This year I managed to get a lot more reading done, which is significant mainly because in the latter part of the year I discovered the “Deck the Hallmark” podcast which took up a LOT of my time that would normally be spent listening to audiobooks. I think I could have easily had another 4-5 books read this year had I not been so consumed with every word that Bran, Panda and Dan spoke about this season’s Hallmark Christmas movies.
Having said that, I managed to read 39 books this year, which is a lot for me. Normally I only hit the low-30s!
The list (which can be sorted by any of the table headings):
| Title | Primary Author | Rating | Date Finished |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earthcore | Sigler, Scott | 4 | 2018-01-16 |
| A Wrinkle in Time | L'Engle, Madeleine | 3.5 | 2018-01-24 |
| Click Date Repeat | Farnham, K.J. | 3 | 2018-01-25 |
| Little Fires Everywhere | Ng, Celeste | 3.5 | 2018-02-07 |
| Artemis | Weir, Andy | 4 | 2018-02-15 |
| Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion | Reitman, Janet | 3.5 | 2018-02-28 |
| Firefight (The Reckoners) | Sanderson, Brandon | 3.5 | 2018-03-19 |
| Annihilation | VanderMeer, Jeff | 2.5 | 2018-03-22 |
| Columbine | Cullen, Dave | 5 | 2018-04-06 |
| Replica | Oliver, Lauren | 3.5 | 2018-04-24 |
| The Man In High Castle | dink, Philip K. | 3 | 2018-05-04 |
| Head On | Scalzi, John | 4 | 2018-05-15 |
| Beneath a Scarlet Sky | Sullivan, Mark | 4.5 | 2018-06-04 |
| RIFT | Christensen, Andreas | 3 | 2018-06-04 |
| The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennett | Su, Bernie | 4.5 | 2018-06-08 |
| Spurs and Lace | Paulson, Bonnie R. | 3.5 | 2018-06-11 |
| I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons | Hart, Kevin | 4.5 | 2018-06-22 |
| Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea | Demick, Barbara | 4.5 | 2018-07-05 |
| Calamity (The Reckoners) | Sanderson, Brandon | 3.5 | 2018-07-23 |
| The Darkest Minds | Bracken, Alexandria | 4 | 2018-08-08 |
| The Power | Alderman, Naomi | 3.5 | 2018-08-22 |
| The All The Boys I've Loved Before | Han, Jenny | 4 | 2018-08-29 |
| P.S. I Still Love You | Han, Jenny | 4 | 2018-08-31 |
| Always and Forever, Lara Jean | Han, Jenny | 3.5 | 2018-09-01 |
| I Am Legend | Matheson, Richard | 3 | 2018-09-05 |
| The Andromeda Strain | Crichton, Michael | 3 | 2018-09-14 |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Bradbury, Ray | 2.5 | 2018-09-20 |
| The Last Mrs. Parrish | Constantine, Liv | 3.5 | 2018-09-28 |
| Starship Troopers | Heinlein, Robert A. | 0.5 | 2018-10-08 |
| Frankenstein | Shelley, Mary | 3 | 2018-10-13 |
| Alien (Out of the Shadows, River of Pain, Sea of Sorrows) | Lebbon, Golden & Moore | 3 | 2018-10-25 |
| The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland | DeFede, Jim | 4.5 | 2018-10-29 |
| The End of the Affair | Greene, Graham | 3.5 | 2018-11-01 |
| Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe | Saenz, Benjamin Alire | 3.5 | 2018-11-04 |
| Orbs | Sansburg Smith, Nicholas | 3.5 | 2018-11-15 |
| A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories | O'Connor, Flannery | 0.5 | 2018-11-21 |
| A Christmas Proposal | Wine, Shirley | 1.5 | 2018-12-04 |
| Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel | Hartley, A.J. | 4.5 | 2018-12-08 |
| The Christmas Hirelings | Braddon, Mary Elizabeth | 2018-12-14 | |
| All Roads Lead to Austen | Smith, Amy | still reading | |
| The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism | Keller, Tim | still reading | |
| Missing Pieces | Smoak, Ivy | still reading | |
| Furiously Happy | Lawson, Jenny | still reading |
Sadly, I did not read too many standout books this year. In fact, in the fall I hit a lull where I read a lot of books that were just okay, or that I did not care for, and wondered if I’d ever love a book again. A couple were that bad.
I really only read ONE book that was a 5-star book, and that was a non-fiction pick, “Columbine” by Dave Cullen (picture is link to Amazon).
Closely behind that is another non-fiction book I read this year: “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” by Barbara Demick (picture is link to Amazon).
The worst books of the year? Well, I wrote an entire post about them just last month. Flannery O’Connor, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury all disappointed me in 2018. BIG TIME.
As of hitting “publish” on this post I still am reading through a few books but they will get counted in 2019 because I doubt I’ll finish any of them before January 1. Wonder if I’ll be able to read 40+ books in 2019?
If “Deck the Hallmark” keeps recording new podcast episodes in 2019, I likely won’t.
