2020 isn't off to a great start either.
Motherfocloir: Dispatches from a Not-So-Dead Language. Darach O'Seaghdha. Just remembering how to spell the author's last name without having to refer back to the other browser tab makes me unwilling to even think about tackling the Irish language. I have no talent for languages other than my own.
The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Tsing-Loh. I had a book of Sandra Tsing-Loh's essays, written sometime in the early 90s, and I remember re-reading it several times. She was hilarious, like a manic Asian Merrill Markoe. The Madwoman in the Volvo was just sad. It made me sad, mostly because I found myself judging the author, and pretty harshly, for her selfishness and stupidity. And who am I to judge anyone for either of those sins? I'm just as bad as everyone else. Maybe it's because she seemed to feel entitled to be selfish, that her suffering was more acute and terrible than everyone else's. Or maybe I'm just an unsympathetic jerk. Probably that.
The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan. I didn't deliberately set out to find an Asian antidote to Sandra Tsing-Loh, but there it is.
Making Comics, Lynda Barry. This was the last book that I finished in 2019. I bought it at the National Gallery of Art's amazing bookstore. I didn't buy it to read; just to have and to look at, because it's so beautiful. It's printed and bound like a marble composition book, and every inch of every thin, delicate page is covered with gorgeous, richly colored drawings and hand-lettered text. Then I started reading it, and I couldn't stop until I finished. And then I went immediately out and bought my own made-in-Vietnam marble composition book. I'm not going to make comics, and I'm not going to draw every day either, but I think I'll write by hand sometimes now. Or maybe I'll doodle to better purpose.
The Little Friend, Donna Tartt. This counts as both my first book of 2020 and my last book of 2019. I finished it on January 2. I'd have finished it sooner except for the temporary Lynda Barry detour. Like all three of Donna Tartt's novels (the other two are The Secret History, which I read in hardback when it first came out in 1992; and The Goldfinch, which I read in 2015 or so, I think). The Little Friend was published in 2002, and I don't know why it took me so long to read it. The electronic version was on sale a few months ago, so I bought it and finally got around to reading it in December.
As a southern female writer, Donna Tartt is probably often compared to Flannery O'Connor. I don't know; I don't read much literary criticism now that I'm out of school and don't have to. Neither of her other novels really resemble O'Connor (not just because they don't take place in the American South), but no writer could possibly have imagined The Little Friend without having read and re-read the stories of Flannery O'Connor. The character of Harriet, a furiously angry, brilliant and doughty little girl, determined to resist the influence of her weak mother and her strong but very traditionally feminine grandmother, could not have been written if not for O'Connor's Mary Grace and Hulga and Mary Fortune Pitts and Mrs. Cope's daughter and the child in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." Gum Ratliff is a direct descendant of Mrs. Greenleaf and the white trash woman in the doctor's office in "Revelation." And Edie Cleve owes her existence to Ruby Turpin and Julian's mother and Mrs. May, and all of Flannery O'Connor's determined, outrage-fueled Southern women fighting losing battles to maintain a system that is rotting from within and under attack from without.
But that's not to say that The Little Friend isn't original, because it is. Though Harriet could not have existed without O'Connor's characters, Flannery O'Connor could not have imagined Harriet exactly as she is in The Little Friend. Harriet's dismay and horror of puberty, which is both hilarious and devastating, could only have been written by a woman who reached adolescence during the mid 1970s, a particularly horrible time for young girls, especially rigidly moral and sensitive girls like Harriet. SPOILER ALERT: You will never find out who murdered Harriet's brother. And it almost doesn't matter because that's not the point. I hope that Donna Tartt will publish something new soon. I might have to re-read The Secret History this year. I'll report back in 2021.
The Girls, Emma Cline. Not quite as good as Milkman or The Little Friend, but very, very good. I'd almost forgotten about it, but then I was at a holiday party with people who had just seen "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which prompted my husband to talk about when he read Helter Skelter, which reminded me of The Girls. I read somewhere once that the Manson murders brought about the end of the 60s (or caused the beginning of the 70s). It was a horrifying crime (though no worse than millions of other hideous crimes before and since), but it has had a disproportionate impact on American life and culture. Worth reading.
The Future is History, Masha Gessen. In the words of Sara Bloomfield, "Nazis didn't just fall out of the sky in 1933." Masha Gessen knows that history repeats itself, in Russia and the United States.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton. I loved this book.
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. I bet Phoebe Waller-Bridge read some Graham Greene, for no reason other than that during season 2 of "Fleabag," I kept thinking about The End of the Affair. Did you watch "Fleabag?" Do you remember the part about the fox? Fleabag and The Priest are sitting in a garden at night, and The Priest panics when he thinks he sees a fox. “They’re after me,” he says. “They’re watching me--they point at me and say 'You. We see you. We’re havin’ you.' I don’t know what they want with me.” I feel exactly the same way about the deer. I’m certain that they know me. I’m sure that they have plans for me, plans that I want no part of. And you know what? I don't think that there's a single mention of foxes or deer in The End of the Affair (nor probably in any other Graham Greene book). But there's plenty of God in both. As Fleabag says to The Priest at the end of the last episode, "It's God, isn't it?" Of course it is. It always is.
