Happy New Year & 2019! We just got back on Monday from our Christmas in Southern California visiting with family, so please excuse me if I haven’t stopped by your blog lately. I plan to do so soon. We had a great time there with my siblings and parents. And at left, is my sister’s dog Sadie; she’s the half-sister of my dog Stella, who couldn’t come this time around. While they look similar as yellow Labs, they have quite different personalities, ha! But they are both great dogs.
Now as I look back on my 2018 in reading, I see that I completed 6 books less than I did the year before. It wasn’t exactly a stellar year in terms of quantity, but I enjoyed some excellent books all the same and plan to set new reading and blogging goals and priorities for the year ahead that I think will boost my overall totals and enjoyment. Things got a bit away from me in mid-2018, but with renewed focus, I will get to more wonderful stories in 2019.
In looking back on my year, it seems I really got more into reading historical fiction this year, which I don’t think I had preferred much in the past. I find that surprising but also great — liking this new category. I’m into it. For now, I’ll leave you with some of my stats for 2018 as well as some favorites. The top fiction and nonfiction books left a strong impression on me! (I tried to place them in order of liking them.) Let me know if you had some similar favorites, or if you disagree.
- Books Completed: 55
- Fiction: 45
- Nonfiction: 10
- Print: 26
- Audiobooks 29
- Female Authors: 40
- Male Authors: 15
- Non-white Authors: 12
- American Authors: 37
- British Authors: 13
- Canadian Authors: 3
- Australian Authors: 2
Favorite Fiction:
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2018)
- Varina by Charles Frazier (2018)
- The Power by Naomi Alderman (2017)
- Elmet by Fiona Mozley (2017)
- Tin Man by Sarah Winman (2018)
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (2018)
- The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer (2018)
Favorite Nonfiction:
- A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols (2001)
- The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese (1998)
- The White Darkness by David Grann (2018)
- I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (2018)
- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (1994)
- From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein (2018)
- Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose by Joe Biden (2017)
Favorite Debut Novels:
- Elmet by Fiona Mozley (2017)
- Tangerine by Christine Mangan (2018)
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018)
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
- The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (2010)
- There There by Tommy Orange (2018)
Favorite Memoirs:
- The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese (1998)
- From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein (2018)
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (1994)
- Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden (2017)
- I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018)
Favorite Thrillers / Suspense Fiction
- Sunburn by Laura Lippman (2018)
- The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn (2018)
- Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin
- Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips (2017)
- The Party by Robyn Harding (2017)
- The Ex by Alafair Burke (2017)
- Need to Know by Karen Cleveland (2018)
Classics:
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Favorite Historical Fiction:
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2018)
- Varina by Charles Frazier (2018)
- The Removes by Tatjana Soli (2018)
- Love & Ruin by Paula McLain (2018)
- The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (2010)
- The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (2017)
- The Kinship of Secrets by Eugenia Kim (2018)
- Vi by Kim Thuy (2016)
Favorite 2018 Movies (I’ve seen so far):
- Widows
- RBG
- Leave No Trace
- Adrift
- A Quiet Place
- The Wife
Other 2018 movies I’ve seen : A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, First Reformed, The Rider, Private Life, First Man, Crazy Rich Asians, Breath, The Mercy, Hunter Killer, Mary Poppins Returns
2018 movies I still want to see: If Beale Street Could Talk; Can You Ever Forgive Me?; The Children Act; On Chesil Beach; Wildlife; Blindspotting, Vice
Favorite 2018 Albums:
- Brandi Carlile “By the Way I Forgive You”
- Leon Bridges “Good Thing”
That’s all for now. What about you — how did your reading year go … and what were your favorites?
Welcome home! It sounds like your Christmas was special.
We share many favorites. I still love it that we agree on The Power!
You reminded me that I must get to Varina.
I finally got Washington Black from the library.
Happy reading (and everything else) in 2019.
Thanks for all your wonderful reviews.
Hey Judy, thanks to you! Hope you had a great Christmas. The weather was good in the OC – a little windy but sunny too. I value your tastes in good lit fiction & reviews, so I hope you will like Varina and Wash Black. I think 2019 could be a good year in books. Enjoy your reading.
Isn’t it funny how our tastes/moods change? I found that my top reads of 2018 were mostly nonfiction. I plan to spend more time with it next year.
I agree Kathy, reading tastes can change, which I didn’t realize before. I hope you enjoy your nonfiction this year. I too would like to read more of it.
I also did not read nearly as much as I wanted to. There is just not enough time to read. It looks like you read some great books 2018 though. Hopefully we both will read more in the coming year.
Happy New Year’s!
Thanks Brian. Happy New Year to you as well. Good thing we can start our reading over. We have a clean slate now. I think I will try to set aside more time for sitting down with a book & not getting interrupted! Good luck to your new goals.
