My “I Read This” List for 2019

I finished reading 47 books this year. That’s only a little under my annual average, but it feels padded by a few children’s books, some zines and a few essays. Not reflected in this list is the time I spent reading parts of a couple large books I have been making slow progress in and haven’t finished. I’ll get them finished eventually. One of my goals for the year was to read more books by women. I have 18 on my list, which isn’t even half, but it is more than last year. My top five of the year, in no particular order, are:

Barbara Hambly – The Silicon Mage – This is part two of the series. I read the first one years ago and finally read the other two. The thing I liked most about this book was the writing about two of the secondary characters. She is a noblewoman who secretly trained to be a warrior before her arranged marriage to the land’s second most prominent noble. He’s a mage-born with almost no power so he had to settle for being a body guard to wizards. The are united by their longing for some other life impossible for them to have. It struck me as better exploration of character then I usually read in fantasy books. Also, the main plot of the book about a wizard trying to use computers to gain immortality is pretty cool too.

Patricia McMillan – Marina and Lee – I read a bunch of books over the last two years about the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. This wasn’t the absolute best one, but I love how McMillan explored the story through interviews with Marina Oswald about her life with this infamous man. I particularly liked the chapters about life in the Soviet Union. Whatever else may have been going on, McMillan presents a strong through-line which explains Lee’s defection, his haphazard activism, and his violence all the way through his death.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Speigelman – This is a classic for a reason. What Speigelman was able to do to tell both his father’s story of life in Poland during the Holocaust and to explore his own relationship with his father is stunning. And he’s done it all with little pictures of mice and cats! This is comics at its best.

Rachel Carson – Silent Spring – Another classic long on my list. It makes it on the best list for it’s importance and legacy. It’s odd to read it now because many of the points she makes about the dangers of untargeted spraying via airplane and “bio-accumulation” of toxins are things I’ve known about since grade school. But that’s the whole point. This is the book which first popularized the idea that more chemicals may not always be better. Carson’s writing is why twenty years later I grew up reading about these ideas in Ranger Rick and Boy’s Life magazines.

A Primate's Memoir – Robert M. Sapolsky – This was one of the most emotional and affecting books I have ever read. Sapolsky is a scientist who has measured stress hormones in baboons as a way to study the impact on humans from the stresses of our social systems. This is not a book of his research, but a memoir of his experiences in East Africa as a younger man. The way he writes about visiting villages, climbing mountains, seeing his baboons roll through the generations is incredible. He made me feel the wonder and horror of the things he saw in a way which I rarely get from travel writing and non-fiction. A triumph of words.

Honorable mentions for this year are Into the Wyrd and Wild, written and (mostly) drawn by Charles Ferguson-Avery. I’d say nice things about this creepy forest supplement to roleplaying games even if I didn’t know him. I also finished book twelve of The History of Middle-earth. It’s been at least 18 years of my life getting through that series (savoring it, not struggling), and now I have that feather in my cap.

The 2019 List:
A+Plus #1-5 - Kevin Siembieda & Alex Marciniszyn, eds. [comics]
Rachel Held Evans - A Year of Biblical Womanhood
JK Rowling - The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Heroic Dark - Dustin DePenning [RPG]
Lee Harvey Oswald as I Knew Him - George de Mohrenschildt
Sarah Elisabeth Orr - Beautiful and Terrible: Women and Power in Early Science Fiction
Barbara Hambly - The Silicon Mage
Hiroko Yoda & Matt Alt - Ninja Attack!
Priscilla McMillan - Marina and Lee
Caitlín R Kiernan - To Charles Fort, With Love
Into the Wyrd and Wild - Charles Ferguson-Avery [RPG]
Ellen Gunderson Traylor - Noah
Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Speigelman [comics]
MetalShark Bro - Walter Ostlie, Bob Frantz and Kevin Cuffe, Chas! Pangburn [comics]
Manjane Satrapi – Persepolis [comics]
Microscope - Ben Robbins [RPG]
Umbrella Academy, Vol 1: Apocalypse Suite - Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá [comics]
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring
The Peoples of Middle Earth (HoME XII) - JRR Tolkien
Summerland: Revised and Expanded Edition - Greg Saunders [RPG]
Gail Simone & Brian Bendis - Birds of Prey (1999-2004) #56-61 [comics]
Barbara Hambly - Dog Wizard
TaoLand #1-5 - Jeff Amano [comics]
TaoLand Adventures #1-2 - Jeff Amano [comics]
The World of the Dark Crystal - Brian Froud & JJ Llewellyn
Kids on Bikes - Jon Gilmour & Doug Levandowski [RPG]
Copernicus Jones: Robot Detective #9 - Matt D Wilson, Kevin Warren & Josh Krach [comics]
Sarah Vowell - Assassination Vacation
Cathriona Tobin & Simon Rogers, eds. - Seven Wonders: A Story Games Anthology [RPG]
Barbarella - Jean-Claude Forest, adapted by Kelly Sue DeConnick [comics]
Tales from the Bully Pulpit - Benito Cereno, Graeme MacDonald, Ron Riley & Chad Manion [comics]
A Primate's Memoir - Robert M Sapolsky
Making History: Three One-Session RPGs - Tristan Zimmerman [RPG]
Horrorism #1 - Brendan Carrion
Roquia Hussain - "Sultana's Dream"
Eve Titus - Basil of Baker Street
The Articles of Confederation (1777)
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think - Dr. Seuss
The King's Stilts - Dr. Seuss
The Cat's Quizzer - Dr. Seuss
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today - Dr. Seuss
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? - Dr. Seuss
Karen Armstrong - Mohammad: Prophet for Our Time
The Constitution of the United States of America (1787)
The Jewish Bible Quarterly Vol. XXX:3 July-September 2002
Sharon Stiteler - Disapproving Rabbits
Dark Places & Demogorgons – Eric Bloat & Josh Palmer [RPG]