Books I Read in 2019
5 min readJan 25, 2020
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Here are all the covers (thanks Goodreads!)
10 Books I Particularly Loved And Why
- “Big Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty
Why do we even need horror stories? Parenting is already a state of continuous, low-level dread. - “The Calculating Stars” by Mary Robinette Kowal
Misogyny in the space program is so entrenched that even destroying the whole East Coast of the US with an asteroid can’t fix it. - “Change is the Only Constant” by Ben Orlin
Calculus is so much fun when you don’t need to prove anything. - “Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe
Twenty-somethings can be so self-righteous it’s terrifying. - “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander
The history of civil rights makes me appreciate how things can change so much and so little at the same time. - “Record of a Spaceborn Few” by Becky Chambers
US immigration policy is a mess, but maybe there’s still hope for interstellar immigration policy. - “Mind and Matter” by John Urschel and Louisa Thomas
Getting a PhD in math can’t possibly be as fun as this book makes it sound. - “Becoming” by Michelle Obama
Obama should write a sequel entirely of stories about her parents being cheeky. - “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis
My friends in middle school had multiple conversations about how much we loved The Weather Channel. This book felt like the grown-up version of that.
Perspective Check
(The collections and the John Urschel / Louisa Thomas book throw the totals off a bit)
By Only Men: 15 / 53
By Only Women: 33 / 53
By Only White People: 36 / 53
By Only Non-White People: 12 / 53
Fiction: 28 / 53
Non-Fiction: 25 / 53
Recent Releases (2018 or 2019): 23 / 53
Modern Releases (2010–2017): 16 / 53
Classic Releases (pre-2010): 14 / 53
Happy 2020!