What beautiful pictures of Sadie! (And the ocean!) It sounds like you had a lovely visit with your family over the holidays.
Yay for Washington Black! And now I want to read A Voyage for Madmen – it sounds riveting!
Thanks Naomi: the dog photos are a highlight. & yeah I was stoked about Washington Black (my #1 for 2018!). I think you’ll love A Voyage for Madmen. It was quite riveting and has a lot of interesting info in it too.
You are always so good about keeping up with current movies. Me? Hardly ever.
How was your trip to California? It’s so cold here now! 39 degrees at night. I walk around the house in extra sweaters because the heat makes the upstairs nice and cozy but downstairs it’s like a fridge in here.
My time off is coming to a close and I am dreading it. The past few days between Marie Kondo’s new Netflix show and this Simplified 30 Day Challenge, I have been tackling the clutter and enjoying it immensely. With both of us working full time and then not being home all that much even after work, the house is not up to my standards at all. I gotta change that.
Hi Ti: We had a great time at the OC. It was 50s & 60s at the beach but we still got some bike rides and walks in. Plenty of shopping, visiting, and some reading too. A couple days were quite windy but made the air so clear — we could see Catalina easily. Sorry you have to go back to work, argh. That Marie Kondo show sounds good — is it? I hate clutter too but I (always) procrastinate about doing anything about it, sigh. Good luck with your house.
Welcome back, Susan! That pic speaks volumes. Washington Black will be my first read of the year. I wasn’t that impressed with Love and Ruin, if you remember; your reading coincided with your summer trip to the War Monuments in Europe, and that perhaps enhanced the experience. I’ve heard so much about Where the Crawdads…that I really want to read it. I bought Varina on sale last year and it’s been waiting on my TBR ever since. 2019 won’t be the year of Varina either. Tangerine also intrigued me…perhaps in the future. I agree with you about Adrift and A Quiet Place. I have not seen the others. The Children Act and Blindspotting were very powerful. Can You Ever… was quirky and very entertaining. Melissa McCarthy will be a strong contender for Best Actress if she is nominated. There’s more than forty movies from 2018 that I still want to watch, reason why I won’t publish a “best movies of the year” list. I’ll be catching up until Kingdom come! 😮
Thanks Carmen for your comments! There’s definitely a lot of movies from 2018 I still want to see before the Oscars. You have pointed me to quite a few of those. I’ll be curious about what you think of Wash Black. I felt it was good storytelling and easy to follow, quite an adventure of sorts. Crawdads reminded me a tad of To Kill a Mockingbird – just the way it’s told. Love & Ruin I liked once I got to middle b/c I was interested in her relationship with Hemingway and I was curious about where it went off the rails etc. I got a sense of it. Happy New Year to you.
Sounds like you had an excellent holiday in California! My numbers were down, too, but I’m going to focus on quality over quantity… so many great books in 2018. We enjoyed many of the same one. Happy New Year, Susan.
Thanks JoAnn. Yea, quality over quantity is a great idea. I too like to go at my own pace. We usually like a lot of the same books so it seems we have similar tastes in our reading, which is fun. I look forward to seeing what you like in 2019!
Wow! You have such a comprehensive set of lists here. It was fun reading through the top books/movies in each category. I’m envious of all the movies you’ve seen. I used to go to the movies almost every weekend, but my two movie buddies and myself all have young grandkids now and it’s harder and harder to find weekends where we’re all free. Oh, well. The good with the bad, but I love those babies.
Here’s to great reading in 2019!
Thanks Susie. Your grandkids sound adorable — so you are so lucky! Too fun. Hope you too have a great reading year in 2019. I think we both will. Cheers!
2018 ended up being a better year than expected. December was awesome because I went completely into library books and backlist reading. It was so relaxing to read whatever I wanted. The only problem was I didn’t get any writing done. I feel as if I’m headed back to work now!
A Star is Born was not a favorite of 2018? I loved it.
I really liked the musical performances in A Star Is Born but the story waned for me near the end. Still it was an engaging movie. You read so many books in 2018 — you were on a roll. Happy reading in 2019.
The Current and The Dreamers seem really good to me. I love the thought and time you put into your posts…thank you
Hey Thanks Diane. That is very kind of you to say. My posts do take considerable time to put together. Ha, I’m trying to pare them down. We’ll see…
I never got around to doing a year-end wrap up post but if I did, American Marriage would definitely be on it. I read Promise Me Dad in 2017 and loved it. I listened to it. Biden read it himself and you could tell he was getting choked up at times. I love him.
You read a lot of great books that are on my TBR list for this year!
Hey thanks Rachel on the feedback of which books you liked as well. Good to know you read the Biden book too. It seemed quite from the heart — what he had to say. I’ll be curious to see if he runs for president in 2020. Thanks for stopping by.