Remember my new year resolutions for 2019? I was supposed to read 100 books this year. Needless to say thats not exactly how it worked out. Of course, I will do a proper post analysing how all of my resolutions worked out but lets talk about books for this one. This post covers how many books I actually ended up reading, what I read, my favourite book this year and what you should add to your ‘to be read’ list.
Photo by @specialdaddy
Now this post doesn’t cover all the books I have read this year. You can check all the books I have read this year on my Goodreads account but I picked some of the most interesting ones to talk about in this post.
My Favourite Book of the Year
No contest – my favourite book this year is Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney. Without doubt, I will read everything this woman ever writes. Her writing is about ideas, conversations, the vibe, chemistry and everything else that I find delicious to read! If you are looking for a straight forward distinct plot line this is probably not for you. But if you haven’t read Sally Rooney you are missing out. If this wasn’t clear already, I loved this book.
The Heavy Reads
These are absolutely heartbreaking books tackling some very difficult subjects. Major warning: none of these are easy reads but all of them are so well worth it.
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
- Lullaby by Leila Slimani
- A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult
The Best Non-fiction I Read This Year
I actually read very select non-fiction – mostly fashion or environment related so this is not my usual lot. However, I am so glad I did. If you live in the UK, This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay, an ex-NHS doctor should be mandatory reading.
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez is an eye-opener. Everyone needs to read this book. So much information on how the world works. It talks about how everything from your iPhone to your medicines are built for men with some deadly consequences for women. Even if you are a man you will want to bang your head against the wall in frustration.
Bio-graphies and Autobiographies
I am not really a major autobiography or biography reader but this was a good year for this genre. Becoming by Michelle Obama is as amazing you would expect it. Its quite honest but yes, not completely self-reflective or without bias. I would still say its well worth the read.
Aurangzeb by Audrey Truschke is more of an analysis than a biography. Now I really enjoyed it but this is also extremely geeky so I wouldn’t really recommend this book unless you are particularly interested in Aurangzeb as a historical figure. I am oddly fascinated with him – I wrote about him for papers during university and used to read about him frantically. But I have to give this disclaimer: probably not everyone’s cup of tea.
A Beautiful Book That Just Didn’t Work for Me
It can’t get more famous than this. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr won the Pulitzer prize for fiction. It is a lovely book, great historical references and scenes but I don’t know what it was but it didn’t really do it for me. I was always unsure about where it was going. Its an interesting enough read but I felt like I didn’t really feel that committed to the book. Except that one major moral conundrum, I didn’t feel very invested in the book.
Crime and Criminal Psychology
This is my guilty pleasure genre but what I loved about these two books is how they are different than the usual stuff under this genre. Honestly, I can’t really say An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is crime fiction but it does go into details of what happens in a marriage in the event of a crime.
What a book. Warning: The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts is extremely dark and disturbing. But its one of those books you cannot stop reading.
An Interesting Insight into Marriage
Ordinary People by Diana Evans is a fantastic book. It is an interesting look into a marriage. I am quite nosy about this subject so I really enjoyed this. It is in the same line as An American Marriage but this one is more focused on the internal issues within a marriage unlike American Marriage which is more focused on external situations effecting a marriage. She is a fantastic writer and I am already waiting for her next book. Another pro for me was this book is based in London so I like the familiarity with the places mentioned and liked having that reference.
I wanted to quickly talk about fashion since the party season is here. For party outfit inspiration take a look at more alternative outfit options, outfit options to cover every occasion and my favourite kind of material to wear this party season. And last but not the least, a Christmas party outfit inspiration thats easy to put together, simple but so different and effective.
Hope you are enjoying my 2019 yearly round up posts – the last one was for beauty and I covered travel as well. I am definitely going to do one for outfits but let me know if you have any other ideas as well. Make sure you are following us on Instagram. You can check out my ‘books’ highlight on Instagram as well for more books! Happy reading and a very very happy New Year everyone.
– Anisha
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