2019 was my best reading year (in terms of both total number of books read and total page count) since I started tracking my reading! I owe that success in no small part to two deep dives I took: one at the beginning of the year back into a well-beloved series I had read before and never finished, and one, over the summer, into Agatha Christie and her work. For my thoughts on those twenty-five books, you can check out my “Why Agatha” post. In keeping with the general rules I set for last year’s book review, of the remaining fourteen books on my list I chose eight of those I’d not read before that really stuck with me to focus on here. I have listed them in the order I read them. Also like last year, I have included my complete 2019 Read List at the bottom of this post, in case you happen to be interested. If you are looking for your next read, I hope you may find a little inspiration here!

1. The Ragged Edge of Night: Olivia Hawker

I devoured Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See back in 2015. I keep meaning to reread it but haven’t sat back down with it yet. When this one popped up as one of Audible’s daily deals last spring, the cover art reminded me of the incomparable All the Light. The story both sounded intriguing and promised to be a slightly fictionalized working of true events, so in I dove. Olivia Hawker’s husband’s grandfather, Anton Starzmann, was a Franciscan friar before his order was disbanded by the Nazi party. No longer able to follow his calling in the church, he seeks meaning and purpose by answering a personal ad: a widow seeking a husband to help her provide for her three young children. Hawker narrates Anton’s journey through the remaining war years simply and beautifully, rarely venturing beyond the bounds of the tiny village where he lives with his new family. It is a tale of community, commitment, and the vital importance of each person’s unique talents in both times of strife and peace. Nick Sandys provides an admirable reading.

2. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch: Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

A fellow tour guide friend of mine is an avid fan of Terry Pratchett and has been preaching his wonders to me for years. I have never read his work. As for Neil Gaiman, when I saw the movie Stardust, I loved it, went to read the book, and was so disturbed I have never picked up a Neil Gaiman book since. In theory, I like the guy (I heard his thoughts on marriage read at a wedding a year or so back, which endeared him to me a little more) but not enough, I suppose, to try another of his books. So it goes. My aforementioned friend bought me a copy of Good Omens on a browsing trip one dreary Boston afternoon, and I promised him I would read it. I picked it up and put it down multiple times, and while the tone of it certainly appealed to me, I just couldn’t get hooked in. Then, Amazon announced they were coming out with a mini-series adaptation of it. It looked good. I wanted to watch it. I had to read the book first. I got the audiobook narrated by Martin Jarvis. Done. Sold. Fantastic. Martin Jarvis’ reading is hilariously wonderful, especially his voice for Adam, the antichrist. There is an antiquarian bookshop-owning angel and heaps of irreverently dry British humor. What more could one ask for in a summer romp?

3. Civil War Boston: Homefront and Battlefield: Thomas H. O’Connor

Near the end of the summer, a lovely guest contacted me through Tours By Locals requesting a tour through Mount Auburn Cemetery. Having become much better acquainted with that spot over the last year, it is now one of my absolute favorite places, and so I was only too happy to oblige. However, the dear lady was a licensed Gettysburg Battlefield Guide (a great feat, let me assure you) and wanted to visit mostly graves of lesser-known Bostonians and Cantabrigians who fought in the Civil War. I have read adjacent to the Civil War for years but not at all deeply, and I felt my knowledge of the subject woefully inadequate for the purpose of guiding an expert. So I went to my shelf and dusted off my copy of Civil War Boston, which I collected at another visit to the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse Sale. I am not sure if it was reading about this war through the lens of the city with which I have become so intimately familiar, the life experience of the three years since I visited Gettysburg, the current political climate in our country, or a combination of all of these, but my reading of Civil War Boston last summer moved me in a way none of my Civil War reading has before. It brought me face-to-face with some very unpleasant truths about the Boston Irish and their views on slavery and emancipation (having Irish heritage myself, I have always erred on the side of romanticizing the Irish side of the Boston story), which has since helped me to become more aware of the way I read and teach history. I finished this book just as we were leaving for a wedding in Virginia, and so I had it firmly in mind on visiting Monticello and the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. I returned to Boston committed to including more of the gray areas and difficult conversations in my tours. History is never purely black and white, and trying to oversimplify and gloss over the challenging bits puts us in danger of repeating the worst of our past. I went on a deeper dive into my thoughts and feelings on history’s bearing on our current political climate here.

