Favorite Books of 2019

I was thrilled in 2019 to read Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke—the gripping sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird. As in the first book, at the end of Heaven, My Home, the author leaves us on the verge of a new development in Darren’s life. I can’t wait to find out what happens next in Locke’s series of Highway 59 mysteries.

I also read with great eagerness Sue Burke’s Interference, the sequel to the first contact sci-fi novel Semiosis, and I wasn’t disappointed. I will warn you that Burke’s view of humanity is bleak: even hundreds of years into an imagined future, people can’t seem to get along, even when it’s in their best interest. The technology changes, but human nature doesn’t. It’s cold comfort that members of the other species featured in these books don’t get along that well amongst themselves, either.

When my mom sent me a book containing John Steinbeck’s writing journals, I was motivated to read The Grapes of Wrath for the first time, and it instantly took a spot on my short list of favorite books. It’s an understatement to say that I was moved while reading this searing, lyrical story of human endurance and human evil.