2019 in books and films

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I read 74 books in 2019, three down on last year (and once again I find myself a substantial way through a very large book on New Year's Eve which won't be finished before midnight, this time Ursula Le Guin's collected novellas). 57 were by or co-authored by women; several others were anthologies edited by women and including a high proportion of female authors. I think 9 were by authors of colour though I'm not always sure of that; 13 of the 74 were non-fiction, which is higher than in previous years.

My favourite read of the year was This Is How You Lose The Time War (so good I read it twice); other particular mentions go to Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night, The Calculating Stars, The Testaments, Travel Light, Anna Chronistic and the Scarab of Destiny and The Ten Thousand Doors of January, as well as the always delighful Comfortable Courtesan and Clorinda's Circle series.

Middlemarch - George Eliot
Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night - Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma
The Wild Remedy - Emma Mitchell
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
Graves in Academe - Susan Kenney
Rivers of London: Water Weed - Ben Aaronovitch
Nancy at St Bride’s - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Chéri and The Last of Chéri - Colette
That Boarding-School Girl - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rainbow Bouquet ed. Farah Mendelsohn
Cabaret of Monsters - Tansy Rayner Roberts
The School on the Moor - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Fireflood and other stories - Vonda N McIntyre
Invited Everywhere - L.A. Hall
Wain - Rachel Plummer
The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman
The Lake District Murder - John Bude
A Man of Independent Mind - L.A. Hall
Transcription - Kate Atkinson
Planetfall - Emma Newman
Women and Power - Mary Beard
The Honey Month - Amal El-Mohtar
Women Invent the Future
Under the Pendulum Sun - Jeannette Ng
The Stolen Voice - Pat McIntosh
The Electricity of Every Living Thing - Katherine May
This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Felicities Maximised - L.A. Hall
The Cut Out Girl - Bart van Es
The October Man - Ben Aaronovitch
The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemisin
Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
Death in the Spotlight - Robin Stevens
The Case of the Missing Treasure - Robin Stevens
Memory - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Calculating Stars - Mary Robinette Kowal
This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee
The Sibyl in Her Grave - Sarah Caudwell
The Bi-ble - ed. Lauren Nickodemus and Ellen Desmond
The Ironmaster’s Tale - L.A. Hall
Vanishing Fleece - Clara Parkes
Meet Me in the Future - Kameron Hurley
Top Marks for Murder - Robin Stevens
The Devil’s Heart - Carmen Carter
The Far Side of the World - Patrick O’Brian
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
The Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Tove Jansson
Purple Prose - ed. Kate Harrad
The Planet Dweller - Jane Palmer
The Duke is Dead - Ankaret Wells and Irene Headley
Footnotes - Peter Fiennes
A Dead Djinn in Cairo - P Djèlí Clark
Reflections - Diana Wynne Jones
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Brightfall - Jaime Lee Moyer
Waterlog - Roger Deakin
The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Incalculable Diffusion - L.A. Hall
Travel Light - Naomi Mitchison
Thinking on my Feet - Kate Humble
Anna Chronistic and the Scarab of Destiny - Ankaret Wells
The Last Tsar’s Dragons - Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
Proper English - K.J. Charles
The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman
Two Weddings and Several Revelations - L.A. Hall
Wax Works - Julia Simpson-Urrutia
The Santiago Pilgrimage - Jean-Christophe Rufin
The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E Harrow
Snowspelled - Stephanie Burgis
Mani - Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner


I also saw 35 films at the cinema. I'm not sure I can pick a favourite there either, though The Favourite, Woman at War, Blinded by the Light and Knives Out are definitely towards the top of the list.

The Favourite
Colette
Stan & Ollie
Mary Queen of Scots
Vice
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
All Is True
If Beale Street Could Talk
On The Basis Of Sex
Jellyfish
The Kindergarten Teacher
Everybody Knows
The White Crow
Out of Blue
Wild Rose
Greta
Eighth Grade
Woman at War
After Life
Booksmart
Late Night
Yesterday
Performance
Vita and Virginia
The Dead Don’t Die
Blinded By The Light
Pain and Glory
The Farewell
Official Secrets
The Good Liar
Judy and Punch
La Belle Époque
Knives Out
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Little Women

You can find the full reviews of all of these via the 2019 books and 2019 films tags.