4. City of Girls: Elizabeth Gilbert

I came to Elizabeth Gilbert’s work as so many people have, through her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Trite as it may seem, that book and its sequel, Committed, helped me navigate some rough personal waters several years ago. I like the lady; I like her insights; I like what she stands for. She has helped me feel a lot better about being me. I also thoroughly enjoy her writing. I tore through her historical novel, The Signature of All Things, at the beginning of 2015 and gleefully bought a ticket to go see her at the Harvard Bookstore when her book Big Magic came out later that fall. I just as gleefully bought a ticket to go see her when she came back to the Harvard Bookstore last June with her new historical novel, City of Girls. What a ride! This is the story of Vivian Morris, daughter of wealthy, blue-blooded New Yorkers, who drops out of Smith College and moves to New York City on the eve of the Second World War. The first section of the book is exactly what I was led to believe, lots of sex and booze as Vivian allows herself to come unlaced and embraces the New York party scene. But as Vivian’s story progresses, it morphs into a much more tender reflection of love in chosen families and what we can mean to each other by being ourselves. It was a delicious ride and over too fast.

5. The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies: Jason Fagone

I wrote last year about a little binge I went on in 2018. I began exploring women in the Space Race, and that took me back to the lady codebreakers of the Second World War. As I felt myself drawn inexplicably back to that topic early last fall, I went to Audible and got a copy of this book, which kept cropping up in my searches for “books like Code Girls.” It is a biography of a remarkable woman, her remarkable work, and remarkable marriage. I loved it. Elizabeth Friedman and her husband William were pioneers in American code-breaking. They met in 1916 at Riverbank, the almost unbelievable commune-like ranch of an eccentric millionaire, and traveled together through two world wars and the building of two essential, and yet almost entirely hidden, careers. Elizabeth was a brilliant woman ahead of her time. I came away inspired.

6. The Ten Thousand Doors of January: Alix E. Harrow

I found this gem in Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop in Bar Harbour when we were there with Dylan’s family early last fall. We had already stopped in Camden, which has a couple of lovely bookshops. I didn’t need another addition to my stack, but this one called to me. I grew up with The Chronicles of Narnia, checking the backs of all the wardrobes and closets I encountered for that mythic door to elsewhere. I somehow managed to lock my grandmother’s wooden bathroom cabinet with a random antique key (the locksmith had to be called to get it open again) in hopes of turning my plastic Meeko real after reading The Indian in the Cupboard. And don’t even get me started again on Platform 9 3/4. Long story short, I believe in Doors. And this is a book about Doors. With the one minor exception of a rather trite vampire, this is my favorite kind of fantasy. The kind that has logic and blends so beautifully into the reality we know that it doesn’t take much suspension of disbelief at all to think it certainly could be true. Beautifully, compellingly written, this was exactly the book I’ve been wanting to read for a very long time.

7. The Clockmaker’s Daughter: Kate Morton

This one I found on Nantucket. My mom and I ventured out to the island for the first time when she was in town last summer. It was a whirlwind trip, out one day and back the next, and, of course, the first thing I found after we’d disembarked and gotten some food was the bookstore. One of the bookstores. There are a couple. This book came from Nantucket Bookworks. It was that time in July when I was so tired I couldn’t quite see straight. The time of the year when it is hot, I’m frazzled, and all I really want to do is curl up in bed behind my blackout curtains with my air conditioner and listen to The Historian. So, of course, I bought a book about a haunted house. July is the month for gothic novels. I didn’t have the time to sit down and read this until November, but in July it seemed the perfect choice. I found the writing the slightest bit clunky coming out of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, but the story is certainly haunting in a way that compelled me to keep reading. An introverted archivist finds a clue to an historical mystery important to both the archive in which she works and her own family. With naught but an old photograph of an unknown woman and an ancient satchel in hand, she sets off to uncover the truth of a mythic old house that may, or may not, be guarded by fairies. In the end, it turned out to be a beautiful, heartbreaking and redemptive mystery, perfect for any time you’d like a slightly gothic read.

