Today is the final day of 2019, and I imagine you’re growing tired of “best of” lists. Best of the year. Best of the decade. But aren’t these lists important? I mean, how can one be expected to grow without reflection and resolution? When I look back at my 2019 reading life, I see that I read 62 books, probably abandoned even more, listened to 13 audio books, analyzed more poetry than I’ve ever read before in my life, and interviewed 35 authors for Marginalia . I recently sat down with Suzanne Tobias, opinion writer at The Wichita Eagle and our book reviewer here at KMUW. We were each armed with a list of our top 10 reads for the year. Not published in 2019, but read in 2019. My list surprised even me. Only four were books of my choosing, by authors interviewed for the Marginalia podcast. Four favorites were forced upon me as texts for my English Lit classes. And two stemmed from a reading challenge. That was also new for me: reading challenges. As in plural. I’ve been participating in