A belated Happy Holidays, gang! I’m a few days late on this, but that still leaves you with 360 reading days in 2019.

Speaking of holidays, I might move to Iceland. (I know that seems like a non-sequitur, bear with me for a sec.) I know, I know, more than one of you has heard me say I’m never even going to visit there, but that was before I learned about jólabókaflóð. Don’t hurt your brain trying to sound out that pronunciation, just call it the Christmas book flood. That’s right, the Christmas. Book. FLOOD!!! It’s where Icelanders gift each other piles of books for Christmas, then promptly ignore each other and spend the holidays curled up reading their new books. This is the single greatest idea I have ever heard. How do we bring this to Canada???

Onto the list, my faves of the year. Interesting to note, the 117 books I read on the year tilted more to non-fiction that fiction for the first time ever. That was completely unintentional, I suppose the organic result of reading without a plan, simply picking up whatever I felt like reading next in these, ahem, “interesting” times. But you’ll see it reflected in the list below – not much escapism here.

Since nothing makes me happier than helping someone find a book they love or inspiring someone who doesn’t read much to read more, there’s something for almost everyone here… Social justice warriors. Romantics. Canadians. Torontonians. LGBTQ+ allies. Political junkies. Bibliophiles. Philosophers. History buffs. Women. Anyone who knows any women. Concerned global citizens. Adventure seekers (of the real or armchair variety). Fans of writing of all kinds – CanLit, Indigenous lit, historical lit, war lit, prize lit, tragicomedy, family sagas, true crime, Shakespeare, tear jerkers, and more. And one in particular for anyone who owns a smartphone.

These are presented in reverse order of reading for a change. (No strategic reason, just that pure laziness kept me from taking notes throughout the year so the more recent ones are easier to recall!)

*****

Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
(496 pages, first published 2004)
About a month before I read this, I spied Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall at the Writers’ Trust gala, decked out in finery, regaling a table of guests. I have a hard time reconciling that picture of him in my brain with the Shaun in this book – the one who lived in Toronto’s Tent City, that infamous shantytown on the lakeshore, for almost a year (until it was razed in 2002). This is an affecting personal story, a fascinating work of immersive journalism, and of course, an eye-opening take on homelessness.

Up from Freedom, by Wayne Grady
(368 pages, first published 2018)
Can one be free and enslaved at the same time? What about Black and white? This novel explores those questions as it winds its way through antebellum Texas, Louisiana and Indiana.

Becoming, by Michelle Obama
(426 pages, first published 2018)
You don’t live under a rock so you know by now that the world is raving about this book, and the woman behind it. It was the bestselling book of 2018, and it was only out for a few weeks! That happens when you sell 725,000 copies on release day. It’s not a polemic. It’s authentic, engrossing storytelling of a life. You learn stuff you didn’t know before, and you get chills reading about the historic moments, private and public. Doesn’t matter your political stripe, just read it.

Ragged Company, by Richard Wagamese
(376 pages, first published 2008)
I got in trouble from my mom because of this book. My crime: telling her about it, which directly led to her staying up way too late listening to it. The story of four homeless people who find a winning lottery ticket is a hidden gem of Wagamese’s. It’s not well known at all in his long list of books, and no one I know who has read it can figure out why. It achieved a rare feat at book group – it had everyone liking a novel! (Thanks for bringing it to us, Joanne.)

In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, by Judi Rever
(288 pages, first published 2018)
You’ve seen books about Rwanda and the 1994 genocide on my list before. This monumental work of investigative reporting outdoes them all. Or rather, upends them all. The “saviors” who ended the genocide? Well, they weren’t. It’s shocking and shattering.

Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution, by Ben Fountain
(448 pages, first published 2018)
This collection (from the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk) alternates essays written in 2016 with monthly run-downs of all the news from the year. Once you read those you realize how many things happened that you forgot, since the news comes fast and furious now. The essays make for an indispensable explainer of the 2016 election and the evolution of the political and social climate in the US in the decades leading up to it.

All We Leave Behind: A Reporter’s Journey Into the Lives of Others, by Carol Off
(320 pages, first published 2017)
I’ve never been to J-school, but I’m pretty sure the first rule is: don’t put yourself in the story. I’m also sure the unwritten corollary could be: until you really can’t keep out of it. This is the highly personal story of a highly respected journalist, as her life becomes entwined with a family of refugees fleeing danger and looking to Canada for help.

My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues, by Pamela Paul
(256 pages, first published 2017)
I have been keeping a log of every book I read since 1996. This has never resulted in any adventures of any sort. Not so for Pamela Paul, and her one and only Bob. 

I’m Afraid of Men, by Vivek Shraya
(96 pages, first published 2018)
This is not much more than a half-hour read, but manages to deliver a weighty message. Trans artist Shraya unravels how it feels when the world considers you too feminine to be male and too male to be female, and punishes you for it.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan 
(432 pages, first published 2018)
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I predicted this would win the Giller right after it was published, well before the long list even came out. It’s just so special. It starts off on a slave plantation, and ends up roaming the globe. Esi Edugyan is a marvel. (She may not have won the Booker Prize, but the writer from Victoria did catch the attention of President O.! She pops up on his annual year-end list of favourite reads.)

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
(462 pages, first published 2016)
1922, Moscow. The charismatic Count Rostov is sentenced to life imprisonment – in a grand hotel, and you are very glad he is, so you can be imprisoned with him.

The Barking Dog, by Cordelia Strube
(472 pages, first published 2000)
Cordelia Strube should be a household name in Toronto, IMO. I have yet to give a book of hers fewer than five stars. This one only touches on murder, divorce, mental health, domestic violence, cancer, and more. And in true Strube fashion, it’s an urban, offbeat, humorous depiction of despair.

