Dubuque Virtual Book Club discussion

It's once again time to share the books that meant to most to you over the last year. Share your favorite reads from 2019. They don't need to have been published in 2019, as long as they were new to you.

Also, if you participated in the Great Reading Challenge of 2019, be sure to submit your reading total before December 27 and register for the party happening on January 12: Great Reading Challenge

New-to-me favorites were G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen and Mira Grant's Into the Drowning Deep.

I also re-read several favorites: I've Got Your Number, The Thirteenth Tale, The Last Child, Feed.

And I have to mention the perfect ending (if it had to end) of my favorite comic, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. The final issue came out last month, and the final trade collection will be out in March, I think.

I'll miss Unbeatable Squirrel Girl too! As a trade waiter, I'm happy to hear that the ending is solid.

In 2019 I read quite a bit of romance, and I shared a few of my favorites on the library's blog. Two others that I read and loved after writing that post are Royal Holiday and Ayesha at Last.

I also really enjoyed This Is How You Lose the Time War which I admit I picked up because I liked the cover, but it sucked me right in. I'll probably reread it to see what new details I pick up on a second pass.

My absolute favorite this year was Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos. I'm so impressed by how Knisley improves and grows with each book. This one made me cry buckets too.

I just finished The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America, and thought it was fantastic. Karen Abbott brings to life the 1920’s and the characters of early-bootlegger king George Remus, his second wife Imogene, and the female prosecutor set to bring Remus down, Mabel Willebrandt. Told in noir-ish prose with keen historical detail, it’s a real-life crime drama, with greed, backstabbing, and all-too-human characters.

Other books I really enjoyed in 2019 were:

The Lathe of Heaven- my first Ursula K. Le Guin book and definitely one of my top books of the year!

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill - a girl with a magic bike battles a quasi-vampire child predator with a magic car.

The River at Night by Kevin Huizenga - a graphic novel that grapples with the felt experience of time vs. geologic time and brings to life the mundane while being really funny. I enjoyed the author’s visit to Carnegie-Stout as well.

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix – a humorous horror story about authenticity in metal music (and music in general). The heroine lead guitarist fights to get her soul back from her former lead singer-turned superstar, who literally sold the souls of his old band to the devil. Reads like a B-movie, in the best way, with its heart in the right place.