My 12 Favourite Reads of 2019
A list of books I enjoyed reading in 2019
This list is coming a little too late — as we are already in 2020 — but I promised I would publish it, if not for anything else but for self-accountability. I was going to limit it to 10 but two books sneaked it at the last moment. The books here are not just those published in 2019 but of those books that I read for the first time in this year.
Also, there is certainly no ranking whatsoever.
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
I am so pleased that this powerful novel/collection of interconnected stories won the Booker Prize this year because, reading it now, I find it deserving of all the accolades and more. It is both a reinvention and subversion of form and language — the two things I am most curious about in my work and the work of others — and it manages perfectly to fuse that with issues of race, sexuality, womanhood, migration, etc without feeling burdened at all. Bernardine is truly a master by the way she weaves the various stories that come to intersect and fit into the larger canvas. Each character is necessary and moves the wheel of the story forward while showing us their lived life and how they navigate the obstacles presented to them. The 12 women (and the other minor characters) all manage to stand out in a way that makes the novel “polyphonic” and no one drowns out the voice of the other.
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The poetic style she uses allows her to abandon the traditional narrative structure and to perform the task — albeit a difficult one — of presenting the story to us as it comes. This makes it an enjoyable read even when sometimes the length of the pages dedicated to each character feels constricting, and you wish you’d spend more time with a certain character and less with the other.
This is a powerful, evocative, beautiful book deserving of every accolade it has received.
2. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
I failed to love this book the first time. I loved the sentences and the poetry of the prose but felt that it was excessive in certain parts, much like eating too much cake, taking in too much sweetness at once. It felt a tad dense in most parts. But then again, I knew Ocean Vuong was primarily a poet working in a different medium, and so I went back to it with a more open mind — albeit with pressure from a friend — and I must admit I absolutely fell in love with the language and the plot. I liked the way Ocean explored the relationship between the narrator and the mother (Ma/You) and the young love between the narrator and Trevor. This is a very lyrical work and every single sentence is a thing of beauty.
3. The 392 by Ashley Hickson-Lovence
“Look around, you got businessmen in posh suits and pissheads in rags and cheeky kids, the rich, the poor, the black, the white, the sober, the drunk — all squashed in on this tiny little red bus.”
This sentence perfectly describes the eclectic mix of people who find themselves on this bus journey and whose voices make up this novel. Throughout the bus ride, you follow these different characters — each with lives as complex as the other — while they interact with one another, and this grants you access to their interiority. The narration jumps from one passenger to another, guiding you through the novel as you view different things from different lenses. The voices are so distinct and memorable in a way that makes this a compelling read. The tension is present even when the characters choose to ignore it and dwell on the mundane. Issues of race, gentrification, sex and sexuality, governance, political hegemony, justice, love, and prejudice/bias among others are addressed in this novel that draws you in and keeps you in like you are one of the passengers on the 392.
4. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
Namwali Serpell’s “The Old Drift” is not your ordinary book. But then again, this is the author who created a short story in the form of a bank statement and has done so much to push the boundaries of storytelling so of course nothing ordinary is expected. To me, it feels like this novel is the culmination of all her experiments, merged in this tome — a few pages shy of 600, and heavy of subject(s) — that is brilliant, bold and different. ⠀
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“The Old Drift” is a multi-generational story stretching over a period of close to 200 years — starting from pre-colonial and ending in futuristic Zambia — and it follows three families as their seemingly unusual paths cross. The characters are odd — a woman covered with hair all over, another who cries endless tears, and another who has “tiny eyes” on her body — and they populate the book with their husbands, children, friends and other family members. The novel defies classification and blends historical, fantasy, realism, sci-fi and any other genre it can eat up. It is narrated — in the interludes between the chapters — by a swarm of mosquitoes who become pivotal to the story as it progresses and eventually folds to an end. ⠀
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Various critics have compared Namwali (and her book) to writers like Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez, and I suppose this is because it is necessary to create a sense of familiarity by attaching a new writer to the canon. I didn’t get the sense of the comparison perhaps because I thought of it in terms of the language and structure. I, however, got the sense of it in terms of the ambition — the time lapse, genres — and I must say “The Old Drift” is one of the most ambitious books I have ever read. ⠀
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This was one of my highly anticipated reads this year, and despite starting it a couple of times and getting caught up in other things, I was keen on reading to the end. I’m happy that I finally did that and the experience was rewarding.
I said I would not play favourites, but this was my best read of 2019.
5. Arafat’s Elephant by Jonathan Tel
I have admired Tel’s work since I read his short story ‘The Human Phonograph’ when it won both the Commonwealth Short Story award and the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank award, and it was for this reason that I got all his books, ‘Arafat’s Elephant’ being the first one. Tel’s ability to write about a place — Israel in this instance — in a way that makes it feel alive and real is admirable. His characters move in an almost ethereal manner and that works sometimes but not always. The language is beautiful, and the structure of the sentences is so simple yet brilliant. That being said, this collection was pretty good except for a few stories that weren’t as seamless. I can’t wait to read Tel’s novel.
