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?