21 Stories, Graham Greene. I read this just about a year ago. I never did re-read any of the stories. But I'll definitely read more Graham Greene.
Educated, Tara Westover. One of my best books of 2019. I think about it whenever I cut myself in the kitchen or bump my head on a table or stub my toe or trip over a carpet. Every time I injure myself or almost injure myself, I think about how easily a person can really hurt herself and how fragile and ridiculous the human body is. Of course, there's so much more to Educated than the frequent and horrifying injuries that Tara and her siblings suffered while working at their father's junkyard. I've just been a little more accident-prone than usual lately. And it's all about me.
I'll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell. Another memoir by a young American woman. I really can't remember if I read this before or after Educated (after, I think), but I know that I didn't read them back to back. I liked this in spite of myself.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson. Well, it's on my list and I know that I read it, but I didn't write anything about it and I don't really remember anything about it. I don't even remember why I read it. So that's my review. I guess I didn't give a f*ck. Maybe I learned that from reading this book! Well done, Mr. Manson!
I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi. Neither here nor there. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't recall a single word of it. I looked at what I wrote about it earlier to see if I'd remember something. What I remember is that I was also reading a biography of Muriel Spark at the time, which I never finished. Muriel Spark, who was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, had to have been more interesting than Martin Stannard made her seem. I'm judging him. Or maybe I'm judging her.
Frances and Bernard, Carlene Bauer. A kind of ridiculous novel that I really liked anyway. I liked it so much that I read the very next book on this list.
Not That Kind of Girl, Carlene Bauer. Kind of an incoherent, roundabout, meandering memoir, which is the best kind; probably the only kind.
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis. I've read Screwtape five or six times. A hardcover copy of Screwtape is my standard Confirmation gift because I think that every teenager should read it, though I didn't read it until I was a grown-up. I'll probably read it at least five or six more times, just as a reminder that "the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Margaret Drabble. This is a short story compilation that I liked very much, though don't ask me for details, because I won't remember anything. Well, I remember something about a beach; a very English, Broadchurch type of beach. That's all. I'd never read any of Margaret Drabble's work before this. I thought I remembered writing something about it so I searched "Drabble," but I was searching the Internet, not just my blog, and I learned that a "Drabble" is apparently a 100-word work of fiction. That seems like a fun challenge, so maybe I'll try to write one. I'll probably read more Margaret Drabble this year, too.
South and West, Joan Didion. I won't even link to the post where I mentioned this because at the time, all I remembered of this was a part where Joan Didion ate a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm not sure how anyone as thin as Joan Didion gets to swan around the place eating grilled cheese sandwiches, but life isn't fair. Joan Didion is not much like Nora Ephron. I think of Nora Ephron as "Nora," but I never think of Joan Didion as anything except Joan Didion. But here's one thing they have in common--I like Joan Didion's essays much better than her fiction.
The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity, Carrie Gress. I read three pro-life books this year and this was the least convincing and by far the least interesting of the three. I won't suggest that there's no such thing as toxic femininity because of course there is. But Ms. Gress (Dr. Gress, I think) comes across as a woman-hating woman and is thus not an effective defender of the argument against mainstream feminism. I also question her scholarship, for two reasons: 1. She presents Mallory Millett as a credible source, which she is certainly not. 2. She can't even correctly quote Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." It was a "lumpy" blue sweater, not "droopy" one. It was not a "lovely Gap Outlet," it was a "tragic Casual Corner;" and Andie didn't "find" the lumpy blue sweater, she "fished it out of a clearance bin." Although Gress makes some very good points in this book, I can't get past her failure to use the word "cerulean" in her mention of this scene. I get that she was citing the screenplay and not the actual movie but if you're trying to make a case to young, feminist women, then you better get Miranda Priestly right. Cerulean!
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| By all means, confuse Gap Outlet with Casual Corner. You know how that thrills me. |
Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel. I didn't really write about the book when I read it, though I wrote about the movie multiple times. I saw it three times (twice on airplanes) and it made a deep impression. The book was good, too, though not quite so memorable and not something that I would have read at all had I not seen the movie. Can You Ever Forgive Me? was not the last book I read in 2019, but I feel that I should list it last so that we're ending on a note of forgiveness; specifically, you forgiving me for making you read this soggy pile of old gym clothes and wet towels disguised as literary criticism. Well, no one made you read it, so I guess if you're in it this far, you're on your own. But please do forgive me.
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| This post is--how do you say it? A heated mess. A mess where heat is applied, so it becomes even more messy. |
OMG, am I done? I'm done! That's it! That's the last book on my barely legible handwritten hot mess of a list, and the end of this even hotter mess of a post! Read (most of) these books, and then maybe you'll forget that you spent 30 minutes of your life reading this trash pile! Or maybe you won't, but that's not my problem, is it?
But really, please do forgive me.
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