The 40 Books I Read in 2019

2019 was a great year for books! A personal best which surprised me since the year, especially the second half, had lots of time-eating commitments. While I'm always drawn towards non-fiction, 2019 had me wanting to revisit the books I loved as a teenager. I took a leaf out of my favourite writer's book and sought the books that were a tonic; that comforted rather than drained me. In Maria Popova's words:

Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit — it’s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them, and visit them often. Use them not only as a remedy once spiritual malaise has already infected your vitality but as a vaccine administered while you are healthy to protect your radiance. (emphasis added)

As such, 2019's reading list feels a lot lighter with a lot of young adult novels and I guess ~sPiRiTuAl~ type books. That being said, there are still heartier, heavier books I read in 2019 that I whole-heartedly recommend as well.

Looking forward to 2020, my goals are:

• Revisit more childhood books (Harry Potter!)

• A Song of Ice and Fire

• Finish all the books people have lent me

• Read books from different places around the world - there's a whole world of Asian, African, Latin American literature I've barely tapped into

• More books about science!

TW: sexual violence, abuse

1.Beauty is a Wound

Eka Kurniawan

One afternoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years.

A tale that revolves around Dewi Ayu and those around her. Set in Indonesia, it spans from colonial times to the Japanese occupation to independence to the communist purges to modernity. It is written in a way that makes you want to know what will happen, with its “little did they know”-esque hints spread throughout the book. It’s an example of magical realism with history and strange folk tales blended together. It is also quite vulgar and disgusting at times and I have to put a massive TW for sexual violence (the most I’ve ever read in a book - not too graphic in its depiction but so so prevalent). I always find historical fiction a great way to read about history since it humanizes important dates and events on an individual level. I’m in two minds about this book - just like the main character, I’m haunted.

2. To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.

I found this book to be a collection of what a train of thought looks like when written down. Woolf captures the inner lives and moods of her characters in a way that just feels so natural, like it's your own internal voice down on the paper. A much more easy to read book than something like David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I got about halfway through last year before tapping out because I couldn't understand how a whole page of text without a full stop is an accurate portrayal of rambling thoughts (don't @ me). That being said, it is a book read for its prose not the plot. It is criticized for being too slow because, yeah, that's not the point of the novel.

3. The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

...

There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.

The book is about two twins and the event that occurred during their childhood that changed their lives. It’s like reading a tapestry that you get quick glimpses of throughout the book, first this corner then this part, and only at the end you see the whole thing. Little side patterns that seemingly don’t fit in with the greater weaving all work together to provide richness and depth to the book in hindsight. In a single chapter you get transported from different character’s points of view and different times. The author has a particular way of writing - full of sentence fragments and original slang/phrases - that takes a while to get used to and I’m still not sure I like. All things considered, I found finishing the book satisfying.

4. Black Hole Blues

Janna Levin

Tethered by gravity, in their final seconds together the black holes course through thousands of revolutions about their eventual point of contact, churning up space and time until they crash and merge into one bigger black hole, an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe, outputting more than a trillion times the power of a billion Suns. The black holes collide in complete darkness. None of the energy exploding from the collision comes out as light. No telescope will ever see the event.

As much as this book is a chronicle of gravitational waves—a sonic record of the history of the universe, a soundtrack to match the silent movie—it is a tribute to a quixotic, epic, har­rowing experimental endeavor, a tribute to a fool’s ambition.

As poetic writing as the subject matter allows. While it does go over the nature of gravitational waves and it does so beautifully, a large portion of the book is devoted to explaining the lives, and sometimes the petty politics, of the scientists who were involved in LIGO - the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.

5.Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.

I’d been meaning to read this for a long time and it took me a long time to read it. It is a book about economics and statistics, neither of which I study. It is less a list of different cognitive biases and more a summary of the different experiments Kahneman conducted over his long, impressive career and the enlightening results he found from them. Worthwhile if you can get through it.

6. All the Kremlin's Men

Mikhail Zygar

A great book that introduced me to a lot of characters in Russian politics though I struggled to remember who was who since all their names ended in '-zov' or '-sky'. The book focuses more on the strongmen and oligarchs that put Putin in power rather than focusing on Putin himself. That being said, it does describe the transformation of Putin from political newcomer to cynical strongman.

