2019 in Books

As in 2018, I decided to log books after I finished them. Here are all the books I finished in 2019, with some brief comments after the list.

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1. Dark Matter — Aase Berg (Trans. Johannes Görannson) | 1.1
2. The Father — Sharon Olds | 1.2
3. Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates | 1.3
4. Getting Started with German — Wendy Foster | 1.4
5. The Gold Cell — Sharon Olds | 1.6
6. The Day of the Locust — Nathaniel West | 1.8
7. How Emotions are Made — Lisa Feldman Barrett | 1.16
8. Nightwoods — Charles Frazier | 1.17
9. A Soccer Life in Shorts — Mark Vincent Lincir | 1.17
10. How Proust Can Change Your Life — Alain De Botton | 1.20
11. The Emissary — Yoko Tawada (Trans. Margaret Mitsutani) | 1.22
12. The Existentialist’s Survival Guide — Gordon Marino | 1.24
13. The Fall — Albert Camus (Trans. Justin O’Brien) | 1.26
14. Bluets — Maggie Nelson | 1.26
15. The Death of Ivan Ilych — Leo Tolstoy (Trans. Aylmer Maude & Louise Maude) | 1.26
16. Collected Works — Franz Kafka | 1.27
17. Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants —Mathias Énard (Trans. Charlotte Mandell) | 1.31
18. Silence: In the Age of Noise — Erling Kagge (Trans. Becky L. Crook) | 2.1
19. Resistance, Rebellion, and Death — Albert Camus (Trans. Justin O’Brien) | 2.2
20. Tattoo Street Style — Nicolas Brulez | 2.5
21. Wobble — Rae Armantrout | 2.8
22. A River in Darkness — Masaji Ishikawa (Trans. Risa Kobayashi) | 2.8
23. Speaking German on the Go — Wendy Foster | 2.11
24. Rimbaud Complete — Arthur Rimbaud (Trans. Wyatt Mason) | 2.13
25. German Verbs & Essentials of Grammar, 2nd Ed. — Charles James | 2.14
26. Another Place You’ve Never Been — Rebecca Kauffman | 2.15
27. The Pale Criminal — Philip Kerr | 2.15
28. The End of Days — Jenny Erpenbeck (Trans. Susan Bernofsky) | 2.19
29. Buddhism Plain and Simple — Steve Hagen | 2.20
30. Bright Dead Things — Ada Limón | 2.26
31. Still Life with Rhetoric — Laurie Gries | 3.8
32. Killing Commendatore — Haruki Murakami (Trans. Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen) | 3.9
33. We The Animals — Justin Torres | 3.12
34. Against Art — Tomas Espedal (Trans. James Anderson) | 3.15
35. The Body Multiple — Annemarie Mol | 3.21
36. Naive. Super — Erland Loe (Trans. Tor Ketil Solberg) | 3.24
37. The Swing of Things — Linda Keir | 3.27
38. Francis Ponge — Martin Sorrell | 3.28
39. Heute ist Der Letzte Tag vom Rest Deines Lebens — Ulli Lust | 3.28
40. How to Disappear — Akiko Busch | 4.12
41. Tschick — Wolfgang Herrndorf | 4.15
42. Against Nature — Tomas Espedal (Trans. James Anderson) | 4.17
43. So Much Longing in So Little Space — Karl Ove Knausgaard (Trans. Ingvild Burkey) | 4.17
44. Transit — Rachel Cusk | 4.22
45. Wait, Blink — Gunnhild Øyehaug (Trans. Kari Dickson) | 4.25
46. So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood — Patrick Modiano (Trans. Euan Cameron) | 4.25
47. Tramp — Tomas Espedal (Trans. James Anderson) | 5.1
48. Techne — Kelly Pender | 5.2
49. Waiting for Godot — Samuel Beckett | 5.7
50. Auerhaus — Bov Bjerg | 5.8
51. Walking: One Step at a Time — Erling Kagge (Trans. Becky Crook) | 5.10
52. Love — Hanne Ørstavik (Trans. Martin Aitkin) | 5.15
53. alphabet — Inger Christensen (Trans. Susanna Nied) | 5.17
54. Berlin: Steinerne Stadt — Jason Lutes (Trans. [into German by] Heinrich Anders) | 5.22
55. Waiting for Fitz — Spencer Hyde | 5.22
56. The Condition of Secrecy — Inger Christensen (Trans. Susanna Nied) | 5.24
57. The Good Thief — Marie Howe | 5.26
58. Inessential Solidarity — Diane Davis | 5.31
59. The Moneyless Man — Mark Boyle | 6.2
60. The Art of Fielding — Chad Harbach | 6.3
61. It — Inger Christensen (Trans. Susanna Nied) | 6.8
62. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel — Alexander Chee | 6.20
63. The Philosopher’s Club — Kim Addonizio | 6.28
64. T. Singer — Dag Solstad (Trans. Tiina Nunnally) | 7.1
65. Internal Rhetorics — Jean Niencamp | 7.11
66. Awake — Dorianne Laux | 7.12
67. Berlin: Bleierne Stadt — Jason Lutes (Trans. [into German by] Heinrich Anders) | 7.15
68. Paper Girls Book One — Brian K. Vaughn, et al. | 7.20
69. Goblin Market and Other Poems — Christina Rossetti | 7.23
70. Lost Time — Józef Czapski (Trans. Eric Karpeles) | 7.26
71. Living with a SEAL — Jesse Itzler | 7.28
72. A Sorrow Beyond Dreams — Peter Handke (Trans. Ralph Manheim) | 7.30
73. Most of What Follows is True — Michael Crummey | 8.2
74. My Struggle, Book 6 — Karl Ove Knausgård (Trans. Don Bartlett & Martin Aitken) | 8.7
75. Optic Nerve — María Gainza (Trans. Thomas Bunstead) | 8.14
76. Paper Girls Book Two — Brian K. Vaughn, et al. | 8.25
77. Laurus — Eugene Vodolazkin (Trans. Lisa Hayden) | 8.25
78. Lola Rennt — Tom Tykwer | 8.26
79. The World Goes On — László Krasznahorkai (Trans. George Szirtes, et al.) | 8.27
80. Mourning — Eduardo Halfon (Trans. Lisa Dillman & Daniel Hahn) | 8.29
81. Berlin: Flirrende Stadt — Jason Lutes (Trans. [into German by] Heinrich Anders) | 9.8
82. In the Distance — Hernan Diaz | 9.12
83. Endure — Alex Hutchinson | 9.15
84. The Poetic Species — Edward O. Wilson & Robert Hass | 9.17
85. Less — Andrew Sean Greer | 9.29
86. Coming Up for Air — George Orwell | 10.16
87. The Death of Democracy — Benjamin Carter Hett | 10.23
88. Tree Leaf Talk — James F. Weiner | 10.29
89. Too Loud a Solitude — Bohumil Hrabal (Trans. Michael Henry Heim) | 10.30
90. Out of My Head — Tim Parks | 11.6
91. The Public Image — Robert Hariman & John Lucaites | 11.11
92. A Philosophy of Ruin — Nicholas Mancusi | 11.11
93. In Praise of Shadows — Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (Trans. Thomas J, Harper & Edward G. Seidensticker) | 11.14
94. What Doesn’t Kill Us — Scott Carney | 11.21
95. Drifting Dragons — Taku Kuwobara | 11.22
96. The Argonauts — Maggie Nelson | 11.29
97. Britten and Brülightly — Hannah Berry | 12.5
98. Can’t Hurt Me — David Goggins | 12.5
99. Francis Ponge and the Nature of Things — Patrick Meadows | 12.6
100. Desire — Haruki Murakami (Trans. Jay Rubin, Ted Goossen, & Philip Gabriel) | 12.10
101. The Door — Margaret Atwood | 12.10
102. Taking Control of Devonthink 3 — Joe Kissell | 12.11
103. A Little Book on the Human Shadow — Robert Bly | 12.16
104. Als Die Nacht Begann — Thomas Fatziner | 12.20
105. My Life as a Russian Novel — Emmanuel Carrère (Trans. Linda Coverdale) | 12.23
106. West, West Texas — Tillie Walden (Trans. [into German by] Barbara König) | 12.31

