Here is a list of all the books I read in 2019, minus the self-help and diet guides because you don’t need to know all that. Within find poetry collections, short story collections, memoir, investigative journalism, literary fiction, horror, young adult, and a western. I don’t finish books I don’t like, so I recommend every single one.

The Flicker of Old Dreams by Susan Henderson

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Hundred Year House by Rebecca Makkai

The Hundred Year Flood by Matthew Salesses

Rough Animals by Rae DelBianco

Soy Sauce for Beginners by Kirstin Chen

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

Where You Live by Andrew Roe

The Mortifications by Derek Palacio

The Best of the Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow

The House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt

All the Fabulous Beasts by Priya Sharma (This ended up being one of my favorite short story collections of all time, and won a Shirley Jackson award as well. I will read everything this author ever writes. I am a fan.)

Bury What You Cannot Take by Kirstin Chen

The Far Away Brothers by Lauren Markham

Ill Will by Dan Chaon

World Gone Missing by Laurie Ann Doyle

Dear Mr. You by Mary Louise Parker

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (A week after I read this, the author was my teacher during my residency at Ashland University in Ohio and she was a wonderful teacher.)

Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Let the Water Hold Me Down by Michael Spurgeon

The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

Things We Lost in the Fire by Marina Enriquez

What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

There There by Tommy Orange

Americanah by Chamamanda Nzozi Adiche

Hard Damage by Aria Aber

Scratching the Ghost by Dexter L. Booth

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld

Milkman by Anna Burns

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Stay and Fight by Madeline ffitch

Goodbye Sweet Girl by Kelly Sundberg

Casualties by Elizabeth Marro