#ShadyLadiesList: Best of 2019
I’ve made my lists. Checked them twice. And these 17 books are my favorites of 2019.
Originally I planned to include one book per month. A list of a nice even dozen. But oh, the fights between the voices in my head. 😂
My beach reader wondered why we had to have so much serious stuff. (Surveillance capitalism, really?!) And my inner geek fought off anything fun. (Are you kidding me with witches at Harvard?!)
But in the end, these were the books I couldn’t stop thinking about. The ones that took me into new worlds and gave me a better perspective and insight into our own.
My list doesn’t necessarily match the critics’ lists. Because I don’t see myself as a critic. I consider myself a reader and am ready to fall in love each time I crack a spine.
These are the stories I fell in love with this year. I hope you’ll enjoy them, too.
Happy Reading!
💋 Amy
Caveat: Heavy hitters such as Roxanne Gay, Jacquline Woodson, Laila Lalami, Elizabeth Strout, Pam Houston, Alice Hoffman, Zadie Smith and Michelle Obama al published books this year. And while I loved their offerings to the literary gods, they don’t qualify for the #ShadyLadiesList. We only highlight emerging women+ authors. (And by woman, we mean, anyone who identifies as a woman.)
📚 = I was provided an advanced review copy of the book free of charge or promise of coverage
J A N U A R Y
THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM 📚
By Shoshana Zuboff
Public Affairs | Jan. 1, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Zadie Smith says this is “easily one of the most important books to be published this century,” and I have to agree. We are in the middle of a mass disruption in how information is shared at the same time that our personal data is becoming our currency and worth. Shoshana Zuboff walks us through what is happening and what it all means. Even if you look at the tone and think, This isn’t for me, it is. I promise. It’s a serious topic, yes, but Zuboff writes with deft and compelling prose.
THICK: AND OTHER ESSAYS
By Tressie McMillan Cottom
Clarkson Potter | Jan. 8, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
The role of a public intellectual is one that gets overlooked in our Twitter era. Anyone with a keyboard can be a “public intellectual” - or at least very public in their thoughts. It takes someone like Tressie McMillan Cottom to reclaim that role and prove why writers, grappling with everything from money to beauty and connecting ideas in new ways, is so critical to our democracy and humanity. Her work, as Roxanne Gay says, is “transgressive, provocative and brilliant.”
F E B R U A R Y
A WOMAN IS NO MAN 📚
By Etaf Rum
Harper | Feb. 14, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
When I picked up a pre-publication review of A Woman is No Man, I knew I’d found a very special story. From page one, Etaf Rum pulled me into the closed world of a conservative Palestinian family living in Bay Ride. And even as the specifics of this story – arranged marriages, immigration, violence, a desire for more – are so different than my own, they are also universal. As soon as I closed the book, I knew she had to be a Shady Lady. And she was, coming to Detroit in June 2019 to celebrate a book that has since become a New York Times bestseller and Jenna Bush’s pick for her Read with Jenna book club.
M A R C H
LONG LIVE THE TRIBE OF FATHERLESS GIRLS
By T Kira Madden
Bloomsbury | March 5, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
I was visiting friends in Hudson, New York, when I found this book at a local bookstore. My friend was wandering the stacks, and I sat down to browse T Kira Madden’s story of a queer awakening. Two hours later, I was still sitting there reading. I couldn’t bare not knowing how the raw, powerful story ended, so I bought the book and got it as a book-on-tape to keep me company on my long drive back to Detroit.
A P R I L
WHAT MY MOTHER AND I DON’T TALK ABOUT
By Michele Filgate
Simon & Schuster | April 30, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
While reading this essay collection, my husband often found me huddled up in my nook,laughing out loud, sobbing hysterically, or talking back to the book. He was constantly inquiring after me: Are you okay? But I find that behavior to be the sign of an excellent book. I, like many of the writers in this collection, have a complicated relationship with my mother. There is so much between us that the gulf, at times, seems impossible to navigate. So much said...and unsaid. I just want to give the collection to my mom and see if, maybe, in reading these stories we could find our way home.
M A Y
LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE
By Valeria Luiselli
Knopf | May 29, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
This book, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, could be the Great American Novel of our time. So I love that it was written by a Mexcian author. It certainly has the sweep and storytelling to hold the crown. But I also love the intimacy of the novel, which could only come from Luiselli’s time spent translating immigration cases for families. Her story sends a family on a cross-country road trip as they look to document refugee children on the Southwest border ― and document their own (im)possible future. “An extraordinary allegory of this country’s current crisis of self-concept,” says Jordan Kisner in The Atlantic.
J U N E
THE DAUGHTERS OF TEMPERANCE HOBBS 📚
By Katherine Howe
Henry Holt | June 25, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Maybe the most fun I had all year while reading! Ostensibly about a Harvard professor who studies witches and witchcraft, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is that most delightful novel that sits perfectly at the intersection of literature and beach read. I could not put it down. This novel was given to me by its editor, who promised I’d love it. And I did! So much that I invited Katherine Howe to come and be a Shady Lady. But, alas! She was pregnant and no longer able to fly. But I foretell a future with her!
