In December of 2018, in preparation for the publication of my first book, Sabrina & Corina, I quit my job as an office manager in Denver and organized a national book tour (with a couple stop offs in Canada along the way). Sabrina & Corina was born out of a decade of writing, countless rejections, and years of uncertainty. I was both excited for and afraid of what lay on the other side of publication, and I knew I had to do everything in my power to honor the book I had written. In the span of eight months, I traveled to over 20 cities and small towns, and I gave readings at places like universities, high schools, community centers, book stores, literary festivals, public libraries, art galleries, and more. All this is to say, in 2019 I spent long hours in the air, reading books. I read books by my debut peers. I reread many of my old favorites. I read books I found in Little Free Libraries. I read books abandoned in hotel lobbies. I read books gifted to me, wrapped in red bows.
In 2019, I took pleasure in reading new short story collections. I was charmed, delighted, and challenged by the power of the stories in Nafissa Thompson-Spires‘s The Heads of the Colored People. I loved the connection to place, Houston in particular, and the natural readability of Bryan Washington’s Lot. Beth Piatote’s The Beadworkers dazzled me with voice, dreamscapes, the reverence for ancestors and land.
As for novels, in Santa Fe, N.M., on a rooftop patio with adobe walls, sipping a bright green margarita, I was blown away by the robust storytelling in Inland by Tea Obreht. During a family vacation in Breckenridge, Colo., I took my father’s advice and read the exquisitely written On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.
For a piece in Bustle, I revisited The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and was reminded of reading this masterwork for the first time in high school, the lingering pleasures of feeling seen on the page, 15 years later. In preparation for my conversation with Julia Alvarez for her NEA Big Read event in Denver, I reread In the Time of the Butterflies and was reminded of the power in her storytelling, the intricacies of her plot, the force behind the Mirabal sisters.
In 2019, I read memoirs, too, and I found myself staying up late into the night thinking about Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden. It’s beautifully haunting and structurally gripping, providing an important look into loneliness and so much more. I also read a memoir from 1996, Drinking: A Love Story by the late Caroline Knapp, which I fished out of a free library in Golden, Colo., while I was on a walk one summer evening. I finished the book that night, and I thought a lot about my own relationship to alcohol and the vulnerability of Knapp’s voice.
And then there were the poets. I saw Tommy Pico perform at the 2019 Bay Area Book Festival, and I was blown away as he read from Junk. His latest, Feed, kept me company this fall and reminded me of how bighearted and wide-ranging both language and the imagination can be. I adored the crisp and somber Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love by Keith S. Wilson. And during the summer in Los Angeles, I nearly teared up at Yesika Salgado’s signing table after reading her Hermosa.
It was a beautiful year for books, and I was so honored to read these transformative words. Thank you to their authors.
More from A Year in Reading 2019
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