Like last year, I didn't have a reading goal, and the number of books I finished is just the number of books I finished. My book reading slowed down a bit in the summer after I subscribed to the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and The Paris Review.

There were a couple of personal milestones in my reading this year.

First, I read my first "real" book in German—Wolfgang Herrndorf's Tschick, a young adult novel about two teen boys roadtripping through the German countryside. The book has been translated into English (as Why We Took the Car) and was made into a film in Germany. I also read, in German, Bov Bjerg's Auerhaus, Tom Tykwer's Lola Rennt (a book adaptation of the film Run Lola Run), and a handful of graphic novels. I'm still learning, obviously, but it was a major milestone to complete full books in German for the first time.

Second, I read the sixth and final book of Knausgaard's My Struggle opus; I actually put this off for a bit, mainly because I didn't want the experience to end. I read his book on Munch (So Much Longing in So Little Space) when it came out, and I've got A Time for Everything in the queue; after reading the latter, I'll have read all his stand-alone books that have been translated into English. I plan to read, too (in German) "Das Heimatland," which is included in Heimatland, a collection of stories and essays from Norway that hasn't yet been translated into English.

I also read all of Kafka's collected works, and all of Rimbaud's poems, essays, and letters. I continued to read works of contemporary Norwegian literature in translation, and I've been slowly reading important contemporary German authors in translation (e.g., Handke, Erpenbeck, Sebald, etc.). I intentionally read more poetry in 2019 than I did in 2018, and plan to continue doing the same in 2020.

Finally, here are a few books that really resonated with me:

• Bluets — Maggie Nelson
• If you haven't already read this, you should. It's incredible.
• Killing Commendatore — Haruki Murakami
• Is this Murakami's best novel? For most people, probably not. But if you like Murakami, you'll like this.
• Against Art — Tomas Espedal
• Bergeners was in my highlights list last year, but this is probably the most sophisticated and compelling Espedal book that I've read so far. How he does what he does with the narrative threads is mystifying, and I can't really explain it—you just have to read it.
• Optic Nerve — María Gainza
• This book embodies all the best qualities of autofiction.
• Out of My Head — Tim Parks
• Parks explores the "spread mind theory" of consciousness with his novelist's sensibility.

I'll probably never read another Krasznahorkai novel, mainly because he doesn't seem to believe in paragraph breaks.

Until next year...