My 2019 Book Review

The first day of the New Year is one of my favorites; blank slate, new chapter, fresh start--whatever metaphor you want to use, I love the feeling of possibility and the focus on intention--until around January 24 when I backslide into the unhealthy habits I swore I'd conquer on January 1st.

Being human is hard.

But reading is a habit I always make time for--no matter how busy, how frazzled, how (insert excuse here...). I'm not a binge-reader (except of picture books to meet my Goodreads goal). I have never finished an entire novel in a day. I have a solid 20 minute attention span (thank you, internet 🙄). I have started putting my phone in another room if I want to do some focused reading because the temptation to scroll Facebook instead of keeping my actual Face in a Book is too great. All of this to say, I read in snippets of time. Probably 10-20 minutes a day--a little more on the weekends. And I have embraced the joy of audio books to make mundane tasks like cleaning the house, doing laundry, and sitting in traffic on Highway 80 a little more stimulating. Don't let anyone tell you that reading with your ears doesn't count--IT TOTALLY DOES.

My prime reading time is before bed.  Sometimes I read a chapter--sometimes a few pages--sometimes a sentence before Jason finds the book tee-peed on my chest; my glasses askew on my face. I love to fall asleep with someone else's stories swirling in my mind because I need to get out of my own head.

All of those snippets of minutes have added up to 75 books read this year. Here's the breakdown:

  • 25 fiction
  • 17 nonfiction
  • 33 picture books
  • Out of these 75 books--14 were audio


Full disclosure: I set my Goodreads goal to 100 books at the beginning of the year; I changed it to 75 in November when it stressed me out because I was so far behind (Reading should not stress you out. EVER.) I read a stack of 20 picture books in the last few days of the year to meet my goal. (Hauling home a cart of picture books from my library to binge over the break is a perk of the profession.)



So without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2019. (Click here to see all of the books I read this year)

Top Fiction: 

  On the Come Up by Angie Thomas  Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  Internment by Samira Ahmed

Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson  Pride by Ibi Zoboi  With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo  The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead  Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram  Blended by Sharon M. Draper  Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby  Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga  Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner  The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen


Top Nonfiction: 

WOLFPACK by Abby Wambach  White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo  On Being Human by Jennifer Pastiloff  Furious Hours by Casey Cep

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo  Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey  Boundaries by Henry Cloud  Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb


Top Picture Books: 

Say Something by Peter H. Reynolds  The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander  How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexander

Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo  The Knowing Book by Rebecca Kai Dotlich  The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad

A Place to Land by Barry Wittenstein  The Roots of Rap by Carole Boston Weatherford  My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero

The Good Egg by Jory John  My Hair is a Garden by Cozbi A. Cabrera  My Heart by Corinna Luyken

Books I'm looking forward to reading in 2020: 

22552033. sy475   38612739  39122774
40265832  41880609  43982054

My TBR pile used to give me anxiety because of that old adage, "So many books, so little time," but I've decided to stop looking at this pile as something to conquer but instead as stories to savor; it's about opportunity, not obligation. Maybe that's the mindset I'll take into 2020...





I set me 2020 reading goal at 100; I'll adjust as needed, and it's the only day of the year I will be on track. Hopefully, I'll stick with it; maybe I'll have to lower it in the fall, but my goal is to make a little space everyday for words, ideas, and stories. They make me a better human. 

So here's to that New Year's feeling.  Wherever you are in your reading life, make some time to hunker down and read. 

Art by : Jessica Boehman


And finally, my perennial New Year's wish for you: 

Image result for neil gaiman new year"

May your 2020 be filled with love and good books! ❤

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rona Reads: What else are we going to do?

Image
I've struggled to write over the past few weeks, which is hard for a word person. Full Disclosure: my journal is filled with questions and curse words and a lot of "BREATHE & BE" in various versions of handwriting; I can't untangle the uncertainty no matter how hard I try. So I'm giving myself grace and space. The words will come. Maybe this is a season to process rather than to produce. I don't have many words to offer right now, but I can offer a list of books to read to help pass this time. As most of you know, I love being book bossy and compiling lists of recommendations. I found this picture in January and loved it because it reflects the hunkering-down-nature of winter. Never in a million years did I think our lives would actually become this picture or that I would write a post about books to read during a Pandemic, but here we are. Yes, it's hard to focus sometimes, but I need to read every day to stay sane. Here are the books that
Read more

The Sisterhood of the Coaches' Wives

Image
We blinked, and it's August. It's time for the excitement and anxiety to start creeping in. It's time to kiss our husbands goodbye and say, " See you in December!" It's time to become a pseudo-single mom. It's football season in Texas. As coaches' wives, we know the truth: football season never really ends. Those famed lights darken; the games stop, but off-season becomes spring football becomes 7-on-7 becomes summer conditioning camp becomes August. And here we are. Another August. We are ready. We are hopeful. We are undefeated. Everyone is undefeated in August. People think they know our world because they love Texas high school football. They see us sitting in the stands on Friday nights proudly wearing our team colors--some of us bedazzled (I don't bedazzle). They watched  Friday Night Lights  and think we are all  Tami Taylor,  who made it look so easy. (We all secretly worship her for it.) But I am not Tami Taylor. No
Read more

I Choose LOVE.

I love Jesus. It is my deepest hope that this comes as no surprise to anyone. I love gay people--straight people, too. I love Chic-Fil-A. I would bathe in CFA sauce if I could. But yesterday a line was drawn in the Chic-Fil-A parking lot. Until last week, I didn't know that I had to choose a side. The fact that many people feel compelled to "pick a side" in this debate represents so much that is wrong with our world today. We live in a polarized culture fueled by cable TV news channels, the internet, and social media. Are you a Democrat or a Republican? Are you Conservative or Liberal? Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? There seems to be no middle ground left in America, and our politicians prove this point with their inabilty to compromise--each side refusing to give an inch for fear that they will appear weak, or Heaven forbid, Moderate. Our politicians are not the only ones guilty of this deep need to pick a team. Facebook and Twitter make it too easy to fire off our
Read more