Normally this list comes to me very easily, even if I have to narrow it down and eliminate books I liked in favor of books I loved. But I’ve put off making this one because my reading year in 2019 was a little wonky. Very uneven, in pace and quality and content. I read far less stellar fiction than usual (these books are generally a fight for the tops spots for me), which wasn’t because it was a bad fiction year (at least I don’t think), but I did notice that I didn’t pick up very many of those that ended up on the year-end lists, and of those that I did read that are making the awards circuits, I didn’t care for much.

So all in all, my creative brain was distracted in 2019 and I took so much more from the nonfiction I read this year.

(You can hear more book talk on the podcast. Looking for how to read more and how to choose what to read? Listen to When do you read? You can also listen to the Best Books of the Summer with Alyssa Hertzig and recently we recorded Ep #46 Book Club 2019: The Best, Worst, and Buzziest Books of the year.)

In total, in 2019, I read:

82 books total

(Including a re-read of The Alchemist and a re-read of Flowers in the Attic for a podcast episode, and NOT including rereads of 3 Judy Blume books for a podcast episode)

35 Fiction

46 Nonfiction

(Roughly 15 memoir, 9 in business, 12 in self-help, and 11 in Current Events/Other. Not perfect categories, as some of them overlap a little, but it’s a general idea of how that split up.)

12 Audio books (all nonfiction)

So because of all this, i’m going to start with nonfiction. In this top 10 list, the bottom 8 are in no particular order. The top 2 are the best things I read this year, Know My Name being the most important and Maybe You Should Talk To Someone being my personal favorite.

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(Click here to see all these books mentioned in one place.)

NONFICTION FAVORITES OF 2019

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

This was the most important book I read in 2019, and maybe one of the most important of the whole decade. I listened to this one, actually, and started it mainly out of obligation and support for the victim and author Chanel Miller, who was assaulted by Brock Turner behind an old garbage container outside of a fraternity house on Stanford’s campus. I wasn’t aware of this case until it became national news when the judge (later recalled in an election) gave Turner a shockingly light sentence for his crime. A few trusted friends were recommending Know My Name and I downloaded it as my last read of 2019, even though the 15+ hour run time gave me some pause.

Only once in a decade or so does a voice emerge that illuminates a topic so clearly. it is rare that a memoirist has the skill to cut through the outside noise and drop the ego to their personal narrative and make an issue so very plain to the world. The last book I read so effective in this way was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. And now Chanel Miller is doing this for sexual assault.

I cannot overstate how moving and well written Know My Name by Chanel Miller is. The author reads the audiobook herself, which adds another layer of intimacy to her breathtaking account. Even if you are fairly familiar with the facts of this case, this book does so much to explain the feelings, emotions, and arguments surrounding sexual assault victims in America. Brock Turner’s name will fade as time marches on, but I believe Chanel Miller’s name will endure for a long, long time.

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb

This memoir reads so much like a novel and ended up being my personal favorite book of 2019. Lori Gottlieb is a talk therapist in Los Angeles, and after going through a tough romantic breakup, she seeks therapy for herself for the first time in many years. So there are to parallel stories in this one, Gottlieb’s sessions with her own patients (written about with permission), and then her experience with her new therapist.

Not only is this book well-written, funny, and thoughtful, but I feel like it does so much for therapy itself, something I’ve been advocating since I started it 5 years ago. So, yes, I had a lot of personal connection to this book, from the quirky LA people to the mental health piece, but even outside of that I think this was just so well done and also entertaining.

Online, I’ve seen people shy away from a book about therapy, and then I’ve seen people say they booked their first therapy appointment after reading Maybe You Should Talk To Someone. But this is not a book to be avoided or one that has to change your life. It’s a good story about real people. It will break your heart and it will make you laugh out loud. I loved it.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

I read this book in the first week of the year and it definitely shaped my thinking for the rest of 2019. I read it because so many people recommended it, but at first my expectations were pretty low. I read a lot of habits/productivity books, and mistakenly thought I had read it all. But this book is one of the best I’ve ever read on the subject, from the writing to the science, and especially the sections about tying your habits to your identity. Those examples are what will stick with me the most, both in making and breaking habits, and I have been recommending Atomic Habits all over the place this year.

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

I was already a Dani Shapiro fan (I’ve enjoyed several of her other memoirs, I think Still Writing was my favorite before Inheritance), so I would have read her new book even without the fascinating premise. Inheritance is the story of Shapiro discovering through one of those send-off DNA tests that her beloved father was not, in fact, her biological father. The memoir covers the revelation and then the year that follows, with some backstory and memories thrown in, of course.

