Top Ten (Or So): Books Read in 2019

This was a pretty good year. I decided to go through my many many books that I owned and had never read, and try to read (or listen to) as many as I could. 21 of the 39 books I read this year were in that category. And in the end... it wasn't really worth it. Not in the sense that I'm sorry I decided to do that. But in the sense that almost all of them were not books I loved. (Saint Joan, mentioned below, was the biggest exception.) It really started to hit home that my time on earth is limited, and there's no point reading tons of books I'm not going to love.

So now, by the beginning of 2020, I've really started to get used to my new taste in books, and slowly realizing I don't have to like the things I used to like. If my thing now is plays and journalism, so be it. All the better.

So without further ado, in sort-of approximate order from least to most favourite, are some of the best books I read in 2015:

Runners Up: The Fictional Books

--Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. It was good and gripping. I enjoyed the twist quite a lot. Main reason why it's a Runner Up is because some of the drama in the middle of the book was tiring for me.

--The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett. I don't have too much to say about this one, but I quite enjoyed it. It was one of the few fictional books I was able to get through this year. And definitely the world building was part of that. Some great and interesting things in this book! (Although I kind of suspect that half the reason why I liked this one so much was because I read it during our week of no internet. I've discovered more and more how much my internet use is making it hard to focus these days.)

Third Place: The Journalistic Books

A cool guy.
(Malcolm Gladwell)

--The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I'm also including the other two books I read by him this year, What the Dog Saw and Talking to Strangers. Gladwell is one of my favourite authors now. Although I didn't enjoy these ones as much as the ones I read by him last year, they were still quite fascinating, and gave me many things to think about.

--How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. Gave me new things to think about. That's mostly what I ask for in a book these days.

--10% Happier by Dan Harris. I'd already experienced the importance of meditation before reading this, but this reinforced my beliefs, and gave me inspiration to get back to my meditation practice.

--QED by Richard Feynman. It actually did help me understand some of quantum dynamics a lot better than before. I've always been fascinated by those mysterious areas of science, and it was great to be just a little clearer about how it works.

Second Place: Some Random Nonfiction Books

--Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The human brain is fascinating, and we make many assumptions about life and how we think, without actually having any evidence for it.

--The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz. Half of why I loved this book was the experience of reading it: the beautiful feel of the book and pages, the way it felt to hold it. But it was also a lovely, thought-provoking book, for the most part.

A sample of my Pinterest board created for one of the exercises in The Curated Closet

--The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees. This book is not exactly objectively amazing, but it really really helped and inspired me, and that's what counts. It helped me think about and enjoy my clothes in way I never had in my life before. And I had so much fun doing the exercises with a friend of mine!

First Place: The Play

--Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. Like last year, I liked the play I read better than any other fiction from the year. And this was so good. Joan herself was such an amazing character. From my Catholic upbringing, I was used to thinking of Shaw as a bit of the bad guy--at least in his opinions (not character). He was the one who disagreed with Chesterton on everything, and Chesterton was the best. That feeling that Shaw was somehow suspect stuck with me, unconsciously, but this book got rid of that. He had many very interesting ideas in this book, and made me think a lot.

The saint herself.

P.S. See also the Top Ten (Or So) lists from previous years: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Top Ten (Or So): Covers of Books Read in 2019

So for the fourth year in a row, I feel like this year was really not great for covers. Maybe it's my fault...? I've somehow lost my appreciation for book covers? Or maybe it's because the kind of book I read now has changed, and that kind of book doesn't tend to have nice covers.

Who knows. Anyway. There's only two that I would say spoke to me in any way. The rest I chose just because I had to choose more than two, and they were nice enough.

So in approximate order from favourite to least favourite, my top ten of last year:

The cover for The Emperor's Blades is just beautiful. It gives me a feeling of epicness. And having three such different looking people made me think there could be at least three very awesome characters in it. (I didn't end up enjoying the book as much as I enjoyed the cover, although it was good.)

I, Robot is the second cover that struck me. It's just so green and computery! I can't explain it much more than that. The version I had was a beautiful hard cover, too. It even felt great.

The minimalist aesthetic appeals to me a lot. That's all I really need to say for Goodbye, Things.

Gotta give a place to a good, old-fashioned hard cover book, which is exactly what Man's Search for Meaning was. Plus it's blue. I like blue.

I'm not exactly sure why The Mastery of Love's cover appeals to me, but it does. I think half of it is the feel of the book, actually. The uneven pages, the smallish size of it, the bendy-but-still-firm-ness. Good stuff.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a bit similar, actually. Half of why I liked it is the feel of the book, although the cover is also noticeable and interesting to me.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick has beautiful illustrations inside and out.


P.S. See also my previous lists: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.