Favorite Books, Movies, Art OF 2019

Since there are so many interesting books in the world, I start many more books than I finish. I sometimes watch movies in twenty minute chunks. Art, I believe, is not only what museums choose to display, but what gets created when we explore the unknown. 

This is by its nature an incomplete list—still, here is some of what I liked in 2019. 

BOOKS

• ​Intimate: An American Photo Album by Paisley Rekdal

​An inventive looping of mutiple genres to invoke the history and ambiguity of identity, intimacy, belonging and othering in contemporary America. 

• The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty 

Djinns and the medieval Middle East and a badass heroine who is a con artist. Need I say more?

• I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded trans. by Ranjit Hoskote

What does it mean to have a life of spirit amidst turbulent times?—how does one deepen, shed, emerge through utterance?   

• Living A Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed

Still reading this one slowly. For everyone who wants to think about how to inhabit this world while questioning it.

• Circe by Madeline Miller

Brilliant reimagining—how Circe grows into a sorceress and then a human.

• Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

A book “structured by pain”—Mailhot writes her way through the pieces (of colonial, intergenerational trauma), finding and restoring the connections.

• Everything Under by Daisy Johnson

Evocative of a slow-moving river—a mother going under, memories resurfacing.

• The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

Words as spells--recovering words that describe nature to bring back enchantment.

And Also These Books:  
 

• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner
• Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
• Midsummer Night by Freda Warrington
• Save Me The Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl
• The Little Snake by A.L. Kennedy
• The Queen of Jasmine Country by Sharanya Manivannan

MOVIES

• I Dream in Another Language (Sueño en otro idiom) dir. by Ernesto Contreras

The slow displacement of non-western realities by modernity, the cultural/magical ecology of indigenous languages.

• The Breadwinner dir. by Nora Twomey

Gender and empowerment, life under the Taliban in war-torn Afghanistan. These words do not get to how affecting this animation is.

• Boy dir. by Taika Waititi

A whimsical tale of sons and a father, and fantasies that turn into opportunities to become heroes. 

And also Article 15 dir. by Anubhav Sinha.

ART

• Marwa Arsanios, Untitled (tapestry)

Above are just two scenes from the tapestry designed by the artist and hand-stitched by the women of Jinwar, Syria, focusing on healing in dialogue with the land. (At SOFT POWER, SFMOMA)

And also Interior Landscape, a collaboration between Ashwini Bhat and Forrest Gander.