In each of the last four years, my goal has been to read 50 books. This blog post summarises aspects of my 2019 reading year. I also tweeted short reviews using the hashtag #read2019.
- In 2016, I read 53 books.
Blogposts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Goodreads: 2016 Reading Challenge. - In 2017, I read 62 books.
Blogpost: #read2017: My year in books.
Goodreads: 2017 Reading Challenge. - In 2018, I read 93 books.
Blogpost: #read2018: My year in books.
Goodreads: 2018 Reading Challenge. - In 2019, I read 68 books.
Blogpost: You are reading it!
Goodreads: 2019 Reading Challenge.
An assortment of statistics
Out of the 68 books:
- 48 books with Australian authors
- 36 books by women
- 22 fiction books
- 14 memoirs (broadly interpreted)
- 7 ‘Little Books on Big Ideas‘
- 2 books about teaching or maths (or teaching maths)
- 6 authors, multiple books (Helen Garner: 2, Jane Harper: 3, Chloe Hooper:2, Favell Parrett: 2, Bruce Pascoe: 2, Terry Pratchett: 3)
- 1 re-read (‘Everywhere I Look’ (Helen Garner))
- 7 books aloud (‘Ghosts of the Tsunami’ (Richard Lloyd Parry), ‘Speaking Up’ (Gillian Triggs), ‘Able’ (Dylan Alcott), ‘A Memoir’ (Kerry O’Brien), ‘Born-again Blakfella’ (Jack Charles), ‘Through Ice & Fire’ (Sarah Laverick), ‘Salt’ (Bruce Pascoe’).)
To be honest, I didn’t feel like I read many books this year, perhaps because I read in fits and starts. This year was a mixed bag; I always had multiple books on the go but some were page turners (see below), some were short, and some were duds.
Books I couldn’t put down (in chronological order)
It’s not a ‘Best Of’ list, but fifteen books that I couldn’t put down—nearly all by women, it turns out!
- Unfettered and Alive, Anne Summers
- The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper
- The Dry, Jane Harper
- The Erratics, Vicki Laveau-Harvie
- The Gap, Benjamin Gimour
- How Powerful We Are, Sally Rugg
- About A Girl, Rebekah Robertson
- Woman of Substances, Jenny Valentish
- There Was Still Love, Favel Parrett
- Through Ice & Fire, Sarah Laverick
- The Yellow Notebook, Helen Garner
- Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory, Corey White
- The Saturday Portraits, Maxine Beneba Clarke
- The Lost Man, Jane Harper
- Tin Man, Sarah Winman
Books I couldn’t stop thinking about (in chronological order)
I could not stop thinking about these books for the impact they made on me.
- Ghosts of the Tsunami, Richard Lloyd Parry
- The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper
- Men at Work, Annabel Crabb
- About a Girl, Rebekah Robertson
- Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory, Corey White
- Salt, Bruce Pascoe
Books that surprised me in one way or another (in chronological order)
- Axiomatic, Maria Tumarkin (Highly original writing.)
- Leather Soul, Bob Murphy (An AFL book that is so much more.)
- Through Ice & Fire, Sarah Laverick (Even as a fan of the Aurora Australis, I was surprised at how interesting this ‘memoir’ was.)
- Tin Man, Sarah Winman (I had no idea what the plot was going to be. It was beautiful.)
- Salt, Bruce Pascoe (I was surprised by the tenderness of his fiction writing.)
If I had to pick a ‘top five’ (in no particular order)
- The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper
- The Erratics, Vicki Laveau-Harvie
- There Was Still Love, Favel Parrett
- The Lost Man, Jane Harper
- About a Girl, Rebekah Robertson
The books (in reverse chronological order)
The short reviews are archived at this link: #read2019.
Wonder in Mathematics 
