Every year I look forward to seeing a snapshot of my reading year in Goodreads. I don’t add every book I read to my Goodreads account, but I add most of them. I always begin the year with good intentions about what I’m going to read, and I like to see how close I get to my starting goals.
In 2019, I set a goal to read 80 books, and I recorded 85 books read as of December 31, 2019. 69 of those books were fiction and 16 nonfiction or poetry. Eight were children’s books and only one was on audio. 34% of the books were rereads, which is a higher percentage than usual.
It was not quite as rich a reading year as 2018, but there are several titles that stand out as well worth my reading time
Fiction:
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner – I read this for my book club, but I had wanted to read it ever since finishing Crossing to Safety last year. This is the book that Stegner won the Pulitzer for and I can see why he did. Stegner tells the story of an artistic young woman who marries a mining engineer and moves to California and other western locations with him. At its heart is the story of a marriage, and I was fascinated by how this couple dealt with all of the difficulties they faced. Apparently they were real people and Stegner used family papers to tell their story in this excellent historical novel.
The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth – I picked this up on a whim and enjoyed reading the story of a woman and her relationship with her mother-in-law. When it began, I thought the author was going to take it in a typical direction, but I was wrong and the end result was excellent. A thriller with a meaty twist.
I’ll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos – A feel good novel about a difficult topic. Modern Mrs. Darcy suggested this as part of her 2018 Summer Reading. I never regret reading her suggestions, even the ones that I’m not sure are my type of books.
Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict – I’ve enjoyed the many books about lesser known women in history that I have come out over the last several years. This book about Clementine Churchill helped me better understand Prime Minister Winston Churchill and was a interesting look at their marriage and how much stronger the two of them were together than either of them were on their own.
Kindred by Octavia Butler – another book group read and one I’ve had on my to-read list for several years. Butler uses time travel as a medium for a modern African American woman to go back to pre-Civil War Maryland. It was a horrifying look at slavery and the system that she had only read about in history books. I’m glad I read it although I had to put it down a few times to recover from the events in the book. I recommend this for anyone who wants to have a better idea of what slavery was really like for many people in this country.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple – I’m a sucker for books written in letters and this hilarious book tells the story of Bernadette, an anti-social wife and mother in Seattle, who disappears and how her teen daughter tracks her down through her emails and texts she left behind. It was fun book that kept me up far too late because I wanted to know where Bernadette had gone and why she did what she did.
Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher – I’ve had this on my shelf since my mother’s death (it was her copy), but I kept putting it off because once I read it, I would have read all of Pilcher’s major novels, which I loved. However, after listening to a respected author recommend it, I picked it up to read this Christmas, and it did not disappoint. Wonderful characters, lovely domestic descriptions, and an uplifting but not saccharine story of second chances at love. Each of Pilcher’s major books goes with a season in my mind although I don’t know if she meant for that to be true. This one is obviously a winter book and I know I will pull it out again in the next couple of years to read on a snowy week.
Nonfiction –
My top two nonfiction reads are by the same author, Christie Purifoy: Roots and Sky and Placemaker. I don’t remember how I first heard of Roots and Sky but I read it last winter and fell in love with the author’s beautiful prose. I found her blog and podcast soon after and they tided me over until her second book came out last spring. She writes about making a home, no matter what your job or sex or time of life as well as discussing gardens, books, and more. I love her books and recommend them to anyone who wants to read beautiful prose about beauty, plants, and community.
I reread Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin for the fourth time as part of a women’s study last summer and in preparation to teaching a Bible study in 2020. What a convicting, inspiring, helpful book. Every Christian woman should try to pick this book up to learn the reasons why we should be studying God’s Word as part of our daily lives.
Finding God in the Ordinary by Pierce Taylor Hibbs is a book of essays about how theology and God can be seen in the most ordinary of daily happenings.
Other:
Last, but not least, are two children’s books that I loved and recommend. Last summer I had the privilege of hearing Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor speak at a library conference. Like many of us, I had heard many things about Justice Sotomayor but didn’t have any idea what she was really like. Well, she was amazing—smart, funny, wise, and loving. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing her speak and went right back home to start reading her books. I started with her children’s books, Turning Pages and Just Ask, both of which are worth reading. I plan to read her adult memoir this year to find out more about this interesting woman.
What great books did you read in 2019? Was it a good reading year for you or less than your best? Tell me about it in the comments!
Last week I mentioned that I often have difficulty with decision paralysis on what to read next. The problem is never that I have nothing to read. Instead, it is always that I have too many great choices, an embarrassment of riches, in fact. When I rely on my feelings, I tend to waver back and forth over what to choose.
When I think back on my growing-up years, my most cherished memories are of the books that filled my life. I began to read in kindergarten and after I learned, it was a rare occasion I wasn’t reading a book. Curled up in a chair, lying flat on my bed, perched on a tree branch, riding in the car, at my desk in school—every location was the perfect place to read a book. I raced through The Black Stallion books, inherited from my father, and spent countless hours poring over the volumes of Grimm’s and Andersen’s fairy tales that had belonged to my mother. Christmas and birthday gifts always included beautiful hardcover books such as The Little Princess, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, and other classics. With my allowance, I bought myself the Nancy Drew mysteries that my library didn’t own and filled in the gaps in my collection of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books.
Myriads of Thoughts 