The Ten Best Novels I’ve Read in 2019

This year has been filled with amazing novels and things that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. To be honest, a lot of the books that have filled my year have been recommendations from other people (thanks to @readingslowly on Instagram for recommending me to read Swan Song—it was bloody awesome, I couldn’t put it down!), book club reads from @belletrist and @reesesbookclub (also on Instagram) and various things I find on the hashtag #Bookstagram and #PenguinModernClassics. I’ve been on a bit of a thing this year that I’ve been trying to read as many of the Penguin Modern Classic collection as possible, and that is because… well, I don’t know. I have no idea why I’ve been doing this in 2019, and really, I hope it continues into the next year, because God knows I’m nowhere near done!

I have loved reading my random books as well. For those of you who don’t know me well enough—I do this this every week where I pick a book I’ve never heard of by an author I’ve never read and I read that book. I’ve been doing that for a few years now, and it has led me off the beaten path and into new and exciting worlds more than once! I love reading things by authors I have never read before, and I also love reading books that not everyone has heard of. It gives me a different perspective on literature, and that is something that I take very seriously indeed. As this is being written, I’m in the middle of Ernest Shackleton’s South: The Endurance and Expedition—I’ve never heard of it but gosh is it getting good!

I think that my reading this year has been of special importance, because I have been focusing on my mental health, repairing problems that occurred during the time I spent at university. This includes mental health worries such as agoraphobic anxiety, panic and eating disorders that I have experienced (I actually dropped about 30kg during this period of time). But now, with reading more often, and being more social about my reading (posting my book reviews on my Instagram story, and becoming more engaged with people in book clubs), including non-reading things like exercising, controlling my diet for the sake of my brain, taking time out, and getting fresh air now and again, I am glad to say that I am slowly, but surely making progress towards a better tomorrow. Nothing is ever completely fixed, but we can solve certain problems with a little bit of logic and a lot of effort and work.

Enough about me though, I know you’re here to witness the best books I’ve read in 2019. Now, this won’t include books I’ve re-read (sorry The Brothers Karamazov, it just isn’t your time to be on the list) and it won’t include poetry anthologies, essays, or short story collections (this is called “novels” after all). I hope you enjoy this list as much as I do—and by all means don’t hesitate to contact me, my handle is in the bio. Here’s the list of ten…

10. Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

I don’t think words can describe how much I loved this book—but situations sure can. I loved this book so much I refused to put it down, even in the queue at the chippy. I was literally reading it in a line of people, a car crash had happened outside, and I didn’t even lift my head until they’d started clearing the mess. The book made me quite introspective, because, I do warn you, it is very sad in some places—dealing with cases of abuse both physical and mental, it can be quite heavy. The vast and coarse descriptions draw you in, and afterwards you just need a deep, full sigh and exhalation of fresh air.

9. Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

You all probably know by now how obsessed I am with the works of Philippa Gregory. She’s been one of my favourite writers ever since I was a young teenager, and I discovered her works of the Tudor Court at the age of 12 or 13. Tidelands was one of the best books I’d read this year, because of the fact it really draws you into the story by telling it from every side and shocking you with every move of every person involved. I mean, it is set in the English Civil War—you can’t get more shocking moves than executing the King of England, can you? The book is written amazingly, and every characters’ voice is different and unique—each with their own diction of sadness, grief, love, and loss. It is Philippa Gregory coming back at her best again—gosh I cannot wait for this series to really get underway!

8. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

This book made me feel so bad for the main character because of the way she was pushed out and around the problems. I can’t stress enough how much I adore the writing of Carson McCullers, and seriously, this book was one of the best things I’d read for the first time this year. I’d read other McCullers books at other times, but this one—with its language of beauty, appearance, reality, shade, and discontent was often, at times a really aesthetically pleasing thing to read. But when you look at the reality of the novel, everything comes into perspective, and it really isn’t that nice at all. I think that is Carson McCullers’ strength—making everything appear okay, when in reality it’s all falling apart.

7. The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima

The first time I saw this book I thought (sarcastically), “great, another affair-murder thing going on.” But then I read the prologue and realised straight away that it wasn’t like that at all. The prologue is something that not only draws you in, but you seem to pull back a little. I have to admit, I had to read it twice to make sure I’d read it correctly. It is not only strange, but it darkens the rest of the book with its pessimism. It basically tells you “don’t think that love has a happy ending, because nothing has a happy ending in humanity…” The image of death shades the novel after the shocking prologue, and no matter how beautifully this book is written—there’ll always be a dark undertone of sadness, an aspect of tragedy and the horror of knowing exactly what the outcome will be that is the driving force that makes you never want to put it down. Mishima’s language of violence and the catalyst for tragedy is what makes the book what it is and seriously, I couldn’t get my head around how it was so great and yet, I was only reading it now.

6. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

I have to say that the plot to this book is incredible. The whole book takes place over one day in which there is years and years of history and backstory revealed. It’s the same structure taken by books like Mrs. Dalloway and Go Tell it on the Mountain, but this novel has more impending doom. It is the main character’s last day alive and seriously, once you know this, everything else falls into perspective as being overly mundane for someone who has only that day to live. I have to say though, the ending is the thing that made the book really special for me. It really left me thinking about whether that ending actually happened the way it did in the book, or whether the exaggeration that took place was a final taunt by the main character’s psyche to the reader. Maybe we’ll never know.

5. Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

I have to admit that the first time I read Invisible Man I wasn’t all too impressed. It was good, but I had recently read Go Tell it on the Mountain, which was a better example of a similar message. I took a chance reading Juneteenth, because of the title mainly, which I thought was very thought provoking because I asked myself why Ellison would set his book back then. He didn’t. This book is set in his time and tells an incredible story of two people who come together through a battle of race, social status, and the want for a better future. It’s an amazing story, and seriously, the book is one of the greatest race novels I’ve ever read.

4. The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill

Oh come on, this had to be on the list! I had a big thing for classic ghost stories and this one did not disappoint. I love finding ghost stories that have some sort of twist (that you can probably guess but come on guys, keep it fun!) that is normally unexpected but it gives you a great time to guess what it is before it happens. I love ghost stories for their atmosphere, their language and their incredible use of their surroundings and hints within the text at what is actually going on. Susan Hill never disappoints with her ghost stories but, apart from “The Woman in Black”, I think that “The Man in the Picture” is definitely her stronger one. I love the carnival scenery that it gives off and how it reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” with the theme of trapping and incredible levels of violence and intended violence. The twist is something I thought I had guessed, but gosh I wasn’t even halfway.

3. Jerry Lee Lewis by Rick Bragg

I love the music of Jerry Lee Lewis, he is one of my favourite singers and is quite possibly in my top ten favourites of all time. To be honest, I didn’t think much of this book when I first saw it because I was reading so many biographies of musicians at the time and well, they hadn’t turned out all well. I wasn’t holding out much hope for this one. I was completely blown away though. The amount of detail this book went into when it spoke about Lewis’ childhood and how he started playing the piano was incredible. I loved the fact that his parents bought him a piano and he started playing it day and night and was completely obsessed with it. It seemed so beautiful for him to grow up with the instrument. Learning about him and the piano he loved was a beautiful story and was written brilliantly by Bragg - and that’s why it stands at number three on the list.

2. American Kingpin by Nick Bolton

I initially read this book because I heard about it on a podcast called “Casefile”. “Casefile” were covering a trilogy of episodes on The Silk Road (the criminal one, not the old one) and how it was formed, how illegalities happened on the site and finally, how the FBI caught the guy responsible for it. The book “American Kingpin” is about the silk road and its maker and I’m not going to lie but it is so well-written that it could convince you that it is a thriller novel rather than something that actually happened. I found that I was reading huge chunks of the book at a time, wanting to know what happened next even though I already knew what happened next. I loved the part where he’s caught and given a trial because it really does go into some great details that Casefile didn’t cover (mainly because Casefile concentrates on the crime itself and though it covers what happened next, the book covered the aftermath in more depth). I was fascinated from start to finish and that’s why this book happens to be at number two on the list.

More Mentions:

Books that were amazing but didn’t make the list include…

What Red Was by Rosie Price

Chaos by Tom O’Neill

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata

The Kites by Romain Gary

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

For Two Thousand Years by Mihail Sebastian

Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg Jephcott

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

Despair by Vladimir Nabokov

The Other by Thomas Tryon

I am Brian Wilson by Brian Wilson

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

No Man Knows My History by Fawn M. Brodie

The Beast Within by Emile Zola

1. The Maias by Eca de Queiroz

This book was recommended to me by a friend online called “Hop.” Hop is a school student who resides in Portugal, and recommended that I, as an English Teacher, should read this book, because apparently it’s supposed to be one of the national joys of Portugal when it comes to literature. Being someone who is always looking for new experiences in literature, I have to say that I was very excited to get started on this book and ordered it straight away. When it arrived and got started, I was incredibly impressed. The book was written beautifully in a way that reminded me of reading authors like Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I loved the experience of reading this book and told Hop all about it afterwards. He was reading it at school, and he too, enjoyed the novel. Hop was very happy that I had read his recommendation, and really, I read a few of his recommendations since and they have always been amazing. Portuguese literature has been so lovely to discover, and this is undoubtedly not only the best book I’ve read this year—it’s quite possibly one of my favourite books of the last ten years. It’s an incredible family drama about loss, death, and longing for human connections at any cost. Secrecy and delusion colour the novel, and the ending is so incredibly satirical and yet amazingly satisfying—I can’t tell whether it was a happy ending or not, but it sure was contented! I loved every page, every line, and every word of this classic. It stands at number one for a reason.