2019: My Year of Reading — Jessica White

I was flu-ridden & fatigued for much of 2018, which meant I was resting and reading while trying to get better, so I met my target of 100 books. However, last year I spent 6 months promoting Hearing Maud in between convening and teaching, so I was 16 short, at 84 books. On the plus side, I didn’t get sick, except for a terrible virus donated by my nephew in April. I think the flu shot worked last year, and that my immune system is improving in general (yay).

My proportions remained roughly the same - 36% Australian women writers (39% last year); 14% Australian male writers (13% last year); 30% international women writers (33% last year) and 20% international male writers (15% last year).

My favourite read for the year was probably Idaho by Emily Ruskovich, as it was well-written and the plot was interesting and unexpected. Alice Hoffman’s The Marriage of Opposites was an indulgent delight, with gorgeous prose full of sensory detail and an interesting, subject - Rachel Pizzarro, the mother of impressionist artist Camille Pissaro. Lloyd Jones’ The Cage, a horrifying fable about asylum seekers, was beautifully written and tightly constructed, but nauseating in its depiction of the banality of human cruelty. By contrast Martin Edmond’s Isinglass was also a fable about refugees, but its dreamlike quality was much gentler and more rhythmic. Its prose, too, was taut and flawless. And I loved two books of non-fiction by Australian women writers: Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s The Erratics, with its sense of warding the reader away from the sharp cliffs of family life, and Julienne van Loon’s The Thinking Woman, which blends thoughts on philosophy and gender with everyday life in an accessible and engaging way.

Other books which I also thoroughly enjoyed include Claire Corbett’s Watch Over Me (tight plot, perfect encapsulation of young, female desire), Julie Keys’ The Artist’s Portrait (good writing and fantastic characters), Jock Serong’s Preservation (great plot & research), Patrick Allington’s Figurehead (an original, fictional biography), Kamil Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (solid plot, setting and character – Shamsie is the reason why I want to go to the Iceland Writers Retreat this year), Viv Albertine’s memoir which veers from punk to middle class life to fragile and carefully-preserved solitude, Becky Chambers’ books about androids (which help to explain what it’s like to have autism), Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (a favourite author, although it’s not his best book), and The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, who can do no wrong. I picked up her latest book of short stories while in London, Sudden Traveller, and am waiting to knock off my last few deadlines before I read it.

I failed in my aspirations to read more 19th century literature and poetry, so I’m aiming for that again this year, plus more writing by Indigenous Australians, as I haven’t been reading much of that of late. The pace of my life has slowed considerably (thank goodness) so I’m hopeful of hitting the one hundred mark again. Much to look forward to this year!

Australian Women Writers

1. Otherland, Maria Tumarkin

2. My People, Oodgeroo Noonuccal

3. Paris Savages, Katherine Johnson

4. Pescador’s Wake, Katherine Johnson

5. Meet Me at Lennon's, Melanie Myers

6. Stone Girl, Eleni Hale

7. The Girls, Chloe Higgins

8. Watch Over Me, Claire Corbett

9. The Artist’s Portrait, Julie Keys

10. Lenny’s Book of Everything, Karen Foxlee

11. Wolfe Island, Lucy Treloar

12. Hive, A.J. Betts

13. The Breeding Season, Amanda Niehaus

14. The Heart of the Grass Tree, Molly Murn

15. Zebra and other Stories, Debra Adelaide

16. Diving into Glass, Caro Llewellyn

17. Room for a Stranger, Melanie Cheng

18. This Taste for Silence, Amanda O' Callaghan

19. The Island Will Sink, Briohny Doyle

20. The Erratics, Vicki Laveau-Harvie

21. Imperfect, Lee Kofman

22. The Thinking Woman, Julienne van Loon

23. Say Hello, Carly Findlay

24. Madame Izan, Rosa Praed

25. Sister Sorrow, Rosa Praed

26. The Fragments, Toni Jordan

27. Beyond Words: A Year With Kenneth Cook, Jacqueline Kent

28. Fusion, Kate Richards

29. Haxby’s Circus, Katharine Susannah Prichard

30. The Trauma Cleaner, Sarah Krasnostein

Australian Male Writers

31. The Honeyman and the Hunter, Neil Grant

32. Preservation, Jock Serong

33. Finding My Way, Graeme Innes

34. You Belong Here, Laurie Steed

35. Isinglass, Martin Edmond

36. Writers on Writers: Nam Le on David Malouf, Nam Le

37. Last Drinks, Andrew McGahan

38. Figurehead, Patrick Allington

39. Fever of Animals, Miles Allinson

40. David Malouf, An Imaginary Life

41. The Sea and Summer, George Turner

42. This is the Grass, Alan Marshall

International Women Writers

43. Outline, Rachel Cust

44. M-Train, Patti Smith

45. Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie

46. The Lowlands, Jhumpa Lahiri

47. The Bees, Laline Paull

48. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery

49. Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin

50. The Living Mounain, Nan Shepherd

51. The Marriage of Opposites, Alice Hoffman

52. The Water Cure, Sophie Mackintosh

53. Bright, Duanwad Pimwana

54. A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki

55. Idaho, Emily Ruskovich

56. Swimming with Seals, Victoria Whitworth

57. Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself, Radclyff Hall

58. Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit

59. The Mermaid's Three Wisdoms, Jane Yolen

60. A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers

61. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

62. Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

63. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys, Viv Albertine

64. Madame Zero, Sarah Hall

65. Black Water, Louise Doughty

66. The Turning, A Swimming Memoir

67. The Carhullan Army, Sarah Hall

International Male Writers

68. The Marches, Rory Stewart

69. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

70. Coraline, Neil Gamain

71. Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, Andrew Miller

72. A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness

73. Blackfish City, Sam J Miller

74. Wintering: A Season with Geese, Stephen Rutt

75. Undying, Michael Faber

76. The Cage, Lloyd Jones

77. The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi

78. The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi

79. The Blackwater Lightship, Colm Toibin

80. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton

81. The Book of M, Peng Shepherd

82. The Castle, Franz Kafka

83. Feral, George Monbiot

84. The Maze Runner, James Dashner