8. The Miniaturist: Jessie Burton

And finally, speaking of haunting, we have The Miniaturist. Oof. This was another acquisition from the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse sale, gorgeously written, and gutwrenchingly painful. I don’t think I’ll be rereading this one, but I’m glad I went through it once. This is a tale of an 18-year-old bride who moves from the country to Amsterdam in the 1680s to take residence in the home of the new husband she’s only met once. What was meant to be a safe marriage to a wealthy merchant quickly devolves into a nightmare for poor Nella as, behind the closed doors of her new home, she comes face-to-face with all of the darkest prejudices of the “modern” city in which she now lives. This one was also vaguely inspired by a real person, or rather, her real dollhouse that the author encountered in a museum. While Jessie Burton’s Petronella Ortman doesn’t share anything but the dollhouse and her name with her real-life counterpart, her story is a gripping glimpse into life, love, fear, and hatred in 1680s Amsterdam. Oddly, it doesn’t look completely different from today.

So there we have the highlights of my very successful 2019 reading year. I started out this year with a strong showing in January but sadly petered off when I discovered the show Outlander in February. I have already read a few delights this year, though, and I have almost ten months left in 2020. Who knows what I may find!

Whether you find some inspiration on my list or your interests lead you elsewhere, happy reading!

The 2019 Read List

1. The Hippopotamus Pool: Elizabeth Peters (1.7.19, 430 pgs. A)
2. Seeing A Large Cat: Elizabeth Peters (1.13.19, 414 pgs. A)
3. The Ape Who Guards the Balance: Elizabeth Peters (1.21.19, 430 pgs. A)
4. The Falcon at the Portal: Elizabeth Peters (1.28.19, 438 pgs A)
5. He Shall Thunder in the Sky: Elizabeth Peters (2.4.19, 486 pgs A)
6. Cinnamon and Gunpowder: Eli Brown (2.19.19, 318 pgs)
7. Lord of the Silent: Elizabeth Peters (2.20.19, 463 pgs. A)
8. The Golden One: Elizabeth Peters (3.16.19, 448 pgs. A)
9. Children of the Storm: Elizabeth Peters (3.27.19, 480 pgs. A)
10. The Serpent on the Crown: Elizabeth Peters (3.31.19, 368 pgs A)
11. The Witches of New York: Ami McKay (4.1.19, 535 pgs.)
12. Tomb of the Golden Bird: Elizabeth Peters (5.4.19, 320 pgs. A)
13. Dreaming Spies: Laurie R. King (5.13.19, 331 pgs. A)
14. Locked Rooms: Laurie R. King (5.18.19, 402 pgs. A)
15. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (5.28.19, 288 pgs. A)
16. The Ragged Edge of Night: Olivia Hawker (6.13.19, 352 pgs A)
17. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books: Micheal Dirda (6.14.19, 246 pgs)
18. Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life: Laura Thompson (6.27.19, 485 pgs)
19. Death on the Nile: Agatha Christie (6.27.19, 333 pgs)
20. The Murder at the Vicarage: Agatha Christie (7.2.19, 304 pgs)
21. The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Agatha Christie (7.6.19, 204 pgs)
22. A Murder is Announced: Agatha Christie (7.9.19, 320 pgs)
23. A Pocket Full of Rye: Agatha Christie (7.11.19, 256 pgs)
24. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories: Agatha Christie (7.15.19, 256 pgs.)
25. The Man in the Brown Suit: Agatha Christie (7.17.19, 320 pgs)
26. After the Funeral: Agatha Christie (7.17.19, 304 pgs)
27. 4:50 from Paddington: Agatha Christie ( 7.20.19, 288 pgs)
28. Nemesis: Agatha Christie (7.26.19, 304 pgs)
29. The Sittaford Mystery: Agatha Christie (7.28.19, 288 pgs)
30. The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side: Agatha Christie (8.1.19, 288 pgs)
31. The Mystery of the Blue Train: Agatha Christie (8.5.19, 226 pgs)
32. The Clocks: Agatha Christie (8.7.19, 320 pgs)
33. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch: Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (8.11.19 , 412 pgs)
34. Civil War Boston: Homefront and Battlefield: Thomas H. O’Connor (8.22.19,  252 pgs.)
35. City of Girls: Elizabeth Gilbert (9.23.19, 470 pgs)
36. The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies: Jason Fagone (10.1.19, 464 pgs)
37. The Ten Thousand Doors of January: Alix E. Harrow (10.10.19, 374 pgs)
38. The Clockmaker’s Daughter: Kate Morton (11.13.19, 486 pgs.)
39. The Miniaturist: Jessie Burton (12.18.19, 400 pgs.)