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
