For posterity’s sake (and the fact that the sharing of these booklists are some of the only times I’m completely self-indulgent and talk about myself) I dug these out of facebook and dumped them here. 2018 was the first year I started writing down all the books, so no earlier ones. Who knows wtf I was reading then…
2019
1. Valerie Solanas — /Scum Manifesto/
2. G. Willow Wilson — /Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1–2/ (+1)
3. *Min Jin Lee — /Pachinko/*
4. Nick Drnaso — /Beverly/
5. Thi Bui — /The Best We Could Do/
6. Chris McDonnell — /Steven Universe Art and Origins/
7. *Nick Drnaso — /Sabrina/*
8. Ken Krimstein — /The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt/
9. Nicole Chung — /All You Can Ever Know/
10. Georgia Weber — /Dumb: Living Without Voice/
11. *Hanif Abdurraqib — /They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us/*
12. Jen Wang — /The Prince and the Dressmaker/
13. Nick Roche — /Transformers: The Wreckers Saga/
14. Susan Choi — /Trust Exercise/
15. Jillian Tamaki — /Skim/
16. *James Roberts — /Transformers: Lost Light, Vol. 1–3/ (+2)*
17. Lisa Hanawalt — /Coyote Doggirl/
18. *Mariko Tamaki — /Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me/*
19. James Roberts — /Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, Vol. 1–15/ (+14)
20. Clarice Lispector — /The Besieged City/
21. *Isabel Greenberg — /One Hundred Nights of Hero/*
22. Ellen Lupton — /Design is Storytelling/
23. Esmé Weijun Wang — /The Collected Schizophrenias/
24. *Jia Tolentino — /Trick Mirror/*
25. C.S. Pacat — /Fence, Vol. 1–2/ (+1)
26. *Mira Jacobs — /Good Talk/*
27. Jung Young Moon — /Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River/
28. Raphael Bob-Waksberg — /Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory/
29. Raina Telgemeier — /Guts/
30. G. Willow Wilson — /The Bird King/
31. *Ocean Vuong — /On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous/*
32. John Hodgman — /Medallion Status/
33. Nagabe — /The Girl From the Other Side, Vol. 1–3/ (+2)
34. Ma Jian — /China Dream/
35. *Leslie Jamison — /Make it Scream, Make it Burn/*
36. Anne Carson — /Glass, Irony & God/
37. Anthony Ha — /Love Songs For Monsters/
38. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha — /Dictee/
39. J.M. Palacio — /White Bird/
40. Sayaka Murata — /Convenience Store Woman/
41. G. Willow Wilson — /Invisible Kingdom, Vol. 1/
Stats:
Total books: 61
Comics: 38
Prose:19
Poetry: 2
Fiction/Nonfiction ratio: 45/16
Things I didn’t entirely read but worth noting:
Joel Dinerstein — /The Origins of Cool in Postwar America/ (Told myself to only read the first 150 pages and then get back to avoiding straight white men. A few of them slipped through the cracks but publishing is a breeding ground for these guys so it’s bound to happen. This one was really interesting though so I may read the other 400 pages soon.)
John Barber — /Transformers: Robots in Disguise/ (TF storyline that runs parallel to MTMTE; really only read enough to get more context.)
James Roberts — /Starcadia Quest/ (Comic series, only two issues in, but it’s awesome and notable.)
Books with *s indicates they were part of my top 10 this year. Generally I really liked all of these books. There is only one on the list that I felt meh about but it was for a book group, and one I actually quite hated but a friend lent it to me so I wanted to tell them I got through it (and they told me beforehand the writing isn’t great, it’s the design of the book that was fantastic.). But really, if I wasn’t into a book I just didn’t finish it.
2018
- The Dark Dark — Samantha Hunt
- Kingdom Cons — Yuri Herrera
- The Book Of Dust — Phillip Pullman
- Smile — Raina Telgemeier
- Sisters — Raina Telgemeier
- Drama —Raina Telgemeier
- Ghosts — Raina Telgemeier
- The Vegetarian — Han Kang
- Interaction of Color — Josef Albers
- You Are A Badass At Making Money — Jen Sincero
- The Power — Naomi Alderman
- The Leavers — Lisa Ko
- Fante Bukowski — Noah Van Sciver
- Women & Power — Mary Beard
- Exit West — Moshin Hamid
- Wine of Reunion: Arabic Poems — Rumi
- The Changeling — Joy Williams
- The Shadow Hero — Gene Luen Yang
- The Shape of Content — Ben Shahn
- Kitchen Table Tarot — Melissa Cynova
- Your Black Friend & Other Strangers — Ben Pasamore
- The Story of My Teeth — Valeria Luiselli
- The Empathy Exams — Leslie Jamison
- Boundless — Jillian Tamaki
- The Art of Cruelty — Maggie Nelson
- One Dirty Tree — Noah Van Sciver
- White Tears — Hari Kunzru (This was probably my favorite novel this year.)
- The Fire Next Time — James Baldwin
- Spinning — Tillie Walden
- Not Quite Not White — Sharmila Sen
- Hawkeye Vol. 1 — Matt Fraction
- Sex Criminals Vol. 4 — Matt Fraction
- Sex Criminals Vol. 5 — Matt Fraction
- Monstress Vol. 1 — Marjorie Lou
- Casanova: Acedia Vol. 2 — Matt Fraction (He’s my favorite comics writer so punch me. Hawkeye was for the the book group that I lead anyway, soooo.)
- The Women Who Run With the Wolves — Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
- Shortcomings — Adrian Tomine
- Against Memoir — Michele Tea
- My Year Of Rest & Relaxation — Otessa Moshfegh
- Everyday Narcissm — Nancy Van Dykes
- Godshaper — Simon Spurrier
- Amulet Vol. 1 — Kazu Kabuishi
- Amulet Vol. 2 — Kazu Kabuishi
- The Mountain — Paul Yoon
- Less — Andrew Sean Greer
- Gravity Falls: Lost Legends — Alex Hirsch
- Snowhunters — Paul Yoon
- On A Sunbeam — Tillie Walden
- Red Winter — Anneli Furmark
- Braving the Wilderness — Brene Brown
- Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
- BoJack Horseman: The Art Before The Horse — Chris McDonnell