Book Reviews, End-of-the-Year Edition (2019)

Updated: Dec 30, 2019

My reading goal for this year was 75. I bested that by 5, and I feel like this area is the sweet spot for me. Now that I am retired, I definitely don't think I should ever read under 50 books in a calendar year. I felt pressured the year I read over 100 titles; I think I have found my comfort zone.

I finished the year with some stellar reads. I actually had a hard time narrowing it down to my four favorites. Here is the best of the fall season.

The Dutch House

Ann Patchett is a true champion of all things literary. She is an author, she doles out great book suggestions, and she owns one of my favorite bookstores in the country, Parnassus Books in Nashville. In this sibling story, a brother and sister review their tumultuous upbringing and remain close as five decades roll by. The writing is sublime.

Olive, Again

Olive Kitteridge is one of the best Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction. The eponymous main character is one of a kind. Elizabeth Strout revisits Olive in Maine, and she has been through some major life changes. This book follows the format of the first; short stories all interwoven in a small town, usually connecting to Olive in some way. I highly recommend reading OK and then this one for a perfect week of reading.

The Testaments

Margaret Atwood finally follows up 1985's The Handmaid's Tale. It is disturbing, has an interesting plot, and fills us in on what has become of life in Gilead 15 years after we last saw Offred. There are many obvious correlations to what is happening politically in the world today.