2019 in Books

I love to read, always have. I have vivid memories of enthusiastically participating in  elementary school read-a-thons in support of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.  Remember this guy?

In recent years, between a career, raising children, volunteer work, and then my ambitious pursuit of a doctoral degree I wasn’t always able to find the time or energy to read as much as I would have liked, or read what I wanted to read.

2019 was the year I found my time to read again!  Having completed my doctoral work in April, I had more brain space and leisure time to read. Nowadays I find myself sometimes reading three books at a time:  One to listen to during the many hours a week I spend in my car; I am a devoted Audible subscriber. I try to read a professional book during my workouts at the gym. I find the combination of the two mutually reinforces and strengthens my discipline to take care of my body and my mind.  Finally, there is the book that sits by my bedside for nighttime reading.  I am also grateful for my wonderful book group, women of varying ages and experiences who come together to expand our knowledge of the world and of ourselves.  Those Thursday nights are often my favorite of the month!

So, like some of my other friends and heroes who read and share their lists at the end of the year, here is my list of reads from 2019.

1. Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
2. Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
3. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein HaLevi
4. Sapeins: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
5. The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
6. After Anatevka by Alexandra Silber
7. Circe by Madeline Miller
8. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz
9. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
10. White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
11. Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull
12. The Expats by Cris Pavone
13. One is Not a Lonely Number by Evelyn Krieger
14. Rabbi Akiba by Barry Holtz
15. Witness: Lessons fro Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Ariel Burger
16. Refugee by Alan Gratz
17. Portraits of Jewish Learning ed. by Diane Tickton Schuster
18. Brave not Perfect by Reshma Saujani
19. Starting Strong by Lois J. Zachary and Lory A. Fischler
20. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
21. The Inspired Teacher: How to Know One, Grow One or Be One by Carol Frederick Steele
22. A Full Measure of Happiness by Kenneth Golde
23. Temple Mount by Keith Raffel
24. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
25. Daring to Lead by Brene Brown
26. Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results by Drew Boyd & Jacob Goldenberg
27. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
28. Immigrant City by David Bezmozgies
29. The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax
30. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do (and More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky
31. Going Online with Protocols: New Tools for Teaching and Learning by Joseph P. McDonald, Janet Mannheimer Zydney, Alan Dichter
32. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon
33. The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead
34. Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life–in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There) by Sara Hurwitz