7.Eragon

Christopher Paolini

To know who you are without any delusions or sympathy is a moment of revelation that no one experiences unscathed.

I first read this book in Year 5 and now at age 22, it still sparks joy. It's easy to read, it's engaging and it's comforting. And it has dragons.

8. Eldest

Christopher Paolini

Power without moral direction is the most dangerous force in the world.

This one also sparks joy. I read this so fast I felt like I was scoffing down food without properly chewing it. I just couldn't read the paragraphs quick enough. The book also starts to go beyond the typical fantasy form. It talks about chronic pain, burn out, financial problems rebels face in sustaining their cause, practical difficulties of governing magicians, learning about linguistic honorifics, debating utilitarianism against virtue ethics, and on and on ... The plot is still just as captivating but the story is fleshed out. Mistakes or decisions the characters made in the first book drive the plot forward instead of the author ignoring them and leaving plot holes. The way the plot is filled out reminds me of when I used to debate: if you made a point, you always asked yourself “so what? What’s the consequence? What’s important about that?” on and on until your argument was fleshed out. The same is with this world examining magic and its practical implications.

9. Brisingr

Christopher Paolini

From now on, I promise I will consult with you before I do anything you don't expect. Is that acceptable? Only if it involves weapons, magic, kings, or family members, she said. Or flowers. Or flowers, she agreed.

By this book in the series, you really see the transformation of the characters into something more complex. The first two books are entertaining and comforting in the way they fulfill the archetypal hero's journey but this book really starts getting into great character development. This book has been the one I've reread in the series the most for that reason.

10. Inheritance

Christopher Paolini

I am not who I was, but I know who I am.

A satisfying conclusion but there is one decision by a central character at the end that I feel is contrary to her character. Let's just say it's like a politician being chosen to be a high court judge (or vice versa), it breaks the rules the book has made up about independence and separation of powers.

11.The Fork, the Witch and the Worm

Christopher Paolini

A very short book set in the same universe as the Inheritance Cycle but set some years after the final book. It feels more like an appetizer than an after-dinner mint. It leaves you hungrier than when you started given the strong conclusion of the Inheritance Cycle.

12.The Nature Fix

Florence Williams

Here are some of the essential take-homes: we all need nearby nature: we benefit cognitively and psychologically from having trees, bodies of water, and green spaces just to look at; we should be smarter about landscaping our schools, hospitals, workplaces and neighborhoods so everyone gains. We need quick incursions to natural areas that engage our senses. Everyone needs access to clean, quiet and safe natural refuges in a city. Short exposures to nature can make us less aggressive, more creative, more civic minded and healthier overall. For warding off depression, lets go with the Finnish recommendation of five hours a month in nature, minimum. But as the poets, neuroscientists and river runners have shown us, we also at times need longer, deeper immersions into wild spaces to recover from severe distress, to imagine our futures and to be our best civilized selves.

Sure it's a bit too anecdotal to be considered hard proof but I loved listening to this book on my early morning walks. There was something very soothing about hearing about the healing power of being outside when I was walking along the creek near my house, listening to the birds. The book is a combination of the author's story of moving from the country to the city and her travels around the world meeting psychologists, academics and scientists in Korea, Scandinavia, Japan, etc to discuss the studies they've conducted. It's a nice mixture of personal narrative and discussing empirical evidence.

The one thing I didn't get from this book that I was hoping for was an explanation or a theory as to why (most) humans like being outside. And for those that don't, why?

13. The Motherhood

Jamila Rizvi

I got this for Mum for Mother's Day and since a YouTuber I follow was getting ready for her first baby I was like, why not? It is a collection of letters by mothers offering advice and solace to their younger selves, and through those younger selves to any new mother, about life with a newborn. It does a great job describing all the different experiences regarding birth and motherhood people can have.

14. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Reni Eddo-Lodge

When I talk about white privilege, I don’t mean that white people have it easy, that they’ve never struggled, or that they’ve never lived in poverty. But white privilege is the fact that if you’re white, your race will almost certainly positively impact your life’s trajectory in some way. And you probably won’t even notice it.

...

So, we know that as much as the subject needs nuance, groups of white men who rape and abuse children and babies are reported on by the press, but their crimes are not seized upon as indicative of the inherent problem with men in the same way that men of colour's crimes are held up as evidence of the savagery of their race.

...

