Remember those cologne machines in truck stop bathrooms where you could buy cheap imitations of the real thing? “If you like Obsession, you’ll love Desperate Measures.” “If you love Chanel No. 5, might as well try Channel 42.” “Love Polo Sport? Welp, here’s Fantasy Football.”
This post is like that, but in a good way. And when it’s over, you won’t smell like a quarter’s worth of sadness.
Here’s how it works: I’ve mashed together my favorite books that I read in 2019 (though not necessarily published this year) and my favorite 2019 songs. Each tune has some kind of tenuous connection with the book I paired it with, so if you like a book on this list, you’ll probably like the song too. And vice versa. So if you like Carmen Maria Machado, you’ll love Mallrat! Maybe.
Let’s get this party started!
Good Talk • Mira Jacob
A graphic novel-style memoir about American identity, race, sex, relationships, and raising a brown child in the Trump era, all told in conversations. Jacob goes to uncomfortable places and tackles the things we should be talking about but aren’t.
Mashed with: Truth Hurts • Lizzo
My Sister the Serial Killer • Oyinkan Braithwaite
A darkly funny novel about a young, beautiful Nigerian woman who can’t stop murdering her boyfriends and the exasperated but reliable sister who bails her out of trouble. Until the serial killer falls for the sister’s crush …
Mashed with: Glad He’s Gone • Tove Lo
Lost Children Archive • Valeria Luiselli
A fractured family on a road trip out west, set against the backdrop of an immigration crisis as children crossing the southern U.S. border are detained or dying in the desert. This novel was so stunning and gutting, I think I highlighted something on every page.
Mashed with: Texas Sun • Khruangbin & Leon Bridges
Red, White & Royal Blue • Casey McQuiston
A romance in which America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales. I was clawing my way through a particularly low point when a friend recommended this book. Turned out a fun, flirty, escapist read was exactly what I needed.
Mashed with: boyfriend • Ariana Grande
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls • T Kira Madden
A queer coming-of-age memoir in essays that instantly became one of my all-time favorite books. As soon as I finished, I went right back to the beginning and read it a second time to figure out how she did it.
Mashed with: Sister Sister • Palm Springsteen
Heavy • Kiese Laymon
I listened to Heavy, which is read by the author, and then I bought a print copy to hold in my hands and see the words on the page. This memoir is about the emotional and physical burden of growing up black in America, examining the secrets Laymon spent a lifetime avoiding.
Mashed with: Water Me Down • Vagabon
Once More We Saw Stars • Jayson Greene
Greene’s two-year-old daughter was sitting on a park bench in Manhattan when a brick fell from a nearby windowsill and killed her. This memoir opens with that incident and follows Greene and his wife through their journey of grief. I don’t know how he managed to craft such a wonder out of true horror, but I’m grateful he did.
Mashed with: Thank You • Quincy Mumford
In the Dream House • Carmen Maria Machado
In this memoir, Machado explores an abusive same-sex relationship through dozens of different lenses, like horror tropes, fairytales, and a devastating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure sequence. This book blew my figurative house down.
Mashed with: Groceries • Mallrat
Daisy Jones & the Six • Taylor Jenkins Reid
A romance written as an oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-ish band in the late seventies? God, just take my money already.
I devoured this book, and then I ripped through a bunch of other TJR books for good measure.
Mashed with: Van Horn • Saint Motel (which includes my favorite lyric of 2019: “Hold it steady, drill it in like you’re J. Paul Getty.”)
Kindred • Octavia Butler
Hi. I’m the one person who never read Octavia Butler before this year, and I don’t know what took me so long. This historical fiction/fantasy novel about an African-American woman in 1976 California who travels through time to antebellum Maryland is considered to be the first science fiction written by a black woman, and it’s a true classic.
Mashed with: Turn the Light • Karen O & Danger Mouse
Convenience Store Woman • Sayaka Murata
A slim novel about a woman who has no friends, no boyfriend, and no real life outside of the soothing structure of the convenience store where she has spent her entire career.
Mashed with: Class Historian • BRONCHO
The Book of Delights • Ross Gay
Ross Gay has written micro-essays about moments of delight. Some of them are guilty pleasures, some are natural joys, but most show how we are always just a few inches away from sorrow – and it can be a radical act to feel joy and gratitude in a sad world.
Speaking of guilty pleasures, I think I like Harry Styles now? And I definitely find joy in watermelon, my favorite food. So this song here is my Tune of Delights.
Mashed with: Watermelon Sugar • Harry Styles
Dreyer’s English • Benjamin Dreyer
This is a funny, clever grammar book that I tore through like a juicy novel.
I’ve paired it here with Goth Babe, which has been my favorite writing music lately.
Mashed with: Weekend Friend • Goth Babe
How to Stay Human in a Fucked-Up World • Tim Desmond
Finally a mindfulness book that doesn’t feel like it was written by a blissful, solitary monk on a mountaintop. This is real talk and real meditation exercises for the real (fucked-up) world.
I Feel Emotion • Operators
Of course I have more favorites that didn’t make it into this smashup. For the books I read this year, peep my Goodreads and to see other 2019 songs I loved, here’s my playlist.
Wanna see lists from previous years? Here’s 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.
NOTE: There are affiliate links in this post. So if you click through and buy something, it doesn’t change anything on your end; it just means Amazon gives me a few pennies, which I use to help pay for this site because I am happy to take their money.