I was especially interested in this story because we have adoption in our family and I think Shapiro’s exploration of what identity means was so insightful. I also think it opens up a lot of questions our culture is exploring as the fertility advances of the 1960’s and beyond are no longer anonymous and affect more and more families in ways that science didn’t appear to predict. How are people - both donors and those alive because of those donors - supposed to handle this information? What is the etiquette? How is it going to work emotionally? I’d been reading some of these similar stories for awhile with great interest, and Inheritance handled the topic beautifully.

Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

I read Emily Nagoski’s book Come As You Are a few years ago when it was highly recommended on the Sorta Awesome podcast, and I picked up Burnout after hearing her on a few podcasts talking about “completing the stress cycle.” I took so much Burnout that I wanted all my girlfriends to read it and then read it again. It came up in so many conversations in 2019, I feel like the Nagoski sisters really nailed it in terms of how women carry their stress and how it affects their lives.

Not only was it a high-five in solidarity, Burnout also provided very tangible examples and tips on how to avoid burnout, how to talk about it, and how to balance our lives better in general. “Balance” has become a scoffed-at word (especially among women) but Burnout gave me tools and hope to get there.

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

This memoir is, as one might expect, heavy. It is by far the heaviest book on this list. Kiese Laymon is writing about his childhood, and his weight, and how these things are intertwined in a complicated knot. Laymon is an incredible writer, and his story moved me to tears many times, especially in the latter half of the book as he fleshes out the relationship with his mother into adulthood.

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow

This book about breaking the Harvey Weinstein scandal wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be. Written less like journalism and more like a caper, Catch and Kill is shining a light on an important topic while also managing to be straight up entertaining. Farrow weaves in enough of his own editorial and glimpses of his personal love life and family to keep you turning the pages even if you already feel pretty well-versed in the Weinstein saga.

Miracles and other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey

Full disclosure: I usually do not include my friends on these types of lists because it feels unfair on a few different levels. (I also have a lot of friends who write a lot of great books.) I made an exception here because this is an exceptional book that I loved and thought about for weeks after reading, having nothing to do with the fact that Sarah Bessey is my dear friend.

Miracles and other Reasonable Things is primarily the story of a terrible car accident and the pain, the healing, and the not-healing that came after. It’s well-written and well-told - including a trip to Rome to meet the Pope - but the thing that landed it on my best of list is something that is the very premise of my podcast: Sharing the “normal” things that happened to you. Now, this terrible accident was not normal for Sarah, and meeting the Pope isn’t normal for anyone, but the book made me think about all the things that we go through in this life. How many people do we know silently suffering through an old injury, emotionally dealing with trauma and pain from something the world considers “normal” like accidents, divorce, etc.? The way that Sarah writes her story is both interesting and universal, and it made me want to hear more about people’s lives…their hurts, their conclusions around those things, their personal miracles.

Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur

As if to make my point from above, Wild Game is a memoir about something very, very, very not normal. (And of course those are often very compelling. Please see one of my favorite books of all time: The Sound of Gravel.) Wild Game is the author’s story of being caught up in childhood as an emotional accomplice in her mother’s torrid affair to a friend of her father. This family is dysfunctional and fascinating. I was so creeped out at the beginning of this story, but I ended up reading it mostly in one afternoon and I couldn’t put it down. What is great about this memoir is not the details of the various affairs that go down, but the relationships.

Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein

This was my third (or 4th?) book from Bernstein and by far my favorite. I listened to it while driving back and forth to the desert to write, and it made a great impact on my mindset and the energy I had around my work in the back half of this year. If you’re not familiar with Gabrielle Bernstein, I would start following her on social media first to see if she’s your style, she will definitely not be for everyone. Super Attractor, in particular, goes beyond her regular woo-woo levels, and I don’t recommend you start there with her work necessarily. I loved this book and even saw Bernstein on her Super Attractor tour in Los Angeles a few months ago, so this one holds a special place in my heart for 2019.

Okay and now for the fiction picks….

I sort of hate to include sequels in a Best Of list (I don’t know why I feel like the entries here should stand alone), but there are TWO on my Best Of list, and the first one mentioned holds the top spot for favorite novel of the year. Again, this wasn’t the best year for fiction in my reading life, but every book on this list stands out for me in some way this year.

FICTION FAVORITES OF 2019

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

This book just about knocked me flat. I cried all the way through the last quarter or so, and Olive, Again cemented Elizabeth Strout as one of my favorite living writers. I think she writes the most realistic characters and the most beautiful sentences about those flawed characters. I find myself nodding along to her books, like she’s telling me a story I’ve already heard about people I’ve always known.

