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My 2016 Reading List

Book List 2016

1.     Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

2.     Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

3.     Camilla Lackberg, The Ice Princess

4.     Alexander Chee, The Queen of the Night

5.     Jennifer DuBois, Cartwheel

6.     Gertrude Stein, How to Write

7.     Etgar Keret, The Seven Good Years

8.     Nayomi Munaneera, Island of a Thousand Mirrors

9.     Zadie Smith, NW

10.  Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

11.  Yasmine el Rashidi, Chronicle of a Last Summer

12.  Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban

13.  Lisa Moore, Alligator

14.  Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

15.  Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

16.  Deborah Levy, Hot Milk

17.  Nell Zink, Mislaid

18.  Anne Trubek, The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting

19.  Emma Cline, The Girls

20.  Camilla Lackberg, The Preacher

21.  Barbara Demick, Logavina Street

22.  Jessica Grose, Soulmates

23.  Barbara Trapido, Brother of the More Famous Jack

24.  Jade Chang, The Wangs vs the World

25.  Marie Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger

26.  Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

27.  Megan Abbott, You Will Know Me

28.  Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

29.  Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter

30.  Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

31.  Idra Novey, Ways to Disappear

32.  Rebecca Solnit, Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness

33.  Karolina Waclawiak, How to Get Into the Twin Palms

34.  Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

35.  Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars

36.  Lily Tuck, The News from Paraguay

37.  Shani Boianjiu, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

38.  Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians

39.  Nadja Spiegelman, I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This

40.  Claire Vaye Watkins, Gold Fame Citrus

41.  Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

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My Favorite Things I Wrote in 2015

The Billfold: How to Get Free Money and Still Be Broke

Cosmopolitan: Should You Crowdfund the Cost of Having a Baby?

Vanity Fair: 5 Korean Novels You Should Read Right Now

The Forward: The Art of Goysplaining

Elle: I’m Childfree and Obsessed With a Show About Midwives

BuzzFeed: Here’s What You Probably Don’t Know About Sign Language

Curbed NY: Inside a Hidden New York Museum Devoted to Graphic Design

Fast Company: When Giving Up the Lead Is the Best Leadership Decision

The Guardian: How ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries’ Conquered America

The Daily Dot: Meet ‘Hairiscope,’ the Hairstyling Community on Periscope

And then, of course, there are lots of things I write every day at Traveler that I am proud of. It was hard to narrow it down, but here are a few faves:

A Peek Inside Rarities, the World’s Most Exclusive Hotel Bar

A Graffiti Artist’s Journey from Subway Cars to Hotel Walls

What Happens When a Classic Resort Goes Kosher for Passover

Iceland Road Trip: Reykjavik to Nesjavellir

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All the Books I Read in 2015

Two years after this essay, I still almost exclusively read books by women. Here’s this year’s list:

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber

Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

Eimear McBride, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories

Lynsey Addario, This Is What I Do

Emily Bleeker, Wreckage

Kate Bolick, Spinster

Erik Larson, Dead Wake

Maggie Nelson, Bluets

Ali Smith, How to be both

Suki Kim, Without You There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Emily St. Vincent Mandel, Station Eleven

Peter Bagge, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story

Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock

Mary Norris, Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

Lily Koppel, The Astronaut Wives Club

Patricia Park, Re Jane

Sara Novic, Girl at War

Sara Levine, Treasure Island!!!

Shelly Oria, New York 1 Tel Aviv 0

Jami Attenberg, Saint Mazie

Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us

Kristin Newman, What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

Hilary Mantel, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher*

Han Kang, The Vegetarian

Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom

Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Cece Bell, El Deafo

Andrea Dunlop, Losing the Light

Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

Katie Crouch, Abroad

Jessica Chiarella, And Again

Gay Talese, Thy Neighbor’s Wife

Eula Biss, On Immunity

Vendela Vida, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty

Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped

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One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, Midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience. The popular image of the copy editor is of someone who favors rigid consistency. I don’t usually think of myself that way. But, when pressed, I do find I have strong views about commas.

Mary Norris, “Confessions of a Comma Queen”

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Few things will remind you of your station in life more quickly than a $100 gift card for a store where things begin at $300. It is a beautifully gift wrapped slap in the face. If you ever think that you are glamorous or that you live one of those elegant New York City lives that you used to dream about, a $100 gift certificate to a design store that has been featured in Vogue will knock you right back down to the un-air-conditioned walkup in Brooklyn where you belong.

“How to Get Free Money and Still Be Broke,” The Billfold

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Everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self. Hundreds of years ago, we sent letters by horseback, containing only what we wanted the recipient to read. Fifty years ago, we spoke via the telephone, sharing only the details that constructed the self we wanted reflected. With Instagram, one thing has changed: the amount we consume of one another's edited lives. Young women growing up on Instagram are spending a significant chunk of each day absorbing others' filtered images while they walk through their own realities, unfiltered. In a recent survey conducted by the Girl Scouts, nearly 74 percent of girls agreed that other girls tried to make themselves look "cooler than they are" on social networking sites.

