Sofia's 2019 Reading List

I graduated from New College this past May, which means that I have had a lot more time for reading books this year than last year. And considering I only read 37 books last year and this year I've finished 89,  I'd say I took advantage of my greater free time! I was also substitute teaching for a few months, which often means a lot of time in the classroom while the kids are doing work and you can either just sit there and stare into nothing, or read a book. Now that I have a library page job, I see a lot of books all the time, and it's really hard not to constantly take more books for myself. What can I say, I'm usually reading at least 3 books at any given time (I'm actively reading 4 right now).

To look back at this decade of reading is really interesting (to me at least) because I joined Goodreads during February of 2009 and have keep track of every book I've read since then, so I have a full decade of reading history to be able to look at.

Books Read

As you can see, my decade started increasing in the amount that I was reading because that's what I spent most of my time in high doing (outside of school, marching band, and volunteering at the library). I read less as I got busier going from high to college, and read the least amount in 2017, where I spent 7 of those 12 months in Europe, and therefore less time within the pages of a book. Finishing my thesis this year left the gates open for me to be able to spend a whole lot more of my time reading for fun without guilt, so I went all out. Adding those up (minus 2009), I've read 762 books this decade, which would average out to 76.2 books per year, 6.35 books per month, or 1.46 books per week, or a new book about every 4 day. Now if we do that same math with the page count, that's 264,854 pages (26485.4 per year), 2207 per month or 509.33 per week, which would average out to 72.76 pages per day for an entire decade. That's wild!

Pages Read

Now, let's get to the good stuff. Last year I wrote a blog about my top 10 books I read during 2018, so  if you're interested in that, you can find that here.

And... although I can continue raving about the same authors over and over, I talked about Rick Riordan (my favorite author ever), Sarah J. Maas (an awesome Young Adult fantasy author who writes really long books that I've seen in the hands of several high school boys throughout my subbing days, which makes me really happy), and Roshani Chokshi (I adore the way she incorporates mythology and culture into her books) last year, but I continued reading their books this year and I love everything that comes from them, so you should probably check them out.

Of everything I've read this year, a lot of it has been multiple books from the same author or series, so rather than picking my top 10 favorite books of the year (because how), here's my top 10 favorite authors I've read this year, and what I read from them:

Diana Gabaldon: Outlander Series, Lord John Grey Series

Okay, so 13 of the books I've read this year have been related to this. If you wanna dive into a world with a ton of reading material for you to be able to experience, this series is worth it. You don't have to read the 2 books of collected short stories or the 3 Lord John books if you're feeling overwhelmed by the 8 books of this series currently out. Like Game of Thrones, the series is not finished, and there's a tv show out, but the author has worked closely with the show runner, and I feel like it's being really well done. So if you wanna get into the series but don't feel like you have the time yet to delve into the books, I recommend the show! I've been watching the show for several years now, but never felt like I had the time to get into the book series because of being in school, but I started this book once I was done my thesis, finished it 3 days after graduation, and proceeded to read the read of the books in the following months. The 5th book in the series, at 1456 pages was the longest book I've read this year. I love a long book! I like to keep ebooks on my phone whenever I'm traveling, so I managed to read most of Diana's books during the 6 weeks we were in Costa Rica, but I tend to be a fairly quick reader.

Gail Carriger: The Custard Protocol Series (+ short stories/novellas)

Why are steampunk fantasy alternate history worlds so much fun? Idk, but I love this author. I read all 4 books from her Custard Protocol series, which is in her "parasolverse" of which includes 3 series of books and multiple shorter stories, 5 of which I read this year. There's vampires and werewolves and ghosts and other creatures like that, but they're built into society in a very structured way, and aren't just hiding away looking sparkly, so it doesn't feel cliché. There's also a lot of spying, government involvement, and mystery investigation. Who doesn't love literary secret societies! She's also great for incorporating a lot of queer characters and queer romance. Gail Carriger is a good one to have in your literary arsenal.

Rin Chupeco: The Bone Witch Trilogy

It's been a good year for me and Filipino authors, since Roshani Chokshi and Rin Chupeco both have that heritage. Their inclusion was completely unintentional, despite having a best friend also with filipino heritage, but I have been trying to read more diverse authors, and I do want to read more asian authors, so it was a happy discovery to learn about these two. Chupeco's Bone Witch Trilogy is the only thing of hers I've read, but the way she intertwined aspects of various asian cultures into dark fantasy, along with dual past and present perspectives was absolutely fascinating to read. Necromancy, mysterious creatures, mythologies, and prophecies? Yes please. Queer characters also exist in her universe, and in a lot of the books from my top authors this year. One of my goals for this year had been to read more content, and while the queer characters weren't the main characters in this trilogy, they did exist as important characters, which is great, because even they should exist even if they aren't the focus because they do exist, even if you don't identify as LGBTQA+ yourself.

Mackenzie Lee: The Montague Siblings Trilogy

Speaking of queer, this author is a new favorite of mine and I adore her queer characters. Historical fiction and fantasy are my top 2 favorite genres to read, and she combined those with wonderfully diverse and complicated characters going on wild adventures around Europe. Her writing is hilarious and thoughtful and so much fun to read, I cannot recommend it enough.

