My Reading Year 2019

Each year I endeavor to read as many books as I can. These are the books that kept me company in 2019. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. Danish baroness Karen Blixen's account of living a in Africa. She lived a hard life—her husband, who had many affairs, at some point gave her syphilis—but there is no bitterness in this account. Only servants, dogs, lions, chieftains, tribal politics, and farm life. I had the feeling that she left so many things unsaid. Cue Ronan Keating's "When You Say Nothing At All." White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Why had I only discovered Zadie Smith this year? I remember starting on her novel when I saw an old secondhand copy in our bookshelf at home. Her debut novel was about family and friendships, religion and secularism, Muslims and Jehovah's witnesses, Bangladesh and Jamaica. Peasants and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov. Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine. A graphic novel that I read on a plane ride. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame,