As of this morning, I completed my goal to read 121 books in 2018 [updated to add the book I finished on 12/31]. I read some great books and some mediocre books and I had a huge slump toward the middle of the year, so I'm proud of myself for picking it back up and meeting my goal.
Here's a list of all the books I read this year, with some light data analysis. By the end of the week, I'll post about the books that I think deserve a full review.
* indicates that I listened to an audiobook version
January
- *Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown
- I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
- *All the Money in the World, Laura Vanderkam
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
- *This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
- Food52 Genius Recipes, Kristen Miglore
- *Delancey, Molly Wizenberg
- *Absolutely Truly, Heather Vogel Frederick
- Master Harold and the Boys, Athol Fugard
- Othello, William Shakespeare
- Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
- *Fat Girl Walking, Brittany Gibbons
- *The Opposite of Loneliness, Marina Keegan
- *Mindless Eating, Brian Wansink
- *We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
- *Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
- We Should Hang Out Sometime, Josh Sundquist
Total books: 17
Audiobooks: 10
Fiction: 6
Nonfiction/Memoir: 8
Plays/Poetry: 2
Cookbooks: 1
February
- Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi
- *Blood, Bones, and Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton
- The Sun Is Also a Star, Nicola Yoon
- *The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy
- *Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
- Still Me, Jojo Moyes
- *Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?, Kathleen Collins
- Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
- Mother's Milk, Rachel Hunt Steenblik
- Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, Warsan Shire
- *You Can't Touch My Hair, Phoebe Robinson
Total books: 11
Audiobooks: 5
Fiction: 4
Nonfiction/Memoir: 4
Plays/Poetry: 2
Cookbooks: 1
March
- *Sourdough, Robin Sloan
- *10% Happier, Dan Harris
- *Tell Me More, Kelly Corrigan
- The Power, Naomi Alderman
- Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson
- *Infinity Born, Douglas E. Richards
- An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
- Selected Poems, e.e. cummings
- *Call Me Your Name, Andre Achiman
- *The Power of Moments, Chip Heath
Total books: 10
Audiobooks: 6
Fiction: 6
Nonfiction/Memoir: 3
Plays/Poetry: 1
Cookbooks: 0
April
- The Food Lab, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
- BraveTart, Stella Parks
- Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan
- *What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
- *Heartburn, Nora Ephron
- *The Almost Sisters, Joshilyn Jackson
Total books: 6
Audiobooks: 3
Fiction: 3
Nonfiction/Memoir: 1
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 2
May
- *Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney
- *At Home in the World, Tsh Oxenreider
- Exit West, Hamid Mohsin
- *Can't Help Myself, Meredith Goldstein
- *How to Be a Person in the World, Heather Havrilesky
- Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Wendy Cope
- *You Think It, I'll Say It, Curtis Sittenfeld
- *Educated, Tara Westover
- *Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Total books: 9
Audiobooks: 7
Fiction: 4
Nonfiction/Memoir: 4
Plays/Poetry: 1
Cookbooks: 0
June
- *Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg
- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat
- *The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Galbraith
- *I Am, I Am, I Am, Maggie O'Farrell
- *The Good House, Ann Leary
- *Off the Clock, Laura Vanderkam
Total books: 6
Audiobooks: 5
Fiction: 2
Nonfiction/Memoir: 3
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 1
July
- What's Gaby Cooking, Gaby Dalkin
- Modern Love, Daniel Jones
- Guide to Getting It On, Paul Joannides
- The Writing Class, Jincy Willett
- The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois
- *My Plain Jane, Cynthia Hand
- *When Life Gives You Lululemons, Lauren Weisberger
Total books: 7
Audiobooks: 2
Fiction: 4
Nonfiction/Memoir: 2
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 1
August
- The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- Smitten Kitchen Every Day, Deb Perelman
- *Peter Pan, JM Barrie
- The Penderwicks, Jeanne Birdsall
- One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly, Ashley Mae Hoiland
- Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos
- Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos
Total books: 7
Audiobooks: 1
Fiction: 5
Nonfiction/Memoir: 1
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 1
September
- I'll Be Your Blue Sky, Marisa de los Santos
- Girls Burn Brighter, Shobha Rao
- *Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz
- The Fall of Lisa Bellow, Susan Perabo
- The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty
- Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
- Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds
- When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, Chen Chen
- Towers Falling, Jewell Rhodes
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh
Total books: 10
Audiobooks: 1
Fiction: 8
Nonfiction/Memoir: 1
Plays/Poetry: 1
Cookbooks: 0
October
- The Little Book of Hygge, Meik Wiking
- Healthyish, Lindsay Hunt
- Rich and Pretty, Rumaan Alam
- Out of My Mind, Sharon M Draper
- *So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
- All Our Wild Wonder, Sarah Kay
- Heating Cooling, Beth Ann Fennelly
- The Dinner Plan, Kathy Brennan
- Boy, Snow, Bird, Helen Oyeyemi
- Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
- The Love and Lemons Cookbook, Jeanine Donofrio
- 100% Real, Sam Talbot
Total books: 12
Audiobooks: 1
Fiction: 4
Nonfiction/Memoir: 3
Plays/Poetry: 1
Cookbooks: 4
November
- *The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
- *Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
- Sadie, Courtney Summers
- *Good and Mad, Rebecca Traister
- Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendelson
- Virgil Wander, Leif Enger
- The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
- *Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