Kiersten White: The Conqueror's Saga

Speaking of fun, The Conqueror's Saga was one of the most intensely dark things I read this year. Know of Vlad the Impaler? Meet Lada the Impaler, the gender-swapped version of the infamous historic figure. I tend towards comedies over dramas and adventure fantasies over thrillers, so a story about someone known for killing so many people so viciously is not something I would normally pick up. But holy moly, was this series fascinating. I never knew much about Vlad the Impaler, including the fact that he's held in a positive regard (to a certain degree) for all that he did to protect his country. I'm not sure that I ever learned that much about the mid-1400s, and I definitely don't remember as much about the Ottoman Empire as I probably should (I hate how history is taught in school), so the nuances of religion and the power dynamics in Eastern Europe was incredibly interesting to learn about, and gave me the perspective to understand why someone like Vlad the Impaler could come into existence, and how they could do the things that he is known for doing. This series is a perfect example of why I love historical fiction. Also, guess what- queer characters exist! And they're based on a real historical figure who quite likely was gay considering what we know about him, because yes, queer people did exist back in the 1400s and the reason we don't know that much about them is mainly because of oppression and bias.

Kerri Maniscalco: Stalking Jack The Ripper Quartet

Again, would never have guessed that I'd love a series about serial killers as much as I did this one. But also, I love historical fiction. And even though hist fict about the late 1800s is not uncommon, this one follows Audrey Rose, a budding forensic scientist who, although fictional, very much does live within the era she's been written into, and while female forensic scientists didn't exist at that point, the way she interacts with career and romance has been written in a way that shows someone with a mind and life who could have existed, rather than a modern character written into a historical fiction story. The romance is feels very real as well, and the conversations the two characters have about boundaries, vulnerability, and autonomy within their relationship and their lives, along with the importance they each hold for their personal careers is just really wonderfully written. More teenagers need to see/hear/read these kinds of conversations!! Are there any queer characters, you might ask? Of course there are, and they're badass. Oh, and though the main characters are fiction, the author made sure to do her research and is very intentional about writing accurately with the knowledge we have about the various serial killers, which she discusses at the end of each book (I love when hist fict writers do that).

Of all those previous authors, I've read multiple books from each. For this one and each following, I've only read one of their books, but have been impressed enough by them to name them as favorites from this year.

Anna-Marie McLemore: When The Moon Was Ours

Magical realism is an interesting genre to read in, because just like historical fiction, it exists on that line between truth and reality and fiction. This story was perhaps the most beautifully written out of everything I read this year. It's rather hard to articulate how I felt about this book because it was such an experience. The characters were really diverse (and sometimes queer!) and I truly felt like this book taught me a lot about growth and transformation. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I need to read everything else this author has written.

Jenna Glass: The Women's War

I never buy books, and 90% of what I read comes from the library or I own because I got them free from a library conference. However, I liked this book enough that I had it on my list and got it for Christmas. In the words of goodreads: "In a feminist fantasy epic, a revolutionary spell gives women the ability to control their own fertility- with consequences that rock their patriarchal society to its core.: The existence of "unique" and "original" stories is debatable in a world with infinite stories in a multitude of mediums, but I was intrigued, fascinated, and blown away by this story. I really appreciate women acknowledging the prevalent sexism in our world, and fantasy stories that show extreme situations (like a magical spell related to fertility and autonomy) really help to show people the true things that do happen in the real world to people who may not seek out those perspectives. If I could only recommend one book from everything I've read this year, it might be this one. I cannot wait to read the next book in this series when it comes out. Read this book!  

Tomi Adeyemi: Children of Blood and Bone

If you know anything about my reading habits, you'll known that I love mythology. And unfortunately, I haven't spent much time learning about African mythologies. Tomi Adeyemi is Nigerian-American, so she was able to use her heritage to craft a story of magic, mythology, oppression, and adventure. The sequel came out this month, but I haven't had the time to read it yet. I'm looking forward to learning more!

Michelle Obama: Becoming

I had the immense privilege of being able to see Michelle Obama discuss her book at a library conference before it came out. Because of school and thesis, it took me a while to get around to reading it, but I'm so glad that I did. Despite the Obamas being our first family for 8 years, I really didn't know a lot about them. Learning about Michelle's life growing up in Chicago was super interesting, and her experience helping Barack and being the First Lady was enlightening. I haven't read any of Barack's books, but I do want to. Politics are so convoluted in this country, I really think that this book is an accessible way for people to better understand our relationship between us, our president, and his family. Politicians shouldn't be celebrities- they're normal people with important jobs. And with Barack as our first black president, hearing about things Michelle's perspective really gave the world some insight into how that affected them. Whatever your politics are, those two are genuinely good people who gave a lot to our country. They certainly have my respect.

***

My goal for this year had been to read 40 books, and I vastly surpassed that number. I'd also wanted to read less straight, white, able-bodied, heterosexual male authors, and only 7 of my 89 books were written by authors who fill all those categories, so I feel like I did fairly well (though a lot of YA authors tend to be female, so that's fairly easy to accomplish). My diversity goal continues, as well as my goal from last year to read more graphic novels/comics. I recently went through and organized my personal library, so I want to read a lot more of the books I own. I also want to read more non-fiction. What are your reading goals?

Let me know if you've read anything from my list, or if you end up reading something I've suggested.

Happy reading, and happy new year!