I write - and read - to assure myself that other people have felt what I'm feeling too, that it isn't just me, that this is real, and valid, and true.

...

At best, white people have been taught not to mention that people of colour are “different” in case it offends us. They truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal. I just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do.

They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white, so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact, they interpret it as an affront. Their eyes glaze over in boredom or widen in indignation. Their mouths start twitching as they get defensive. Their throats open up as they try to interrupt, itching to talk over you but not to really listen, because they need to let you know that you’ve got it wrong.

The journey towards understanding structural racism still requires people of colour to prioritise white feelings. Even if they can hear you, they’re not really listening. It’s like something happens to the words as they leave our mouths and reach their ears. The words hit a barrier of denial and they don’t get any further.

People should read this, especially white people. Then we should continue searching for opportunities to listen to and read about people of colour.

15.Wolf Brother

Michelle Paver

Look behind you Torak.

Books 15 through 20 form The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. A series set in prehistoric Europe that follows Torak, a young boy, attempt to stop the dark powers that are haunting the Forest. I love this series so much.

16.Spirit Walker

Michelle Paver

The meaning of what he'd found sank in. This was why the boar had attacked. It had not been sick. It had been wounded. Terribly wounded by someone so cruel, so evil, that they had not gone after it and finished it off, as they were bound to do by all the sacred laws of the hunt, but had left it made with pain, to savage anyone it found.

And since Torak seemed to be the only one in this part of the Forest, whoever had shot the boar must have intended its first victim to be him.

17.Soul Eater

Michelle Paver

Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been.

18. Outcast

Michelle Paver

He wondered how he was going to survive. He had no sleeping-sack, no bow, no arrows, no food. Only an axe, a knife, a half-empty medicine horn and a pouch of sodden tinder. And he'd forgotten how to hunt.

19. Oath Breaker

Michelle Paver

Fear is the loneliest feeling. You can be in a throng of people, but if you're afraid, you're on your own.

20. Ghost Hunter

Michelle Paver

Her cry rips the souls from your marrow. With her spear she snares them. She devours them. Eostra truly is an eater of souls.

21. Call Them By Their True Names

Rebecca Solnit

This is a war, she says, “with so many casualties that we should call it by its true name, this war with so many dead by police, by violent ex-husbands and partners and lovers, by people pursuing power and profit at the point of a gun or just shooting first and figuring out who they hit later.” To get to the root of these American crises, she contends that “to acknowledge this state of war is to admit the need for peace,” countering the despair of our age with a dose of solidarity, creativity, and hope.

Brilliant.

22. Speaking Up

Gillian Triggs

The need to balance freedoms has, however, become an oft-repeated mantra. It appears conciliatory but has become almost meaningless. The more precise question is how to strike that balance in practice. I agree with those who are weary of the repetition of the need to balance rights. Politicians and commentators can appear reasonable human beings by pleading this while avoiding the question of what the outcome of a balancing process would look like. Of course, rights must be balanced one against the other. The exceptions are those rights that cannot be traded, such as the prohibition on torture, slavery or child abuse.

It is all too easy to sit teetering on the fence, avoiding nailing one's colours to tthe mast. If you will excuse this mixing of metaphors, my point is that there is a time when a choice must be made. The choice is not binary, in favour of one right or another... There is no hierarchy of rights. One freedom does not 'trump' another. What is reasonable, necessary or proportionate will always depend on the political and social context.

...

For a more nuanced approach to striking a balance among rights, we need to articulate guidelines. We need to ask and answer questions about what measures are reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances... None of this is impossible. We can and should do it.

I just love it when someone approaches idealism with the same rigour when barristers make their case in court. If Martin Luther King Jr said that 'love without power is sentimental and anemic', I would say: idealism without rigour and reason is anemic. So often I find the human rights discourse filled with platitudes and people repeat the same old talking points. Triggs builds up her points carefully and demonstrates that the rhetoric surrounding human rights can change from wishy-washy platitudes to coherent guidelines.

A friend of mine said earlier this year: there are people that are smart and they say things in a smart way, then you have people that are brilliant and say things in the clearest way so everyone can understand. Triggs is one of those brilliant people.