- Dumplin, Julie Murphy
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
- The One Hundred Nights of Hero, Isabel Greenberg
- Food52 Genius Desserts, Kristen Miglore
- Molly on the Range, Molly Yeh
- Reading People, Anne Bogel
- *Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl
- *The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
Total books: 16
Audiobooks: 6
Fiction: 8
Nonfiction/Memoir: 8
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 2
December
- The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
- The Quotidian Mysteries, Kathleen Norris
- All About Cake, Christina Tosi
- Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner
- One Day in December, Josie Silver
- *Almost Everything, Anne Lamott
- Pride, Ibi Zoboi
- Whiskey in a Teacup, Reese Witherspoon
- Homebody, Joanna Gaines
- And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini
Total books: 10
Audiobooks: 1
Fiction: 5
Nonfiction/Memoir: 4
Plays/Poetry: 0
Cookbooks: 1
2018 Totals
Total books: 121
Audiobooks: 48
Fiction: 59
Nonfiction/Memoir: 42
Plays/Poetry: 8
Cookbooks: 14
A lot of insights about my reading life jump out at me while looking at these statistics. For example:
- I read the most books (17) in January and the second most (16) in November. I was excited about reading and my reading goal and really getting into audiobooks in January, so I cruised through the most books of the whole year. By November, I realized that if I wanted to hit my goal, I really had to play catch-up, plus a lot of my students stopped coming to school so I had time to read during my completely empty classes.
- My lowest reading months were April and June, with 6 books in each. July and August were also low reading months, with 7 books in each. In April, I was preparing to move into a new apartment, so tons of time was spent packing and moving. I also spent a week in Virginia with my brother's family welcoming a new baby, and the two older kids did not leave me alone for any minutes of reading. June and July were swept up with my wedding, and even though the summer is usually my best time for reading because I spend as much time as possible at the beach, during most of my August beach time I was planning curriculum for my new classes (Humanities instead of English) and not reading for pleasure.
- January, March, May, and June were audiobook months for me. More than half of the books I read during that month were audiobooks rather than physical books.
- On the other hand, starting in July, I cut way down on listening to audiobooks. I started carpooling to work with a coworker in September, and almost all of my audiobook time came from commuting to and from work, so most months I only managed to finish 1.
- I started counting cookbooks this year. I have a cookbook club with some friends, where once a month we choose a cookbook, make a bunch of dishes from it, and feast on them together. Because I'm the one who has a bunch of cookbooks, I usually choose which one we'll do for the month and select which recipes from that book to add to the sign-up list. For me, that means reading the whole entire book in order to analyze and evaluate the recipes. When I noticed how much less I was reading this year than in previous years, I thought about how I was spending my time and realized cookbooks were a huge part of it, so I decided to start keeping track and counting them toward my reading goal.
I absolutely love reading and find it a very fulfilling, meaningful way to spend time. In 2016 I implemented multiple systems that would encourage and motivate me to read more than I had been, and I'm glad to say that they have definitely worked. Next up: book reviews!
Wow!!! You probably don't remember me so I feel like a creeper, but I think this is so amazing!!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know some ways you prioritize reading time for yourself. Other than listening to Audible when I'm cooking or driving, I'm not great at making time for sitting down and reading as often as I'd like.
Another question: do you finish every book you start? I'm not good at finishing books that are repetitive or aren't capturing my attention. Do you "count" a book you choose not to finish?
Also, I love that your list is so varied! I think you're incredible for reading so much!!!
I do remember you! And I'm glad you read this. You're definitely not a creeper, ha. I definitely listen to audiobooks while I'm cooking and driving and walking and cleaning, but for sitting down and reading, it has a lot to do with my schedule. I'm a teacher and I don't have kids, so when I get home from school in the afternoon and my husband isn't home, I usually spend some time reading then. I also read during my lunch breaks at school and as I mentioned, I've had some literally empty classes lately so I read during those too if I'm really into a book and I can't put it down. I carry books with me so I can read while waiting (for trains, appts, meeting someone, whatever). I usually read before bed and sometimes if I wake up early I'll read before getting out of bed. I've tried charging my phone outside of my room at night and having a set time to plug it in and let it "rest" so I can not be distracted by it. I also read a lot on the weekends, but again, I don't have kids so I don't have as many distractions as parents do. Overall, I really enjoy reading and it's one of my main personal priorities, so I find the time wherever I can! I don't watch a lot of TV on my own, and there are plenty of things that some people spend more time doing that I don't, like working out or cleaning, ha. Also, I usually have a huge stack of books I've checked out of from the library so when I see them I'm reminded that I want to be reading instead of whatever else I'm doing. I hope some of these suggestions help!
DeleteAlso, I don't finish every book I start and I don't count the ones I don't finish, though sometimes I'll push through if I've already read a lot just so I can count it, which aren't my proudest moments. I feel strongly that if you're reading something you like, you'll want to read, so I don't force myself to read anything I don't love, including classics and old books, haha. You won't find many of those on my reading list.