I only read 17 books in 2019. Short of my goal, but most of what I read was challenging and on the longish side. I vow to read more this year. My goal is 36. I’ve already read four, so I am on track.

Here are my top 10 books for 2019:

1. Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
2. The Big Sleep (Annotated) – Raymond Chandler
3. The Clown – Heinrich Boll
4. Ulysses – James Joyce
5. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
6. Beloved – Toni Morrison
7. Cities of the Plain – Cormac McCarthy
8. Dream of Fair to Middling Women – Samuel Beckett
9. Quichotte – Salman Rushdie
10. Will in the World – Stephen Greenblatt

Some of these books I have been wanting to read all my life but never got around to, like Look Homeward Angel, which inspired a trip to Aheville NC,and Ulysses which was I must say the most challenging of all. Love in Time of Cholera was a pure pleasure to read. Beloved was Toni Morrison’s masterpiece. So sad we lost her last year. Cities of the Plain completed the Border Trilogy. I try to read at least one Cormac McCarthy book each year. Terrific writer! Quichotte by Salman Rushdie was was a pleasant surprise. First one of his I’ve read in a while. I remember reading Satanic Verses when it first came out and created such a stir. The Big Sleep was pure pleasure. If you have never read anything  Heinrich  Boll, I highly recommend him to you. One of my favorites for a long time. The Clown is a good one! Dream of Fair to Middling Women was Samuel Beckett’s first novel and was not published during his lifetime. It is very instructive to read it and see some of the characters and themes introduced early on that we see later in more mature works.  Highly entertaining. And, finally, Will in the World. I learned so much about William Shakespeare and Elizabethan England reading this book.