Books of 2019
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer ★★★★★
- Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston ★★★★★
- The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan ★★★★★
- Every Note Played by Lisa Genova ★★★★★
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins ★★★☆☆
- Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin ★★★★★
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood ★★★★★
- I’ll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara ★★★★★
- Lethal White by Robert Galbraith ★★★☆☆
- Movies (And Other Things) by Shea Serrano ★★★★☆
- No Is Not Enough by Naomi Klein ★★★★☆
- The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson ★★★★☆
- The Ruins by Scott Smith ★★★☆☆
- The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht ★★★★☆
- The Wall and the Gate by Michael Sfard ★★★★☆
- The World According to Garp by John Irving ★★★★★
Recommended Reading 2019
- My Wife’s Enemies Are Now My Enemies, Too by Josh Gondelman, The Cut, December 4
- The False Promise of Morning Routines by Marina Koren, The Atlantic, December 2
- A Hot Lunch Is a Human Right by Dave Kamper, Jacobin, December 1
- What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say by John Hendrickson, The Atlantic, December
- E-books at libraries are a huge hit, leading to long waits, reader hacks and worried publishers by Heather Kelly, The Washington Post, November 26
- Pete Buttigieg Is a Lying MF by Michael Harriot, The Root, November 25
- Why is it okay that cars kill? by Denise Balkissoon, The Globe and Mail, November 20
- We Now Have a Democratic-Socialist “Leisure Agenda” by Meagan Day, Jacobin, November 16
- Pete Buttigieg is the media’s perfect boy by Albert Burneko, The Outline, November 14
- How to Fight Antisemitism by Bernie Sanders, Jewish Currents, November 11
- Why do reusable grocery bags drive people crazy? by Charlotte Murtishaw, The Outline, November 7
- ‘It’s cool to be cold’: Confessions of frigid-weather fanatics by Kieran Mulvaney, National Geographic, November 7
- Fear the Egglplant by Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, November 7
- The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising by Jesse Frederik and Maurits Martijn, The Correspondent, November 6
- The Hater’s Guide to Mayor Pete by Drew Magary, Gen, November 6
- The 10 Movies That Tell the Story of the Last 10 Years by Dan Jackson, Emma Stefansky, and Esther Zuckerman, Thrillest, November 6
- What It Means to Evacuate by Lili Loofbourow, Slate, November 5
- Canon fodder by Brandy Jensen, The Outline, November 5
- Ad Barkan Is Running Out of Time to Speak by Libby Watson, The New Republic, November 5
- The Democrats’ Baffling Blind Spot on Carbon Emissions by Michael Hobbes, HuffPost, November 4
- Twitter Hates Me. The Des Moines Register Fired Me. Here’s What Really Happened. by Aaron Calvin, Columbia Journalism Review, November 4
- Yes, the billionaire club is one we really need to shut down by Owen Jones, The Guardian, November 4
- How an Occupy ICE Activist and DACA Recipient Was Deported for Tweeting by Ryan Devereaux and Cora Currier, The Intercept, November 2
- Adam Neumann and the Art of Failing Up by Amy Chozick, The New York Times, November 2
- How to Write an Open Letter to Your Dipshit Boss by Hudson Hongo, Gizmodo, November 1
- Fast, Casual, and Out of Control by Kim Kelly, The New Republic, November 1
- Un-Deadspin by Alex N. Press, Jacobin, October 31
- The Golden Age of TV Is Over by Sam Adams, Slate, October 31
- I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb by Allie Conti, Vice, October 31
- Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That by Allison Arieff, The New York Times, October 4
- The Seven-Year Auto Loan: America’s Middle Class Can’t Afford Its Cars by Ben Eisen and Adrienne Roberts, The Wall Street Journal, October 1
- The Fetishization of Employer-Provided Health Care by Libby Watson, The New Republic, September 21
- Not Everyone Lives the Same Way You Do, and That’s OK by Lindsey Aster Silas, Streets.mn, September 24
- Dorian Johnson, witness to the Ferguson shooting, sticks by his story by Wesley Lowery, The Washington Post, August 9
- Maybe It’s Lyme by Molly Fischer, The Cut, July 24
- Who is Kamala Harris, really? Ask her sister Maya by Ben Terris, The Washington Post, July 23
- What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane by William Langewiesche, The Atlantic, June 17
- To Save the Planet, We Have to Get Over Cars by Sam Rockwell, The Star Tribune, May 30
- ‘Everybody feels free here’: Baltimore club for adults with disabilities fosters love, friendship & inclusion by Yvette Wenger, The Baltimore Sun, May 23
- The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona by Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, April 22
- 15 Months of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook by Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein, Wired, April 16
- How Do Drivers Not See That They’re the Worst? by Eben Weiss, Outside, April 12
- The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News by Michael Luo, The New Yorker, April 10
- ‘The Matrix’ Changed Everything, but the Little Details Made It Even Greater by Shea Serrano, The Ringer, March 28
- There Is No Reason To Cross the U.S. by Train. But I Did It Anyway. by Caity Weaver, The New York Times Magazine, March
- The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter With the Young Green New Deal Activists by Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, February 23
- This is an emergency, damn it by David Roberts, Vox, February 23
- Time to Panic by David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times, February 16
- Who Is Matt Duss, and Can He Take On Washington’s ‘Blob’? by David Klion, The Nation, February 6
- Derrick Rose exposes our toxic role in the sports redemptive narrative by Zito Madu, SB Nation, January 23
- Don’t Doubt What You Saw With Your Own Eyes by Laura Wagner, Deadspin, January 21
- What I Learned Inside the Lonely, Sad World of QAnon Facebook Groups by K.T. Nelson, Vice, January 21
- A Problem for Kamala Harris: Can a Prosecutor Become President in the Age of Black Lives Matter? by Briahna Gray, The Intercept, January 20
- I Was a 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenager’s Body by Patrick Burleigh, The Cut, January 16
- Facebook’s ’10 Year Challenge’ Is Just A Harmless Meme—Right? by Kate O’Neill, Wired, January 15
- It’s Bernie, Bitch by Amber A’Lee Frost, The Baffler, January 11
- 1 Woman, 12 Months, 52 Places by Jada Yuan, The New York Times, January 4
- How a DNA Testing Kit Revealed a Family Secret Hidden for 54 Years by Dani Shapiro, TIME, January 3
- The Return of Handwriting by Jon Marcus, Medium, January 2
- How to Lose Tens of Thousands of Dollars on Amazon by Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, January 2
- Consolation Prizes by Alex Pareene, The Baffler, January
More Great Reading
What I Read 2015
What I Read 2016
What I Read 2017
What I Read 2018
Timothy Pate 