2019 was a busy year for me. I spent the first part of the year student teaching and going to graduate school, both full-time, and the last half of the year I spent teaching my own classes. Although I was able to do some catching up when I visited Israel and Greece over the summer, between teaching and taking my own classes, I read less than I usually do. This is kind of a bummer, partly since I love to read and it’s frustrating when I don’t have as much time to spend enjoying great books, but also because I love the satisfaction of finishing a book and adding it to the list. I think I still managed to get in some good ones, though. 

This year, there’s plenty of high-carb crime thrillers, a few spookies, some literary favorites, and fascinating informational works. Because I had less time, I became more selective about what I decided to read and what I continued reading. If I didn’t like a book, I put it down quickly, instead of finishing it out of guilt and compulsion. I included a separate list of the books I didn’t finish, and marked the books I especially liked in bold. I also included some notable literary short stories that I liked.

1. The Chosen, Chaim Potok (x2)
2. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
3. Dateonomics, Jon Birger
4. A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean
5. Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
6. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
7. The Yearling, Marjorie Rawlings
8. 12 Rules For Life, Jordan Peterson
9. The Innocents, Ian McEwan
10. The Revenant, Michael Punke
11. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
12. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
13. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
14. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
15. Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
16. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
17. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
18. Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O’Dell
19. My Side Of The Mountain, Jean Craighead George
20. Manhattan Mayhem, various authors 
21. The Innocent Man, John Grisham
22. The Last Policeman, Ben H. Winters 
23. Countdown City, Ben H. Winters
24. World of Trouble, Ben H. Winters
25. Carrie, Stephen King 
26. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
27. The Course of Love, Alain de Botton
28. Best American Mystery Stories 2018, ed. Louise Penny 
29. Snap, Belinda Bauer 
30. The Couple Next Door, Shari Lapena
31. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
32. Along Came A Spider, James Patterson
33. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
34. Occasional Magic, Various Authors
35. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
36. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
37. Anthem, Ayn Rand
38. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
39. The Godfather, Mario Pucci
40. The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray
41. 1984, George Orwell
42. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
43. The Jewish Way, Rabbi Irving Greenburt

Short stories:

1. Hop Frog, Edgar Allen Poe
2. The Devil and Tom Walker, Washington Irving
3. Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
4. The Lottery, Shirley Jackson
5. The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, George Saunders

Did Not Finish:

1. The Doctor’s Wife, Elizabeth Brundage – bad writing, lame plot 
2. The Fishermen, Chigoze Obigma – overwrought writing and slow plot 
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Mark Haddon – terrible characterization, crap writing, sappy, stupid, etc. 
4. HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams – too goddamn weird 
5. Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez – slow and winding plot, overwrought writing