In 2019, I read some very fine books and a handful I thoroughly disliked. I joined a book club (briefly). I made a real effort to do #nonfictionnovember and even remembered to Instagram my reads every month. Look, I made them into a flashy gif:

(Don’t look at it too long, it might give you a seizure).

Here are some statistics, because statistics can be fun…

• I read 20,320 pages over 65 books.
• The shortest was a book of poetry by Mary Oliver (Blue Horses), clocking in at just 83 pages.
• The longest was Hanya Yanagihara’s heart-wrenching A Little Life (720 pages). 
• 68% (44 books) were written by women.
• 15% (10 books) were written by Australian women.
• 15% (10 books) were non-fiction.
• I am notoriously tough with my 5 star ratings, giving them to only 12% (8 books).
• 29% (19 books) rated 4 stars.
• 9% (6 books) rated 2 stars or below.

Here’s the full 65, with the books I rated as 5 Star Reads in bold:

1. All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
2. How to Be a Woman – Caitlin Moran
3. Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit – Amy Stewart
4. Eleven Hours – Paullina Simons
5. City of the Beasts – Isabel Allende
6. Burial Rites – Hannah Kent
7. The Museum of Modern Love – Heather Rose
8. All the Anxious Girls on Earth – Zsuzsi Gartner
9. The Boy on the Bridge – M.R. Carey
10. Lola Bensky – Lily Brett
11. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Joy Fowler
12. The Dry – Jane Harper
13. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
14. See What I Have Done – Sarah Schmidt
15. I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive – Steve Earle
16. Daring Greatly – Brene Brown
17. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
18. Room – Emma Donoghue
19. War Storm – Victoria Aveyard
20. Pink Mountain on Locust Island – Jamie Marina Lau
21. All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld
22. Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
23. A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
24. Blue Horses – Mary Oliver
25. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy – Tim Burton
26. The Natural Way of Things – Charlotte Wood
27. First, We Make the Beast Beautiful – Sarah Wilson
28. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
29. Daisy Jones & The Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid
30. Looking for Alaska – John Green
31. Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion
32. I Love Dick – Chris Kraus
33. Congo –  Michael Crichton
34. Normal People – Sally Rooney
35. Only the Animals – Ceridwen Dovey
36. Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
37. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
38. The Silence of the Girls – Pat Barker
39. The Boneless Mercies – April Genevieve Tucholke
40. Fleishman is in Trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner
41. Lies Sleeping – Ben Aaronovitch
42. The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovitch
43. Write Away – Elizabeth George
44. Beloved – Toni Morrison
45. Big Little Lies – Liane Moriarty
46. The Miracle at Speedy Motors – Alexander McCall Smith
47. Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie
48. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
49. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
50. Tell-All – Chuck Palahniuk
51. Autumn – Ali Smith
52. Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love Notes and Heartbreak in the Stacks – Annie Spence
53. Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss
54. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
55. The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
56. A Complicated Kindness – Miriam Toews
57. Kopp Sisters on the March – Amy Stewart
58. Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men – Caroline Criado-Perez
59. A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons – Ben Folds
60. The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself – Michael A Singer
61. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris
62. Quiet Girls Can Run The World: The Beta Woman’s Guide to the Modern Workplace – Rebecca Holman
63. Native Tongue – Suzette Haden Elgin
64. Dracul – Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
65. Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell