The books I have read them.
Books read this year, in order:
Jan:
It's All Relative by A.J. Jacobs
Feb:
The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir
Mar:
The Uncollected David Rakoff by David Rakoff, sort of
Mar:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Apr:
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (took a break to read the Martian, finished in May)
May:
The Martian by Andy Weir
Jun:
Calypso by David Sedaris
Jun:
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
Jul:
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Jul:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Aug:
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
Sep:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Sep:
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Oct:
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
Nov:
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Nov:
New Erotica for Feminists by my friend Caitlin Kunkel, Brooke Preston, my friend Fiona Taylor, and Carrie Wittmer
Dec:
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Dec:
Some Very Interesting Cats Perhaps You Weren't Aware of by Doogie Horner
I achieved my 2018 reading goal of 18 books, and right in the nick of time. You'll perhaps notice (and forgive) that three of the last four books I read this year were very short. As the ceiling begins to come down you grab what you can and get out of there.
Goodreads would like you to know these facts about the books I read this year:
- On Tyranny was the shortest book (128 pages) and The Secret History was the longest (559)
- Of the books I read this year, The Martian was read by the most other Goodreads users (over 700,000) and also received the highest average rating (4.39 stars). The Uncollected David Rackoff was read by the fewest Goodreads users (277)
Less was by far my favorite book of the year. Lincoln in the Bardo was a close second, and definitely the most intriguing. I enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time the least, and that goes double for the film.
About the authors:
Of the 18 books I read this year, only 7 were written by women, but one of them was written by FOUR WOMEN (New Erotica for Feminists), making the author tally almost even (10 women, 11 men).
I read three books by authors who are deceased (Uncollected, A Wrinkle in Time, A Legacy). Of the living authors, Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace) is the oldest, as she usually is. I read no books by authors who are younger than I am (with the very possible exceptions of the youthful and timeless authors of New Erotica for Feminists, whose ages I did not deign to research). The youngest author whose age I was able to estimate (by looking up his high school graduation year on Facebook) is Doogie Horner (Some Very Interesting Cats Perhaps You Weren't Aware of), who is ostensibly one year older than me.
David Rakoff (Uncollected) and Margaret Atwood (Alias) were both born in Canada, Alison Weir (The Lady in the Tower) and Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) are British, Sybille Bedford (A Legacy) was born in Germany, and André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name) was born in Egypt.
This year I read my eighth book by David Sedaris (Calypso), my sixth by Margaret Atwood (Alias), my fifth by Alison Weir (Lady), my second by George Saunders (Lincoln), and my second by David Rakoff (Uncollected). This was the second time I picked up a book by A.J. Jacobs (It's All Relative), but the first time I finished it.
About the books:
Fiction: 11
3 historical novels (Lincoln, Legacy, Alias)
2 works of LGBT fiction (
Call,
Less)
2 humor books (Erotica, Cats)
1 plain old novel (The Secret History)
1 fantasy novel (Wrinkle)
1 sci-fi novel (The Martian)
1 novel in verse (Love, Dishonor, Marry Die, Cherish, Perish, in Uncollected)
Nonfiction: 8
5 memoirs/biographies (Relative, Lady, Uncollected, Calypso, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks)
3 books about history/politics (Lady, Madman, On Tyranny)
2 books about the life sciences (Henrietta, The Omnivore's Dilemma)
1 book about genealogy (Relative)
A Legacy and A Wrinkle in Time were the oldest books I read this year (published in 1956 and 1962 respectively). The oldest book I read by a living author was The Secret History (1992), followed by Alias Grace (1996) and The Professor and the Madman (1998). Everything else is from the new millennium, including two books published this year (Calypso, Erotica).