Technically, you could read Olive, Again as a stand alone, but I don’t recommend it. I think you should read the Pulitzer-prize winning Olive Kitteridge first. Both novels are about Olive Kitteridge and the people who live in her small Maine town. Nothing much happens. There’s not a lot of plot. It’s just about life and people, and this one is my personal favorite book of the year.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

I actually read this book at the very end of 2018, but it didn’t come out in the US until this spring, which is why it landed on this list instead of last year’s list. I loved this novel from Irish author Rooney, a millennial and critical favorite. Normal People follows unlikely couple Connell and Marianne from high school into early adulthood. Their affections, flaws, and successes wax and wane over the decade, and this novel made me nostalgic for my early loves and also hopeful for Connell and Marianne’s futures.

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

No one is more surprised than I am that this book ended up on my final list of the year, because I was so infuriated by these characters that I wanted to throw the novel across the room. However, by the end I could see the total genius that is John Boyne’s storytelling. Months and months later, I am still thinking about this story, these characters, and this structure. And so it deserves to be here.

A Ladder to the Sky is about fame and manipulation, history and ambition. The writing is superb.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

THIS. This is the slim little book that took my breath away more than any other this year. This is the only book I made my husband read (last year’s book in this category was The Line That Held Us).

Friday Black is a collection of short stories, each one more jaw dropping than the last. These stories are graphically violent, and handle difficult themes that are also utterly relevant. I was blown away by Adjei-Brenyah’s mind and skill in this collection and cannot recommend it enough, with the caveat that it is very dark and won’t be for everyone.

Books that completely surprise me are rare, and Friday Black is one of the best of the year, and of the decade.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This rock band novel got a lot of attention this year, and I agree that this was one of the most fun, entertaining reads of 2019. Daisy Jones and the Six is sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll in the 1970s, and the unusual storytelling format sets it apart. It’s written as if it’s one long Rolling Stone-style magazine interview, and while I thought I might tire of this device by the end, I really didn’t. It’s really well done.

I like Taylor Jenkins Reid books a lot, (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a recent favorite) and I can see myself pre-ordering whatever she does next because I just enjoy the way she unveils a bigger story in each book.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I bought this retelling of the famous Greek myth after I so enjoyed Circe last year. The Song of Achilles (originally published in 2014) is just as well written and imaginative, I was all in on these characters and their already-known stories.

Between the two, I still lean towards Circe, but Miller’s books are both thought-provoking and sexy. I couldn’t get enough of this story and this interpretation.

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

I so enjoyed this sexy romp into the 1920’s theater world of New York City. I like Gilbert online a lot, as well as her nonfiction, but I had no idea what to expect from a novel, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the light hand here. There was love and history and scandal and youthful indiscretions, and for me City of Girls was THE book of the summer. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

My other favorite book of the summer? Recursion by Blake Crouch. This novel had some similar themes to his book Dark Matter (which I also loved), and because I was familiar with the way he writes, I jumped right into this story and time-bending plot that might be a little hard to follow if you’re not prepared for it.

Recursion is science fiction and thriller and love story all in one, and not the type of thing I would usually pick up. This novel asks some big questions, and has what I thought was a really satisfying ending.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This is the second sequel on the list, and again I'm going to say that although you could read The Testaments as a stand alone, it is much better understood as the follow up to its predecessor, in this case the infamous novel (and now tv show) The Handmaid’s Tale.

I don’t watch the tv show, but many people online said that this book only enhanced what has already been happening on the seasons of the show that go beyond the original book, and The Testaments takes place over a decade into the future. I didn’t know what to expect here, but thought this telling was very satisfying. Not as groundbreaking as The Handmaid’s Tale, but I was fist pumping by the end.

The Need by Helen Phillips

Winner for most bizarre, most hotly-debated book of the year? The Need by Helen Phillips. When I finished it, I wasn’t even sure if I liked it, although the writing is fantastic and the story is carefully crafted. There’s not much to say about this short novel without spoilers or opinions (and we give both at the very end of podcast episode #31, where I couldn’t resist talking about it), but I have to respect a book that caused so much emotion and so many fiery thoughts about what actually happened in the story.

The Need is almost impossible to write about. It’s about motherhood and mental illness and possibly a time warp. But there was never much doubt that it would be on my final list this year.

So even though my personal thoughts on reading as a whole in 2019 remain a mixed bag, I feel strongly about all of the titles on this list. I hope you find something here that resonates with you!