I've Seen it in Your Eyes and I've Read it in Books

Today I'm doing my 2019 in books post. I read 92 books in 2019. I gave myself a couple of nerd girl challenges,  I read some great books, and some books where I finished them, and just went, "meh". Here is where I rank some of the best of my reads:


Best Short Stories:

Apparently, I only read one collection of short stories this year. I'll have to do better in 2020. "What is Yours is Not Yours" by Helen Oyemi is a pretty damn good collection to read, if you're only going to read one.


Best Children's/YA Books:

1.) "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", by Sherman Alexie.

2.) "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe", C. S. Lewis.

3.) "Little House in the Big Woods"/"Farmer Boy", Laura Ingalls Wilder

4.) "Where The Red Fern Grows", Wilson Rawls.

5.) "The Wind in the Willows", Kenneth Grahame.

The Best More Current Fantasy/Sci Fi:

1.) "Adulthood Rites", Octavia Butler.

2.) "Anansi Boys", Neil Gaiman


The Best Classic Fantasy Sci Fi. There's a tie for first. Both of these books are so good, there's no way you could make one second best:

1.) "The Left Hand of Darkness", Ursula Le Guin

1.) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy", JRR Tolkien

The Best Detective/Mystery Books:

1.) "The Secret Place", Tana French

2.) "Devil in a Blue Dress", Walter Mosley

3.) "The Witch Elm", Tana French

The Best Classic Novels:

1.) "Portrait of a Lady", Henry James.

2.) "Madame Bovary", Gustave Flaubert.

3.) "Dracula", Bram Stoker.

4.) "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", Shirley Jackson.

5.) "Spectator Bird", Wallace Stegner


One of my nerd reading projects was to read all of the Jane Austen novels except "Pride and Prejudice", which I read the year before. I will now attempt to rank them in order of which I liked the best and on down (including P&P).

1.) "Persuasion"

2.) "Pride and Prejudice" - I would say this ties with Persuasion.

3.) "Sense and Sensibility"

4.) "Emma"

5.) "Mansfield Park"

6.) "Northanger Abbey"

Best Non-Fiction:

1.) "Educated", Tara Westover

2.) "The Liar's Club", Mary Karr

3.) "Me Talk Pretty One Day", David Sedaris

4.) "Unfamiliar Fishes", Sarah Vowell

5.) "Hillbilly Elegy", JD Vance


Best Overall Novels I Read This Year:

1.) "Homegoing", Yaa Gyaasi.

2.) "Possession" AS Byatt

3.) "Washington Black", Esi Edugyan

4.) "There There", Tommy Orange

5.) "La Rose", Louise Erdrich


So, that's all for books from last year. I noticed I didn't read any graphic novels and I need to read more short story collections, so I have that to look forward to in 2020. Happy reading to all you all!