Books of 2019

To clarify, these are favorite books I have read in thus far in 2019, not books that were necessarily  written in 2019.

Pride and Prejudice and Passports by Corrie Garret- Again. Another P&P retelling. In the six months since last writing I have read others but  I chose this one to include because I liked it the best. The ‘Bennet family’ characters are immigrants from Mexico. ‘Darcy’ is involved in political strategy for the Republican party, ‘Wickham’ is a photographer, Mr. Bingsley is up and coming politician. I thought it was a well balanced and fun adaptation.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky- Not gonna lie, this falls in my top 10 books for which I am proud for having finished. I read it with a group of friends and the fact that we had a date to discuss it helped me finish in a timely manner. But the last page was worth the whole endeavour. It really was. If a book has a good ending I can forgive a lot of confusion on the way to getting there. And given the story was crossing time, culture, and language to enter my head, there was some confusion. But I totally recommend it, maybe with a book club or a friend or at least a Youtube video to help you along.

The Eight by Katherine Neville- This book I can best to compare to the Da Vinci Code. You are flipping back and forth between a modern-day search and a quest in the 1700s, both for the same thing. What thing? That is the story! If I played Chess I would have liked it even more as Chess is a major theme throughout, I still was sucked into the story without knowing the game though. And, I solved half of one of the riddles in the book before the protagonist! That was fun. Kind of a nerd dream come true book, history and puzzles and chess.

The Road to Character by David Brooks- Have not actually finished yet, but loving it! Brooks is such a talented writer. He takes 9 traits of character and 9 accompanying historical figures, one for each chapter. He shows how these people embodied these traits, and why these traits are important in our society today. Kind of a call to look back and see some of what we have lost or forgotten in American culture.

Vinegar Girl: William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew Retold by Anne Tyler- I have this goal of reading the actual works of Shakespeare before I die, but I thought I would start with modern retellings first! In this retelling ‘Katherine’ is the daughter of a researcher who desperately needs his co-researcher to stay for their work, but his coworker’s visa is going to expire soon. You can probably guess the rest. The coworker is from Russia, I liked how the author gave us insight into how he was reacting to American culture as an expat.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776-Present by Michael B. Oren- Former Israeli Ambassador takes you through history and catalogues America’s long and not always simple relationship with the Middle East. I found it very insightful.

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl- This is about the era before copyrights were in place to protect authors and printing presses. ‘Bookaneers’ were people who brought books across the continents to print them without the author’s permission or knowledge. In this story you learn some history of Robert Louis Stevenson. Another book where if the last lines had not been written I would have liked it significantly less.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Berbury- I laughed, and I cried (twice!) reading this book. It is originally a French novel, but the translation was excellent, you probably couldn’t tell had I not mentioned it. The author herself is a philosophy teacher, so I ended up skimming some paragraphs due to extensive wordiness. But the story was so unpredictable and beautiful. It is told from the viewpoints of both a child genius and a middle-aged, poor hotel attendant who is also a genius but hides it from the world.

Skeletons in Gods Closet by Joshua Ryan Butler- This book tackles some of the standard obstacles post-modern thinkers run up against when exploring Christianity. Or even lifelong believers have these questions. It has chapters like The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgement, the Hope of Holy War. If anyone reads it and wants to discuss I would love to! I really enjoyed the book, not sure if I agree with every single thing Butler says, but I did learn a lot.