My Favorite Books of 2019 and How I Found Them.

Last year, I dedicated myself to a new habit to expand my taste in books.

 I would read any book that would come to me by any means without looking at the blurb. I would blindly read any book that stood out to me – whether that be through a recommendation or a sale or even watching someone enjoy it. 

This has led me to some truly tremendous books this year and narratives I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise. It also led me to some dumpster-fire books that showed me what a good author should not do – books that put me to sleep on the F train. 

The importance of the experience, however, is to acknowledge how these stories come to us. The first contact we make with a book is the beginning of our relationship to the narrative.

Here are the best books I’ve read this year (and where I found them). 

You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories by Alice Walker

• Found in a creepy (yet charming) bookstore in Massachusetts only accessible through a darkly-lit backlot and a set of scary stairs. $2 – in perfect condition. The things I will do for cheap books. Alice Walker’s work here reminds you why she’s an OG among American writers – jarring, beautiful short stories, each narrating the ways that women tackle the political landscapes of sexism and racism when we claim control over our own bodies, minds, and identity. 

Jazz by Toni Morrison

• Bought at NYC’s Strand Bookstore on the night she passed away.  I had been mourning Morrison, a family member and the end of my four-year relationship – and blindly picked up Jazz completely unaware that the book was about mourning too. Sometimes, books find you at the right moment. Here’s a more in-depth review – in the lens of growth and mourning. 

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

• Watched the front desk manager at my therapist’s office ignore the phone for 20 minutes while she read this, with her mouth agape. Bought on Amazon immediately. Machado creates a sparking, haunting, unforgettable collection of poetry and fables – but don’t take my word for it – read the New York Times review. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/books/review-her-body-and-other-parties-carmen-maria-machado.html)

Editor’s Pick: D’Shandi Coombs

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

• Found it on the bookshelf in her new house in Tanzania. Non-fiction true crime piece that takes place in Savannah, but you don’t know it’s a true-crime story until halfway through the book because you’re so caught up in the charm of Savannah and all its inhabitants. 

This Could Hurt: A Novel by Jillian Medoff

• Quickly downloaded the library e-book while stuck on the L train for an hour. It was the first book available and I was trying to not stare at the woman clipping her nails in front of me. Jillian Medoff is really an excellent storyteller – in the way that each voice in “This Could Hurt” rounds out a human resource department full of well… humans. These are imperfect people who have to serve as the gatekeepers of a company while managing who comes and goes during the 2008 recession. Come for the HR scandal, stay for the beautiful, cringe-inducing, amazing ways the people we meet at work can impact our lives. (ALSO READ Hunger Point by Jillian Medoff. She’s that good.)

In Full Color by Rachel Dolezal 

• Just kidding. But someone heard about my challenge to blindly read books and left this on my desk at my coworking space. Nice try – I donated it. 

Halsey Street by Naima Coster. 

• Drunkenly found in a garage sale on … wait for it … Halsey Street. Got it for $1 because it had some HEAVY notation. Ironic, as the book gives us an Afro-Latina protagonist balancing caring for her aging father and for her own trauma under the backdrop of gentrification in the neighborhood. 

Editor’s Pick – Anna Jankowski

“The Game of Desire” by Shannon Boodram

• Found after watching Boodram’s Youtube Channel ShanBoody. Boodram is a sexologist, who makes the conversation on sex, dating and seduction advice less uncomfortable and more honest, informed and powerful.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

• Found at the Bryant Park Holiday Market for $6. I was depressed and exhausted and avoiding those family members – you know the ones who have a lot to say about thick hair? Read it, felt something inside me break and heal itself again – I can’t explain it. I re-read it every month since.

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

• Given out after attending a talk with Pauletta Washington. Dismissed it as “self-help mumbo jumbo” for a month. I was wrong. Gave myself the assessment and realized how much I underestimated my own strength.