Here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019/25236549.

I read 26 books but added 43 books to my “want-to-read” list. So many books, so little time!

One thing I did this year is: I forced myself to write a review of each book I read. I did not do one of those reviews where I summarized the book, there are plenty of those. Instead I just wrote what I was thinking or what the book made me feel. It was like a good ritual that helped me to come to closure with the book that I just finished.

This year was the first time I read a biography (I think). I read fierce attachment and fun home. I got the recommendation for those from a New York Times article called the The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years.

This year, I also started reading in Spanish. I am teaching myself Spanish through brute force. I am just reading beginner level books and I translate words that I don’t know with google translate or I just guess the meaning from the context or by translating in my mind from french. Hopefully as I bump into the same words repeatedly, I will start to “memorize” them. For some books like “the little prince”, I am reading the book AND writing it in a little notebook. I am borrowing this technique from my school days. I always “studied” in school by just taking notes and writing stuff down. Hopefully, this will work.

If I had to pick a favorite book, I would say the “Elena Ferrante” books are a serious winner. They were recommended by a friend (Tamara). The books are brutally good. I did not read the last book in the series because my friend warned me that it will be a difficult read because it deals with death and loss. Hopefully, I will be able to finish it up in 2020.

If you want to grab the books, here is the link to Elena Ferrante’s author page on amazon: https://amzn.to/2QslmGK.