23. Fight Like a Girl

Clementine Ford

I already suffered from the overwhelming sense that I wasn't good enough to be judged positively by society's standards of womanhood - but I wanted to believe that I might one day be. That if I played the game hard enough, smiled at all the right moments and giggled in collusion whenever men put my gender (or even just me) down, that I might one day be deemed worthy of their attention and respect.

...

Relationships have been sabotaged before they've even begun, the thought of someone liking me filling me with a deep and abiding disgust. Why would you like me? I mentally sneer at potential partners. What's wrong with you?

...

To thrill at even being noticed, because if a girl isn’t being looked at does she really even exist at all?

Ford does a great job describing all the double standards the patriarchy expects of women and straightened my antenna to better identify those uncomfortable gender norms in social situations. It's more personal and passionate than Solnit's writing which I both liked and didn't like at the same time.

23.The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Muriel Barbery

What is the purpose of intelligence if it is not to serve others?

-

Are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in a field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and only function the self-reproduction of a sterile elite - for this turns university into a sect.

A delightful little read. It’s my Mum’s favourite and it’s written between two perspectives - that of a 12 year old girl living in an upper-class Parisian apartment and that of the old, weathered concierge; both of whom are secret intellectuals.

24. No Friend but the Mountains

Behrooz Boouchani

I always felt I would die in the place I was born, where I was raised, where I have spent my whole life till now. It’s impossible to imagine dying a thousand kilometres away from the land of your roots. What a terrible, miserable way to die, a sheer injustice; an injustice to me that seems completely arbitrary. Of course, I don’t expect it will happen to me.

Compelling, lyrical, frustrating and depressing.

25. Why We Sleep

Matthew Walker

I’ve always loved sleeping and this book makes it clear that sleep is the foundation, more so than diet and exercise, of good health. Decreased sleep quantity or quality leads to a whole range of short term and long term consequences ranging from increased stress and hunger hormones to dementia in old age. All backed up with studies the writer goes through in detail.

26. Reading Madame Bovary

Amanda Lohrey

It was the end of her final year in law and as a graduation present her aunt gave her the money to go trekking in Nepal. But she didn't like it there: too cold, too steep, too dirty ... Just three weeks after leaving Sydney she arrived, broke, in Amsterdam.

A collection of short stories. Well written and from the perspectives of ordinary people going through ordinary and common problems. The writer knows human nature well.

27. Operation Red Jericho

Joshua Mowll

“If I’d known of this unfortunate situation regarding your parents, I would have intervened sooner.”

“If we were meant to be here, as you say, why did it take you so long to send for us?” Accused Doug.

Becca scowled at him.

“We have been trapped in a southern ice pack.” Their uncle’s one-eyed gaze made Doug shiver. He adjusted his eye patch and continued. “When a ship’s trapped in ice, Nephew, there is no chance of sailing anywhere. Have you ever experienced a winter at latitudes south of seventy degrees?”

Two siblings in 1920s Asia investigating the disappearance of their parents. It put the love of adventure and travel (and sailing) in me as a child. The thing I love most about this series is that it is written as a collection of diaries and artifacts found in an archive so there are all these side notes and fold out diagrams and drawings in the book.

28. Operation Typhoon Shore

Joshua Mowll

“Suijing Cha!” Shouted Xu, pushIt was ing Doug back as a wave burst against the ship.

“What...does...that actually mean?” Yelled Doug laughing and wiping the stinging salt water from his eyes.

Xu cupped his hand to Doug’s ear and bellowed, “It means: This is a very dangerous enterprise!”

My favorite book in the series.

29.Operation Storm City

Joshua Mowll

The Rampal bookshop was one of Becca's favourite places in all the world. Mr Rampal and his wife had been family friends for as long as she could remember. He had supplied many of the hundreds of books in their parents' library. His shop lay in the very centre of the city, and his insistence on giving anyone who dropped in 'a little cup of tea' made him not only one the best liked and best read people in Lucknow, but also one of the best connected.

My least favorite book in the series. It's good but it attended the D&D/Game of Thrones School of Rushing Things.

30. Jasper Jones

Craig Silvey

And it happens like that. Like when you first realize that there is no such thing as magic. Or that nothing actually answers your prayers, or really even listens. That cold moment of dismay where your feet are kicked from under you, where you're disarmed by a shard of knowing.

It's a whodunnit laced with some social commentary about race in Australia. I'm glad I read it but I don't expect I'll ever read it again.

