My year in books, 2018

I had such good intentions to blog more this year, but the second half of 2018 has thrown me a lot of curveballs emotionally and it’s pulled me away from a lot of the things that keep me engaged with others (funny how that seems to happen when you need people the most).Books are always a comforting constant in my life — a good way to get out of my own head. I left 2018 feeling brittle, but hopeful.

I did a pretty terrible job of keeping track of what I read this year, so it’s quite possible I read other things beyond these 52 and just don’t remember. I bolded the books that I really loved and would recommend to others and I was very surprised that Barbara Kingsolver’s new book did not even come close to making that list (I really disliked it). There are a lot of critically-acclaimed books that I read this year and felt rather “meh” about.

I’m coaching my son’s Oregon Battle of the Books team again this year (they made regionals last year as third graders!) so I committed to read all 16 books and develop practice questions for the kids. It took up way more time than I’d anticipated, so I don’t imagine I’ll do that ever again (it’s always hard to find that sweet spot as a parent where you feel like you’re doing enough that you don’t feel like a crappy mom, but aren’t doing so too much that no one is really going to appreciate). Live and learn.

Here’s my list for 2018:

• The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright
• Famous Last Words by Katie Alender
• The Brixton Brothers: The Ghostwriter’s Secret by Mac Barnett
• The Terrible Two (part 3) by Mac Barnett and Jory John
• The Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
• A Whole New Ballgame by Phil Bildner
• Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
• Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer
• Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Class Mom by Laurie Gelman
• George by Alex Gino
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer
• Real Friends by Shannon Hale
• Asymmetry: A Novel by Lisa Halliday
• Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
• Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
• The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy
• Celine: A novel by Peter Heller
• Nightbird by Alice Hoffman
• Ugly by Robert Hoge
• Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
• A Wrinkle in Time (The Graphic Novel) by Madeleine L’Engle
• Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine
• The Rules do not Apply by Ariel Levy
• When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
• Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
• In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall III
• Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
• The Infinity Year of Avalon James by Dana Middleton
• Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America edited by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding
• The Sympathizer: A Novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Wish by Barbara O’Connor
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• There There by Tommy Orange
• Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Steifvater
• Waylon! One Awesome Thing by Sara Pennypacker
• The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
• Will Not Attend by Adam Resnick
• The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs
• Where’d You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple
• You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld
• Swing Time by Zadie Smith
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
• The Best Kind of People: A Novel by Zoe Whittall
• The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
• Teaching Men of Color in the Community College by J. Luke Wood, Frank III Harris, and Khalid White
• Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates

And here are some books I hope to read in 2019. Any you’d particularly recommend?

• Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• The Power by Naomi Alderman
• The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
• A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley
• Lives Other Than My Own: A Memoir by Emmanuel Carrère
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Gone So Long by Andre Dubus III
• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
• Your Duck Is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (this has been on my list — and my Kindle — for way too long)
• The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu
• Florida by Lauren Groff
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Exist West by Moshin Hamid (this has been on my list — and my Kindle — for way too long)
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf (for the third time — it’s one of my all-time faves and my book club is reading it this month!)
• Night Hawks by Charles Johnson
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Leavers by Lisa Ko
• The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican by Daughter Erika Sanchez
• Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister

What did you love reading in 2018? What’s at the top of your list for 2019?