“Split Image” by Kate Fagan

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If you love home-and even if you don't-there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you--the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you're trying to sleep in--seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

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Whom to marry, and when it will happen--these two questions define every woman's existence, regardless of where she was raised or what religion she does or doesn't practice. She may grow up to love women instead of men, or to decide she simply doesn't believe in marriage. No matter. These dual contingencies govern her until they're answered, even if the answers are nobody and never. Men have their own problems; this isn't one of them.

Kate Bolick, Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

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So many women were casualties of their birthplace. They had nothing when they were born and would have nothing when they died; they survived off the land and through their dedication to their families, their children.

Lynsey Addario, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

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How do you know when there's enough of anything? What trips the lever that snaps up the STOP sign? What electrical currents fizz and crackle in the brain to shape the decision to quit a place?

Annie Proulx, "The Mud Below"

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My Favorite Things I Wrote This Year

Previously.TV: PTV Contributor/Signer to Television Characters: LEARN ASL ALREADY

Elle: I Got Boobs at Age 30

Wall Street Journal: For More New Yorkers, Tea is Jolly Good and Hitting the Spot

The Forward: Orthodox Woman's "Move Over" Subway Campaign

Cosmopolitan: My Partner Changed His Mind About Wanting Kids

The Wire: Why You Shouldn't Share Those "Deaf Person Hears for the First Time" Videos

Conde Nast Traveler: 10 of the World's Most Beautiful Libraries

The Guardian: #Holocaust selfies are inevitable if you turn solemn sites into tourist traps

Teen Vogue: What It's Like to Grow Up in a Deaf Family

Lilith: Jewish While Traveling

Modern Loss: Grandmotherly Advice, Courtesy of Netflix

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My 2014 Reading List

Last year, when I wrote my piece about only reading books by women, I came to Tumblr to publish the full list. I'm back doing the same thing this year.

A note: I read three books by men (one of whom is a dear friend) this year. Even though I am not exclusively reading books by women, I will always have them as the overwhelming majority of what I read. It is a personal decision, and a political one.

Otherwise, I tried to diversify my list by choosing more writers of color and more non-Americans/non-Brits. Here's the final list, with my 10 favorites starred.

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Celia Rivenbark, Rude Bitches Make Me Tired

Monica Byrne, The Girl in the Road

Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Janet Mock, Redefining Realness

Vendela Vida, May the Northern Lights Erase Your Name*

Jennifer Clement, Prayers for the Stolen

Constance Fenimore Woolson, Anne

Megan Abbott, The Fever

Bich Minh Nguyen, Pioneer Girl*

Sigrid Undset, Marta Oulie

Alena Graedon, The Word Exchange*

Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory*

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Bittersweet

Karen Russell, Sleep Donation*

Octavia Butler, Kindred

Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

Rebecca Walker, Adé: A Love Story

Amy Tan, Rules for Virgins

Amy Bloom, Lucky Us

Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City

Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave

Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things To Me

Hannah Kent, Burial Rites*

Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing

Guy Delisle, The Burma Chronicles

Alice Munro, Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage

Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams*

Margaret Atwood, Stone Mattress

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Merritt Tierce, Love Me Back*

Kathryn Joyce, The Child Catchers

Laurie Penny, Unspeakable Things

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being*

Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange

Samantha Ellis, How to Be a Heroine

Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers*

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

James Tadd Adcox, Does Not Love

Sarah Perry, After Me Comes the Flood

Etgar Keret, The Girl on the Fridge

Xiaolu Guo, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba

Iris Murdoch, Henry and Cato

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To save money in pricey Hong Kong, I spent most of my time in Kowloon, the Brooklyn to Hong Kong Island’s Manhattan. The choice was the right one: between the crammed canteen-style noodle shops, 24-hour teahouses, and vibrant night markets selling everything from flowers to birds, I got a glimmer of what it might be like to be a local. Kowloon Walled City Park unfurled slowly to reveal layers of history, while the Sik Sik Yuen Wan temple buzzed with prayers and the heady scent of incense. I didn’t want to leave, but taking the Star Ferry to the airport train was without a doubt the prettiest commute I’ve ever had.

My contribution to CN Traveler's editors' roundup of our favorite trips of the year.

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Lake Tahoe, the Van Gogh Museum, and other destinations that are banning selfies. 

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The boys were studying fascinating, abstruse Talmud, while we girls learned each festival via its cakes. We baked honeycakes for Rosh Hashanah, hamentaschen for Purim, macaroons for Pesach. One day we left the creamy Shavuot cheesecakes to cool while we went off to learn about the purity laws. We returned to find nothing but crumbs. The boys had eaten the cakes. As we washed up the empty tins, I wondered why no one else was angry.

Samantha Ellis, How to Be a Heroine

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In a short story by the late writer Leonard Michaels, the main character – a Jewish mathematics professor named Nachman – attends a conference in Krakow, Poland, where he is assigned a tour guide who tells him that she is taking him to Auschwitz because she’s aware that some of his family members were there. Nachman, however, has another idea. “I don’t want to tour Auschwitz,” he tells the guide. “I would like to see the ghetto, particularly the synagogue.” In other words, he wants to see where they lived, not where they died.

My thoughts on Holocaust selfies and the Disneyification of concentration camps, today in The Guardian.