Your Favorite Books, 2018 edition

[astrangerhere]

On 110 books so far, I rated 10 5 stars (in no particular order):

1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
2. Berlin: City of Stones by Jason Lutes
3. The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds by Leigh Calvez
4. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
5. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
6. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
7. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
8. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
9. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
10. Wonder Woman Omnibus, Vol. 2 by George Perez

The oldest book was The Fountain Overflows (1956) and the newest was Prairie Fires (2017). The highest rated book I read that was published in 2018 was Margalit Fox's Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer, which I gave a 4.

Other stats:

• Two graphic novels/comics
• Two science fiction
• Four non-fiction
• Two by one author - it is really hard for Didion to go wrong for me

[latepaul]

Feels like it's been a good year, probably because I read a lot more than usual, but according to my trusty spreadsheet the average score is only slightly up.

I read a couple of books twice: The Old Man and the Sea and The Rest of Us Just Live Here. The former was good but it was more that it was a quick read and I wanted to refresh my memory before the book club discussion.

The following books were 9's or 10's:

• Broken Homes (9) - PC Grant book 4, got me back into the series and into reading
• I Capture the Castle (10) - just something about this I loved
• Soot (9) - a library discovery
• Last Night in Montreal (9) - earlier book by the author of Station Eleven
• A Monster Calls (9) - heart-breaking but beautiful (also saw the movie, rare adaptation that's as good as the book)
• The Rest of Us Just Live Here (9 on first read, 8 on 2nd) - the background players in an apocalypse story
• Expecting Someone Taller (9) - objectively this is overrated but it's a personal comfort read so...
• Much Ado About Nothing (10) - another comfort read but I think I can get away with saying this is obectively great

There were also quite a few 8s. I found I rated higher in general when I was reading more which speaks to me enjoying the activity itself. Which is a welcome return after a few years of feeling like I wasn't enjoying reading as much.

[issybird]

I'm finally done tweaking my ten-best list. I usually like an even split between fiction and nonfiction; the sad reality this year is that I read less nonfiction than typical of me. At the final cut, I had eleven books on my list with six fiction and five nonfiction, but the obvious weak link was one of the nonfiction books. So be it.

Four of these were five-star reads; the rest four-star. In no particular other than the split between fiction and non:

• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
• What's Bread in the Bone (Cornish Trilogy #2) by Robertson Davies
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• Royal Flash (Flashman Papers #2) by George MacDonald Fraser
• Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross (Kristin Lavransdatter #3) by Sigrid Undset
• The Complete Little World of Don Camillo (Don Camillo #1) by Giovannino Guareschi

• Run to the Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton, v. 1 by Thomas Merton
• American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael W. Kauffman
• The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade by Philip Jenkins
• Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools, 1939-1979 by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Synchronicities and takeaways:

Two Nobelists
Four of the fiction books were one of a trilogy or series
Two books (one fiction, one non) feature Abraham Lincoln
Two works in translation
Only two women authors
Authors from five different countries
All written within the past century
Finally and most notably, seven of the ten books had a distinct religious theme.

ETA another synchronicity: two of the fiction books were audiobooks and they had the same narrator (Frederick Davidson).

[Fbone]

My four-star books read this year (no fives given):

The Glimpses of the Moon by Crispin
The Thief by Turner
The Last Dragonslayer by Fforde
A Spell for Chameleon by Piers
All Systems Red by Wells

I have to add one to my favourites for the year: The Uncommon Reader is my second newly-read 5 star book for the year. Funny, seriously funny, insightful and compassionate. A monarchy may well be an absurd anachronism today, but that does not mean that a monarch automatically is, and the sensitivity with which Bennett makes the distinction was a highlight for me. That, and the frequent laughs, many of them targetting the country I call home. So very happy to have read this one!

[issybird]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

I have to add one to my favourites for the year: The Uncommon Reader is my second newly-read 5 star book for the year.

This was on my ten-best list in 2011. Any reader would find much in common with the uncommon one and I say that as a rabid republican.

Originally Posted by issybird

This was on my ten-best list in 2011. Any reader would find much in common with the uncommon one and I say that as a rabid republican.

If there were awards for "best last lines", it would be a strong contender, too

Note to self: Don't reply to a thread entitle "Favourite books, (Year X) edition, until said year is done. Now I have to add another: One-quarter of the way through The Fight for English: How the Pundits, Ate, Shot and Left it is going to take a massive implosion of quality for it to avoid becoming my third first-read 5 star rating at Goodreads. The whole book is so well constructed, so well argued and so well reasoned that it is a joy to read.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

Note to self: Don't reply to a thread entitle "Favourite books, (Year X) edition, until said year is done. Now I have to add another: One-quarter of the way through The Fight for English: How the Pundits, Ate, Shot and Left it is going to take a massive implosion of quality for it to avoid becoming my third first-read 5 star rating at Goodreads. The whole book is so well constructed, so well argued and so well reasoned that it is a joy to read.

No worries. The more the merrier really, the idea is to give others recommendations for next year so having a variety is great.

[HLS]

Not sure if published in 2018 but I think they may have. My favs:

The Book of Dust-Philip Pullman
Gwendys Button Box- Stephen King
The President is Missing-James Patterson/Bill Clinton
CIRCE


Not sure when the following was published:

Infernal Parade-Clive Barker
The World is Full of Monsters- Jeff Vandermeer
Dark Days: A Memoir-Randy Blythe ( Lamb of God)
Angels & Demons-Dan Brown
Desperation- Stephen King
The Troop- Nick Cutter


The Troop was the most scary.

The World is Full of Monsters was a delightful take on Alien invasion by changing our biology. Creepy. Hard read for a short novel but when you reflect on it i gives me the heebe geebees.

Despiration was the best King book I ever read pretty much from Kings Universe

[HLS]

Originally Posted by Fbone

My four-star books read this year (no fives given):

The Glimpses of the Moon by Crispin
The Thief by Turner
The Last Dragonslayer by Fforde
A Spell for Chameleon by Piers
All Systems Red by Wells

I read a Spell for Cameleon a re-read from a book from my youth I just noticed the book cover just now changed. It was the same for the past 40 years now its totally different

[HLS]

Off topic but the best book series I ever read is The Inheritance Cycle not because its great but it's the first books I read after 20 years of not reading. Purchased as my first books on my first ereader I ever owned. He has a new sequel that gets released 12/30/2018. Loved the series for it sparked a love for books I never had befores.

I am annoyed that Amazon has it classified as children books. It is not a childs book. More like teen age and up

[HLS]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

Note to self: Don't reply to a thread entitle "Favourite books, (Year X) edition, until said year is done. Now I have to add another: One-quarter of the way through The Fight for English: How the Pundits, Ate, Shot and Left it is going to take a massive implosion of quality for it to avoid becoming my third first-read 5 star rating at Goodreads. The whole book is so well constructed, so well argued and so well reasoned that it is a joy to read.

You do realize it is the very last day of the year and can be summed up as being over

Originally Posted by kcladyz

You do realize it is the very last day of the year and can be summed up as being over

It is now, fewer than 100 minutes of 2018 left here, but it was 3 days ago I posted that comment 🙂

[HLS]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

It is now, fewer than 100 minutes of 2018 left here, but it was 3 days ago I posted that comment 🙂

I got my days mixed up lol i thought Sunday was Monday lol



I left out two books I read in 2018

A River in Darkness: One mans escape from North Korea and Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Published in 2000 and 2017 but damn good books I read in 2018