We asked the past year’s podcast-guests for the favorite books they read in 2019 and the books they hope to read in 2020 for our special year-end Guest List episode! More than two dozen guests participated, so listen to the show to hear about their picks, and use this page to check out all the books, as well as their past episodes!

(Photo of most of my 2019 books (not incl. comics) by me)

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If you’d like a guide to the episode, detailing the order of the speakers and when their segments begin, please scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Guests

Christopher Brown – 23:05

• Rusty Brown – Chris Ware
• Insurrecto – Gina Apostol
• Tears of the Trufflepig: A Novel – Fernando Flores
• High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies – Erik Davis

Chris’ 2020 goals

• Agency – William Gibson

Nina Bunjevac – 25:00

• Reincarnation Stories – Kim Deitch
• Alchemical Active Imagination: Revised Edition – Marie Louis Von Franz
• Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
• The Secret Teachings of All Ages – Manly Palmer Hall

Nina’s 2020 goals

• more Von Franz, mostly her work on archetypes, and more of Rudolf Steiner’s interpretations of the gospels

Jerome Charyn – 2:45

• Lulu In Hollywood – Louise Brooks

Jerome’s 2020 goals

• The Book of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa

Caleb Crain – 19:40

• A Door in the Earth – Amy Waldman

Caleb’s 2020 goals

• Uncanny Valley: A Memoir – Anna Wiener

Joan Marans Dim (episode coming 2020) – 5:00

• Becoming – Michelle Obama
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
• The Builders of the Bridge: The Story of John Roebling and His Son – David Steinman
• Gotham Comes of Age: New York Through the Lens of the Byron Company, 1892-1942 – Peter Simmons, intro by EL Doctorow

Boris Fishman – 15:20

• Ship Fever: Stories – Andrea Barrett
• The Wrong Heaven – Amy Bonnaffons
• Before Night Falls: A Memoir – Reinaldo Arenas
• Sir Vidia’s Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents – Paul Theroux

Boris’ 2020 goals

• The Odyssey – Emily Wilson

Katelan Foisy – 30:20

• The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World – David Jaher

Katelan’s 2020 goals

• Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward – Carl Abrahamsson

Mort Gerberg – 25:45

• A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel – Amor Towles
• Educated: A Memoir – Tara Westover
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• The Testaments – Margaret Atwood
• The Weight of Ink – Rachel Kadish

Eva Hagberg – 26:10

• Future Home of the Living God: A Novel – Louise Erdrich

Eva’s 2020 goals

• More Louise Erdrich!!

Peter Kuper – 8:00

• City of Thieves: A Novel – David Benioff
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa – Adam Hochschild
• The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir – Thi Bui

Peter’s 2020 goals

• Silent Spring – Rachel Carson

Kate Lacour – 21:10

• Quoberious Vol. 1 – DRT
• The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
• Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories – Flannery O’Connor

Liniers – 15:00

• Rusty Brown – Chris Ware

Liniers’ 2020 goals

• Short stories by Saunders, Borges, and Vonnegut
• Maggie Brown & Others: Stories – Peter Orner

Kate Maruyama – 15:50

• Little Eve – Catriona Ward
• Everything Under – Daisy Johnson
• Social Creature: A Novel – Tara Isabella Burton
• There There – Tommy Orange

Edie Nadelhaft – 10:25

• A Little Life – Hanya Yanigahara

Sylvia Nickerson – 27:25

• Clyde Fans – Seth
• A Beautiful Mind – Sylvia Nasar
• A Contract with God – Will Eisner

Sylvia’s 2020 goals

• Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey – Colin Grant

James Oseland – 3:30

• Aztec – Gary Jennings

James’ 2020 goals

• A good, readable book about weather and meteorology, if anyone has suggestions

Dawn Raffel – 17:45

• Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino

Dawn’s 2020 goals

• The Yellow House: A Memoir – Sarah Broom

Witold Rybczynski – 12:55

• old favorites like Alan Furst, Ross Macdonald, Charles McCarry, Philip Kerr, and Robert Harris
• The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels – Patrick O’Brian
• The Palliser Novels – Anthony Trollope

Witold’s 2020 goals

• The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost; Leaven of Malice; A Mixture of Frailties – Robertson Davies

Frank Santoro – 13:40

• Milkman: A Novel – Anna Burns
• Bradley of Him – Connor Willumsen

Frank’s 2020 goals

• Balzac

Ersi Sotiropoulos – 9:50

• What I’m Looking For: Selected Poems 2005–2017 – Maureen McLane
• A Burnt Child: A Novel – Stig Dagerman
• Camellia Street – Mercè Rodoreda

Ersi’s 2020 goals

• Stories of Anton Chekhov – Anton Chekhov

Karl Stevens – 26:50

• Normal People: A Novel – Sally Rooney
• The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power – David Shields
• Bezimena – Nina Bunjevac

Karl’s 2020 goals

• The Nickel Boys: A Novel – Colson Whitehead

James Sturm – 11:45

• The Man Without Talent – Yoshiharu Tsuge
• Pittsburgh – Frank Santoro
• MacDoodle St. – Mark Alan Stamaty
• Alay-Oop – William Gropper
• Leaving Richard’s Valley – Michael Deforge
• This Woman’s Work – Julie Delporte
• The Lie And How We Told It – Tommi Parrish
• Theory of Bastards – Audrey Schulman
• Normal People: A Novel – Sally Rooney

Frederic Tuten – 30:00

• The Bark Tree – Raymond Queneau

Frederic’s 2020 goals

• Under the Volcano: A Novel – Malcolm Lowry

Chris Ware – 18:30

• The Gift – Vladimir Nabokov
• Grand Union: Stories – Zadie Smith
• Howards End – EM Forster
• The Souls of Black Folk – WEB Dubois
• Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography – David S. Reynolds

Chris’ 2020 goals

• Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
• My Struggle – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Peregrine – JA Baker

Gil Roth – 31:10

• The Honourable Schoolboy – John Le Carré
• Essays After Eighty – Donald Hall
• A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety – Donald Hall
• My Young Life – Frederic Tuten
• A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel – Amor Towles
• An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and an Epic – Daniel Mendelsohn
• Mysterious Obsession: Memoirs of a Compulsive Collector – Otto Penzler
• Rusty Brown – Chris Ware
• Pittsburgh – Frank Santoro

Gil’s 2020 goals

• A Perfect Spy: A Novel – John Le Carré
• Berlin Noir Trilogy – Philip Kerr
• Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy – Olivia Manning
• Fortunes of War: The Levant Trilogy – Olivia Manning

Guest List Sequence

Jerome Charyn – 2:45
James Oseland – 3:30
Joan Marans Dim (episode coming 2020) – 5:00
Peter Kuper – 8:00
Ersi Sotiropoulos – 9:50
Edie Nadelhaft – 10:25
James Sturm – 11:45
Witold Rybczynski – 12:55
Frank Santoro – 13:40
Liniers – 15:00
Boris Fishman – 15:20
Kate Maruyama – 15:50
Dawn Raffel – 17:45
Chris Ware – 18:30
Caleb Crain – 19:40
Kate Lacour – 21:10
Christopher Brown – 23:05
Nina Bunjevac – 25:00
Mort Gerberg – 25:45
Eva Hagberg – 26:10
Karl Stevens – 26:50
Sylvia Nickerson – 27:25
Frederic Tuten – 30:00
Katelan Foisy – 30:20
Gil Roth – 31:10

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