I thought this year I would remind folks that this list only includes books I read cover to cover. Most of the critical and a few of the creative works I read are “grad school reads,” meaning I do not (and cannot) read every page. I’ll link some of those books here in case you are interested. (I learned ONE of my friends reads this list, so you know, I have to maintain this list’s tradition of accuracy.)
- Swing Time by Zadie Smith
- Everything I Never Told you by Celeste Ng
- Beast/Meridian by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
- Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine
- A Bestiary by Lily Hoang
- Field Theories by Samiya Bashir
- play dead by francine j. harris
- Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen
- My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
- Hardly War by Don Mee Choi
- Silver Road by Kazim Ali
- These Days of Candy by Manuel Paul Lopez
- Goodbye Lyric by Ruth Ellen Kocher
- Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov
- Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
- In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
- Bluets by Maggie Nelson
- Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski
- Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
- Zong! by M. Nourbese Philips
- Cane by Jean Toomer
- Eye Level by Jenny Xie
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
- Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
- Bringing Down the Shovel by Ross Gay
- Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
- Digest by Gregory Pardlo
- Life in a Pretty Box by Dawn Lundy Martin
- Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn
- Translating Mo’um by Cathy Park Hong
- Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Milk & Filth by Carmen Giménez Smith
It was a good year for reading. As we entered 2019 on the Gregorian calendar, I have been finishing up: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Imaginary Vessels by Paisley Rekdal, and The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. Also, finally bought a Lidia Yuknavitch book to read– The Small Backs of Children. Excited about 2019. Oh, today I also started The Undercommons by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten. But they don’t belong in any system of lists. 😉