The books I read this year cover a lot of ground and also a lot of space. Less takes us from the Americas to Europe to Asia and back again. The Secret History is bicoastal but mostly in New England and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks drives around the Mid-Atlantic and the 20th century a bit. Lincoln in the Bardo is as grounded in mid-19th century Washington, DC as The Lady in the Tower and The Professor and the Madman are in London (16th and 19th centuries respectively). Call Me by Your Name lives in 1980s Italy until the epilogue. A Legacy travels around western Europe and Alias Grace goes from Belfast to several points on Lake Ontario., both in the 19th century. The Martian spends most of its time on Mars, predictably, in the near future, and A Wrinkle in Time goes wherever and whenever the hell Oprah wants.
A Wrinkle in Time is the only book I read this year that is part of a series, and I will not continue it.
Award Winners:
A Wrinkle in Time (Newbery Medal 1963)
The Omnivore's Dilemma (California Book Award for Nonfiction Gold 2006)
Lincoln in the Bardo (Man Booker Prize 2017)
Less (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2018)
Movies and Book Clubs:
I read A Wrinkle in Time, The Martian, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and watched the film adaptations, with the Page & Popcorn Book & Movie Club. I also went to see the movie of Ready Player One with them, having read the book in 2015. We will watch The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society this month, which I read in 2009. On my own, I read Call Me by Your Name and watched the movie with my friend Kate, and read Alias Grace and watched the Netflix six-part mini-series. I also watched the movie adaptation of The Glass Castle, which I read in 2005.
Where the books came from, and why I read them:
It was a gift: Relative and Lincoln (from my parents), Cats (from Holly, for no reason other than she knew I wanted it)
Bought it for book club: Wrinkle, Martian, Henrietta (I don't remember where I got these, but let's go ahead and say it was some combination of Books Are Magic and Community Bookstore since I know I shopped there this year)
Bought it in a bookstore, just because: Uncollected (Astoria Bookshop), Calypso (The Strand), Less (Three Lives & Company, on Mary's recommendation), Legacy (McNally Jackson, on Nicholas' recommendation), Alias (McNally Jackson)
Found at a church book sale: Madman
A friend loaned it to me ages ago and I finally decided to read it: Lady (Sara)
A friend loaned it to me recently and I read it in a timely fashion: Omnivore and Tyranny (Cricket), Call (Álvaro)
Took it from a coworker's giveaway pile: Secret
In support of my friend Fiona's book launch! Erotica (Wildfang)
Books that didn't:
I am careful not to admit on Goodreads that I'm reading a book until I know it's going to stick, so you won't find any evidence on the internet (except this blog post) of my having tried to read these books. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann came highly recommended from various sources, but it just wasn't happening for me (I gave it a generous 100 pages before quitting). My friend Cricket was shocked when she met me at a restaurant and saw Ulysses by James Joyce sitting in front of me on the table. "Andrew, friends tell each other these things," she said to me. I knew it wasn't going to be my kind of book, but the plan was to read it very slowly with a group of coworkers (two of whom are Joyce scholars), meeting at various intervals to discuss and drink Irish beer and whiskey. I studiously read the first two chapters and joined them for the first meeting, but I didn't pick it back up after that and am now behind and will probably not catch up, alas.
2019:
Currently gleaming at me from my bookshelf are Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan which I picked out of a giveaway box in a friend's building, A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford which I got from McNally Jackson after finishing A Legacy also by Bedford, and three books I just got for Chanukah from my parents: Belgravia by Julian Fellowes, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, the last of which I am currently reading. Calling to me from the basement, where I had to store most of my books due to a pest control issue earlier this year and haven't yet had the strength to go retrieve them, are Grunt by Mary Roach, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, American Nations by Colin Woodard, and many more sad, mistreated books that deserve to see the light of day.
Inspired by 2018's reads, I will probably read more Donna Tartt, and continue my path through the works of Margaret Atwood. I've taken a year off from Haruki Murakami, and two off from Kurt Vonnegut, so 2019 may be a return to them. Also, my 2017 reads were culturally and geographically varied in a way my 2018 reading year was not. I hope 2019 takes me outside my literary comfort zone (North America and the UK) more often.
Thanks for reading!