This is How It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel
(336 pages, first published 2017)
First Claude is Claude, then Claude becomes Poppy, and her family is just fine with that. But will the neighbours be? A love-filled novel for our times.

Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive & Creative Self, by Manoush Zomorodi
(208 pages, first published 2017)
I would not shut up about this book this summer, as some of you will attest. We all know we’re too attached to our phones, we all clutch them closely anyway. Zamorodi entertainingly describes what happens as she and her podcast listeners experiment with letting go, just a little bit.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing
(357 pages, first published 1959)
I picked this up cuz it was a gift… and I could not put it down. The tale of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition gone awry – the ship trapped in pack ice; the men making camp; their attempts to reach land, any land; and the sled dogs, oy, the dogs – is majestically written. (Props to Effie and co. for the great find.)

Whiskey & Ribbons, by Leesa Cross-Smith
(272 pages, first published 2018)
The bookternet has been applauding Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage, which also came out this year. It’s very very good, but I liked this one even better. It too, tells of an American marriage. The criss-crossing threads of three different narrators come together to form a sort of fairy tale – a sad one. Two have experienced a massive lost; the third is the lost. It’s a soulful story.

The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin
(346 pages, first published 2018)
What if you knew when your life will end? That is the question facing four adolescent siblings, after their encounter with a mystic in NY in 1969. And it’s the hook that keeps you wanting to read through their lives.

Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying, by Sallie Tisdale
(256 pages, first published 2018)
I know, there’s one every year… the one that makes you go, “You read a book about what?” (Funnily enough, I never see that listed anywhere as a genre, but it should be.) I continue to feed my obsession with human mortality. This one is more of a practical take, as opposed to a metaphysical one.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After, by Clementine Waymaria
(288 pages, first published 2018)
This is a Rwanda genocide memoir, so it’s filled with heart-rending moments. The most searing of all to me doesn’t even come during six-year-old Clementine’s harrowing flight from the massacre or subsequent six-year search for a safe haven – it’s when her new American friends want to give her the best pillow because she lived through those things. Despite the heaviness, there is room for light in these pages, too.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann
(338 pages, first published 2017)
I don’t know where to start with this one, there’s so much in it! Mysterious murders. The historic Osage Indian Nation. The nascent FBI. Oil. Government-Indigenous relations. And some very colourful characters. It’s all gripping.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, edited by Roxane Gay
(350 pages, first published 2018)
An unflinching anthology of what it means to live with harassment, aggression and violence. One day, books like this and the need for them will be things of the past. Throwbacks. Anachronisms. Grim curiosities, even. I would have thought that day would have come already, but no, it’s taking its time, and at bleak moments, seems far out of reach.

4 3 2 1, by Paul Auster
(866 pages, first published 2017)
A massive family epic, depicting four parallel lives of a single protagonist. The structure is brilliant, the storylines vivid. I was swept right into to Newark and the centre of this Jewish family starting in 1947 and for the decades after. I had to do a little work, jotting quick notes to keep it all straight sometimes, but man, is this a powerhouse. 

Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World, by Jennifer Palmieri
(179 pages, first published 2018)
A combo mini-memoir, commentary and inspirational advice by a former Hillary Clinton advisor. It’s a rallying cry for the future and a balm for minds disquieted by the present. All packed into a little volume.

Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard, by Laura Bates
(291 pages, first published 2013)
A workplace memoir? By an English professor? Who teaches Shakespeare? To inmates??? Jackpot. 

My Life on the Road, by Gloria Steinem
(276 pages, first published 2015)
I never would have found this one on my own, but it thankfully made its way to book group. (Thank you Deborah!) I was expecting an interesting enough autobiography, but it turned out to be a fast-paced collection of entertaining stories and a bundle of social justice goodness. It was a huge hit with the group – as we each took our turn sharing our thoughts I think we were all trying to outdo each other in our enthusiasm for it.

Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents, by Mark Sakamoto
(272 pages, first published 2014)
Winner of Canada Reads 2018, and deservedly so. How a family of Japanese Canadians forced into internment camps and who lose everything, and a Canadian who spends the war years suffering the horrors of a Japanese prison camp, can come together simply defies everything you think you know about the world. It’s an extraordinary story. (Before it made Canada Reads, my mom was enthusing to me about it. See, she taught me to read, and now she’s still making sure I read good stuff!) 

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery, by Henry Marsh
(305 pages, first published 2016)
If you were ever curious to know what it’s like to be a neurosurgeon, well, now you can. Marsh writes with candor of triumphs and regrets, of relationships and the daily grind of a hospital, and of vulnerabilities – his patients’, and his own. 

Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks
(503 pages, first published 1993)
Gorgeous WWI lit – both the battlefield and the love affair scenes are beautifully written. (Mostly. The last handful of pages made me want to throw the book away, but I’ll forgive those, since the first almost-500 are a masterpiece.) (Suzanne gets the nod for bringing this one to my attention.)

*****

So that’s it for 2018, on to 2019’s reads! Mark your calendars, Margaret Atwood’s new book releases on September 10. It’s called The Testaments, and yes, it’s a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Let’s just say if you’re looking for me that day, I’ll be unavailable. (Unless you want to come with me to the bookstore bright and early!) 

I haven’t done one in a while, but I got suckered into a reading challenge for this year. And by “suckered in” I mean Toronto Public Library announced they were having one and I tripped over myself in my scrambling haste to get to my computer and download the challenge sheet. Join me, why don’t you?

Happy reading!