6. The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Another of my anticipated reads, I have been looking forward to this since Yvonne read an extract from it at an event in 2015. It did not disappoint at all. The range of emotions I went through just reading this book cannot be described in the few words I have here.
The novel is a coming-of-age story about Ayaana, a young girl growing up on the island of Pate at the coast of Kenya. It follows her journey as she ventures out of the island for the first time heading for China where she is to study.
At this point, we can all agree that what Yvonne does with language is a whole level of skill that we can only hope to learn someday. She manages to capture the rhythms of the sea, the waves, the splashes of water, the rocking of the boats, the birds, the songs, etc with a kind of vividness that ensures The Dragonfly Sea is a long poem rather than a work of prose. An absolute delight to read.
7. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
I’ll confess, I watched the TV show first. (I know, I know) Afterwards, I was curious to get a copy of the book, wanting to get a better feel of the characters. It’s obvious that the book is better. It follows the childhood friendship of Lina and Lenu as they grow up in the small neighbourhood that is full of violence, where every family has drama going on and where the two girls have to navigate the constant troubles they are subjected to. Ferrante handles this friendship so delicately and with the kind of ease that makes this a delight to read. I am looking forward to reading the other instalments in the Neapolitan novels series.
8. The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
After reading ‘The 392’ by Ashley Hickson-Lovence and ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernardine Evaristo, it only felt natural to read ‘The Lonely Londoners’ by Sam Selvon. Every review of Ashley’s or Bernardine’s books had drawn comparison to Selvon’s and that was the beckoning I needed to make me read it.
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Having spent the past few months navigating life in the labyrinthine belly of London itself, I found the characters in this novel so relatable as they went through their immigration process, dealing with the weather, race, and the whole newness of this place. The way Selvon observed British life and captured it is to be commended. There’s a part that reads: “It have people living in London who don’t know what happening in the room next to them, far more the street, or how other people living. London is a place like that. It divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the world you belong to and you don’t know anything about what happening in the other ones except what you read in the papers.”⠀
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The way Selvon describes the winter, the tube, the unfamiliar, the new, felt as if I was seeing it myself, even though this is a book from the 50s. ⠀
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I must admit that I absolutely loved this book and kept beating myself over why I hadn’t read it earlier, but I had to remind myself that books choose us when they feel we’re ready for them. And the timing for this couldn’t have been more perfect.
9. A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman
For a book that only takes place over two hours, this novel holds you by the throat and demands to be read. It presents a tragicomedy situation about a stand-up comedian going through an existential crisis on stage — spiralling from his childhood to his suicidal thoughts — all the while trying to hold the audience of his ‘friend’ who he has invited in the audience to judge his performance. Grief-stricken, he babbles through the entire novel and that is the genius of the story. I admire Grossman’s skill to hold us captive much like the audience in the bar. Brilliant work.
10. Bluets by Maggie Nelson
Part poetry, part prose, part notes, Bluets is a hybrid work that follows the narrator’s obsession with the colour blue. It is a reflective and emotional journey and it manages to capture even the smallest of moments with such clarity and tenderness. Maggie Nelson pushes the boundaries of prose-poetry, working with the thread of the colour blue to piece together fragments of memories.
11. Summer Lightning and Other Stories by Olive Senior
I have no idea why I didn’t know about this book until 2019. I am sad that this book didn’t come into my life earlier. This here has got to be one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Well thought out and neatly crafted.
Each of the stories in here is well written with clear, concise prose and the characters stay with you long after you have closed the pages of the book.
I absolutely enjoyed reading this, and I see myself going back to it over and over again just to learn from the magic of Olive Senior.
12. Kudos by Rachel Cusk
Including this book on the list of my favourite reads comes as a surprise even to me because I am still not sure if I loved it enough. I think it interests me because it challenges the idea of the traditional novel and the author clearly hates the word “plot”. I think the brilliance of this novel — for me at least — is how Faye is the narrator but takes such a passive role and instead becomes only the lens through which the writer allows us to see the other characters. Faye works only as the conduit through which these conversations and confessions happen. It is beautifully rendered, and I admire Rachel Cusk’s ability to collapse dialogue into prose and still keep it clean and seamless. This, for me, was the highlight of reading this book.
My next ten, which mostly comprises of rereads (hence not included in the main list) are: The God of Small Things, Their Eyes Were Watching God, All the Light We Cannot See, The Sense of an Ending, Gilead, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Sula, and The Book of Night Women. Most of these I had to reread because I admire the style and I was working so hard to find my voice through reading them over and over.
A book I was 50–50 about was Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. I enjoyed her exploration of British politics and the dynamic between the characters. But I didn’t feel like it gripped me enough. This is not to say I disliked it, but I wouldn’t reread it.
A book I read and did not appreciate was Normal People by Sally Rooney. I had gone into it with the hype that was around it since it had come highly recommended. I think at sentence level it was brilliant — a bit overwritten in some parts, a tad trite in others — but the plot was not relatable at all. Perhaps because I couldn’t bring any of my experiences to the reading as I found the romance between Connell and Marianne to far removed from my lived experiences. That’s on me though.