J U L Y
EVERYTHING BELOW THE WAIST 📚
By Jennifer Block
St. Martin’s Press | July 16, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Could there be a book more timely ― and personal ― to all women? Jennifer Block takes us through the history of the women’s movement and its relationship to reproductive health and explains how we got here. Why are we misdiagnosed, ignored and overtested all at the same time. It’s a call to action to take back control over our bodies. Deeply reported and empathetic. The stories will make you angry ― and make you take action.
BURN THE PLACE
By Iliana Regan
Agate Midway | July 16, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
I love a good food memoir; I have an entire shelf in my library dedicated to the genre. I’d devour even the most mediocre in hopes of finding another Blood Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton. This is that book. In it, we follow Iliana Regan from foraging as a kid in Indiana to the kitchens of Chicago, where she earned a Michelin star. But we also find a raw, powerful voice yearning for something, finding it and then wondering if that’s what it was all about after all.
A U G U S T
THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO
By Christy Lefteri
Ballentine Books | Aug. 27, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
This book was on my spreadsheet of books I couldn’t wait to read. I am trying to learn as much as I can about Syria and the refugee crisis, and I like to absorb knowledge through both nonfiction and fiction. Christy Lefteri’s book is the best of both worlds. She spent two summers volunteering in a refugee camp in Athens, which gave her first-hand experience. And from that, she crafted an achingly beautiful novel that asks readers to see refugees as individuals, not en masse. To hear their stories and see them as people, props for political discussions.
THE YELLOW HOUSE: A MEMOIR 📚
By Sarah M. Broom
Grove Press | Aug. 13, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Sarah Broom took home the coveted National Book Award this year for her arresting memoir. It is about a house, but, like a house, there is so much more inside it. We learn about the occupants of this shotgun home in East New Orleans, what brought them there, their hopes, their dreams. But we also learn more about the tides of change in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. We see a woman wrestling on the page with where she’s been, where’s she’s from and who she’s become. A master-class in memoir writing about place and people.
S E P T E M B E R
GUEST HOUSE FOR YOUNG WIDOWS: AMONG THE WOMEN OF ISIS
By Azadeh Moaveni
Random House | Sept. 10, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Azadeh Moaveni asks the question: What would motivate women to join the Islamic State. And then she answers that very question with the stories of 13 women (some actually still girls) who joined. Rather than seeing them as victims, extremists or fetishists, Moaveni sought to understand what brought them to the decision in the first place. What must be wrong in their worlds that ISIS seemed like a viable alternative? It brings compassion and nuance to these stories rather than just allowing the world to write these women off.
O C T O B E R
ORDINARY GIRLS
By Jaquira Díaz
Algonqin Books | Oct. 29, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be. Reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz’s memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history.
NINTH HOUSE
By Leigh Bardugo
Flatiron Books | Oct. 8, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
Leigh Bardugo is a well-known name in YA circles, but 2019 brought us her first adult title. And it does not disappoint. It moves with the pacing of a good YA novel, with all the intrigue and plot twists you want from a great beach read. Plus there’s magic. And Yale, with all of its mythology. And a girl from nowhere who can see ghosts ― and the hidden dynamics of power in both the real (and imagined) Yale. Grab this for your next vacation.
N O V E M B E R
THE REVISIONERS
By Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Counterpoint | Nov. 5, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
The press materials made this book seem perfect for Shady Ladies: “The Revisioners explores the depths of women’s relationships ― powerful women and marginalized women, healers and survivors. It is a novel about the bonds between mothers and their children, the dangers that upend those bonds. At its core, The Revisioners ponders generational legacies, the endurance of hope, and the undying promise of freedom.” And that is what it does. But so much more. We get two interlocking stories, set 100 years apart, about the friendships between African American and white women, and all of the resulting beauty and pain.
D E C E M B E R
CHILDREN OF VIRTUE AND VENGEANCE 📚
By Tomi Adeyemi
Henry Holt | Dec. 3, 2019
Read an excerpt here.
This one just came out, and it is already on my list. Why? It’s that good. I’ve been waiting for CoVV since I devoured Children of Blood and Bone, the first novel in Tomi Adeyemi’s Orisha trilogy. (Which Disney is making into a movie!) When we left our protagonist, Ziele, last time, she had just brought magic back to the land. (Spoiler! Sorry!) But now that everyone can wield the magic, Orisha is on the brink of civil war. Ziele must find a way to keep her world from being torn apart. And you must find a way to do anything but sit and read this book from cover to cover.
Caveat 2: I don't feature self-published authors. Caveat 3: I don’t keep a list for poetry or genre (romance, horror, etc.). It’s not because they aren’t worthy. They are. I just don’t have expertise in those areas. Caveat 4: If you see 📚, it means I was provided an advanced review copy of the book free of charge or promise of coverage. Caveat 5: Support your local bookseller!