31. Find Me

Andre Aciman

Is it that you don't like people, or that you grow tired of them and can't for the life of you remember why you ever found them interesting?

...

Some people may be brokenhearted not because they've been hurt but because they've never found someone who mattered enough to hurt them.

...

Each of us is like a moon that shows only a few facets to earth, but never its full sphere. Most of us never meet those who'll understand our full rounded self. I show people only that sliver of me I think they'll grasp. I show others other slices. But there's a facet of darkness I keep to myself.

Yes, it is not as good as Call Me By Your Name but there were still moments in the book that resonated with me. In a world filled with books and movies about true love and "the one", it is refreshing hearing tales of second loves. This book had the option to be about mature love but instead, I feel it panders a bit to give audiences what they want.

32. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

I stepped outside. Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me.

The narrator is a boy on the spectrum and he tries to solve a mystery. A unique and largely unheard perspective but felt lacking somehow.

33. Educated

Tara Westover

I think a lot of people have grown up with the idea that they can't learn things themselves. They think they need an institution to provide them with knowledge and teach them how to do things. I couldn't disagree more.

...

To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else's. I have often wondered if the most powerful words I wrote that night came not from anger or rage, but from doubt: I don't know. I just don't know. Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, empathetic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.

...

Psychologically, when you hear something a number of times, you start to believe it.

...

I think if you're going to abuse someone, you really have to convince them that it's not that bad. And the second thing is to convince them that they deserve it in some way.

What I expected from this memoir of a woman with a PhD from Cambridge who grew up in a survivalist family with no formal education was the classic, but no less important, message of the value of education.

What I read was this but also a field-guide on how to identify abuse and a reflection on how human it is to contain multiple, simultaneous contradictions.

34. Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.

...

It was still hard for a Korean to become a Japanese citizen, and there were many who considered such a thing shameful—for a Korean to try to become a citizen of its former oppressor. When she told her friends in New York about this curious historical anomaly and the pervasive ethnic bias, they were incredulous at the thought that the friendly, well-mannered Japanese they knew could ever think she was somehow criminal, lazy, filthy, or aggressive—the negative stereotypical traits of Koreans in Japan.

Pachinko tells the multigenerational story of a Korean family in Japan; its name derived from the pokies-esque slot machines common in the two countries. At first, it was curiosity that kept me reading but after a while, slowly, the characters grew more and more on me. I became so invested in them and how they all responded differently to and had different approaches to resisting racial discrimination. A better book about identity than Looking for Alibrandi that's for sure.

35. Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts

It's always a fool's mistake, Didier once said to me, to be alone with someone you shouldn't have loved.

...

It was over, and finished, and I never wanted to see him again; but as I watched him ride into that valley of white shadows I hoped he would live. I prayed he would be safe. I prayed my heartbreak into him, and I loved him. I loved him.

The novel, written three times by Gregory David Roberts because the first two had been trashed by prison guards, is inspired by the author's life. A former heroin addict/bank robber, Roberts escaped to India where he, among other things, lived in a slum, started a free medical clinic, learnt Hindi and Marathi, starred in Bollywood films as an extra, became a gunrunner and forger for the Bombay underbelly and fought in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen. The novel is an epic. It is clear that the author loves India but he doesn't idealise the country, he describes both the good and the bad. I did find however find the pacing in the second half of the book slack and combined with the fact that many of the characters you spent nearly 400 pages getting to know weren't present, it was a bit of a slog. The ending is satisfying however and ties together heaps of plotlines that had been left hanging.

36. Less

Andrew Sean Greer

Love isn't terrifying like that. It's walking the fucking dog so the other one can sleep in, it's doing taxes, it's cleaning the bathroom without hard feelings. It's not fire, it's not lightning. It's what she always had with me. Isn't it?

A delicious little read that is fun to read. Very witty.

37. How to Eat

Thich Nhat Hanh

Eating is not only nourishing for the body, but also for the mind.

Thich Nhat Hanh's How To series are little books of quotes and contemplations. For me, every page was a breath of fresh air.

38. How to Walk

Thich Nhat Hanh

When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.

39. How to Love

Thich Nhat Hanh

Every person is a world to explore.

40. How to Relax

Thich Nhat Hanh

Each day thousands of children die of hunger. Plant and animal species are going extinct every day. Yet the sunrise is still beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects of life.