That’s a Wrap, 2018

Well 2018 is finally over. Not soon enough, frankly. I didn’t feel great about my reading this year. I let work steal much of my personal time and let a couple of binge-able TV series take the rest.

I did manage to read 28 books, which is certainly better than I thought. There were definitely some reading struggles this year – supporting friends through tragedy, separating from book club, tackling a very difficult and high-profile project at work – which has highlighted a need to make a more conscientious effort to read (AND to write about it).

Nevertheless, 2018 wasn’t a complete reading wasteland, and so here are a few highlights.

The good:

Favourite book of the year: Middlemarch. I’m actually embarrassed it took me this long to read it.

Best nerd book: The Elegant Universe. A bit brain-melting,  however. You’ve been warned.

Best Bio: What Happened? This is also the question I ask myself when I realize I’ve read enough biographies in 2018 to warrant a best-of award.

The bad:

Stupidest book: Fire and Fury.

Most bitter book: Life Sentence.

Least relevant book written by someone who’s written tons of books and as a result thinks they’re more relevant than they really are: David and Goliath.

And for those of you who are interested, here’s the complete list:

1. Conversations with Friends (blog post pending)
2. Nine Perfect Strangers – skip
3. Savage Love – buy
4. Moon Over Soho – borrow
5. Weapons of Math Destruction – borrow
6. Canada 150 Women – buy
7. Midnight Riot – borrow
8. Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11 – buy
9. The Pope of Physics – buy
10. The Coaching Habit – borrow
11. The Devil in the White City – borrow
12. Where’d you go, Bernadette? – borrow
13. Religion for Atheists – buy
14. Life Sentence – skip
15. I Feel Bad About My Neck – borrow
16. Good to a Fault – buy
17. The Princess Diarist – buy
18. Arrows of the Queen – borrow
19. My Life as a White Trash Zombie – borrow
20. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House – skip
21. Annihilation – borrow
22. Homo Deus – skip
23. Middlemarch – buy
24. What Happened? – buy
25. David and Goliath – skip
26. The Culture Map – buy
27. The Curve of Time – borrow
28. The Elegant Universe – buy