2019 Bookshelf

In addition to keeping up with my favorite podcasts-- Freakonomics, the The Moth (story-telling), Planet Money, and... Car Talk (for some classic Saturday chuckles)-- throughout 2019, I was tickled to branch out into using the library's Libby app to select and listen to audio books. Easy browsing, one-tap downloads, and auto returns all from the comfort and convenience of my very own phone! What's not to love?!

During the first part of the year, my audio reading stalled out 30 or 40 hours into the Winston Churchill book Defender of the Realm. I took a break, and still haven't finished...

Instead, I lightened the mood by following up on Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's original Freakonomics via Superfreakonomics (a light and easy read). I moved along to Benjamin Mee's interesting account of buying an English zoo with his extended family (We Bought a Zoo).

A Slave in the White House painted a historical picture of Paul Jennings' service in the White House under the Madison administration. Unfortunately, this read was a bit of a disappointment as I was hoping the book would be written mostly from Jennings' personal journals. Instead, the author (Elizabeth Dowling Taylor) expressed many "might have been," "could have looked like," "may have said," moments throughout the text, which made the story feel quite crafted from a modern perspective.


Although not the same as the movie, Margo Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures was excellent and a book I would highly recommend (I also highly recommend the film). It was sad to learn of realities brave black women faced in their professional careers not so long ago, but the book is written with a sense of victory over (rather than bondage to) the past.

I closed out the year on an FBI kick: Enemies (Tim Weiner) follows the fascinating political history of the FBI, including generous portions of J. Edgar Hoover's decades of dominance; Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann) details the historic Osage murders of Oklahoma-- which played a part in the birth of the FBI; and James Comey's A Higher Loyalty (read by the author himself) relates Comey's personal perspectives on leadership, reflecting on decisions he made in various leadership positions he's held in our country over the past number of decades, as well as his growth through and response to circumstances beyond his control.