2018 was a solid reading year for me, and today I’m sharing the best-of-the-best: the handful of truly exceptional titles that earned a spot at the top of my list.
I track my titles in my reading journal, and put a simple little star by especially noteworthy titles. Despite my best efforts at record-keeping, I’m probably forgetting a favorite here, because I always do. I tried to keep my list short, or I could have included thirty titles.
Note: I’m omitting favorites I listened to on audio from this list. Please click here to see my favorite audiobooks of 2018.
I’ve broken my list down my genre, and they’re not in any particular order.
Stay with Me
I’ll Be Your Blue Sky
Harry’s Trees
Montana 1948
The Dreamers
A Place for Us
What We Were Promised
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope
Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done
This Must Be the Place
This is one of my favorite rereads. Family stories are commonplace in fiction, but I love this one for its intricate plotting, nuanced characters, true-to-life feel, and ultimate hopefulness. This is the story of an unlikely but successful marriage between a floundering American professor and a British film star who hated the limelight so much she faked her own death and disappeared ... until an unexpected bit of news, twenty years old but newly discovered, threatens to unravel everything they've built together.
More info →Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say
What were YOUR favorite books of 2018?
P.S. I’ve been sharing my favorites for a long time: check out my favorite books of 2017 and of 2016. In 2015 I divided my list into fiction favorites and nonfiction favorites. (You can go back even farther if you dare!)
100 comments
I loved The Line That Held Us(warning: parts are graphic and disturbing). I finished Little, Big which was recommended to me by a bookseller at Malaprops in Asheville, NC. This was after 5 attempts at blind date with a bookseller and I had or had read all the ones that I picked. I also loved Peace Like a River and The Wicked Deep.
Thank you for the suggestion, Sarah. Just added to my kindle. I, too, loved Peace Like a River. I also added Montana, 1948 to my stack. I know for certain that I read it long ago, but it’s worth a reread.
There are 3 Peace Like a River on Amazon. Could you tell who the author is?
Thanks, Nancy
Leif Enger
These are some of my favorites from 2018: anything by Lisa Genova and Louise Penny.
“Lightkeeper’s Daughter”, “L’apart” by Leibovitz, “The Alice Network” by Quinn, “The Art Forger” by Shapiro, “Midnight Blue” by Van Der Vlugt (love stories about art) and “The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old” by Groen.
Currently reading “The Diary of a Bookseller” by Bythell will finish in 2019.
One of my goals this past year was to read more nonfiction. Top picks include
* The Big Burn and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan
* Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larson
* Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
* Educated by Tara Westover
Top fiction reads include
* The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
* A Gentleman in Moscow by Amos Towles
* Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
* Little Fires Everywhere by Celest Ng
* My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray
* Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
* The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Enjoyed a number of these as well – Notes on Hope is amazing. My favorites from this year in no particular order:
– A Gentleman in Moscow.
– The Awakening of Miss Prim
– Almost Everything
– An Irish Country Practice
– The Queen of Hearts
– Secret Daughter
– Pachinko
– How to Find Love in a Bookshop
– The Duchess (Okay, this may seem like a fluff book but I found it a very interesting biography of Camilla Parker Bowles. Of course, I also have a bit of an obsession with British royalty.)
I loved Tana French’s Faithful Place. Not a new book for this year, but it was my favorite read. I’d read the previous two books in the series, which were good, but Faithful Place blew my socks off. French really put me in the Dublin neighborhood she wrote about. I hated turning the last page.
I discovered Tana French this year. I’ve read the first 3 books in the Dublin Murder Squad series and I love all of them. I recently finished Faithful Place, and agree with your assessment. You totally get why her characters behave in the ways that they do.
I have to agree Dead Wake was a favorite but topping that was Indianapolis which is also out of my usual genre but I felt very informed by the good writing and research. I highly recommend Indianapolis as it was done by two ladies! The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock was not given the publicity it deserved! Another Brit novel which at times is a bit salacious but push on the story is worth it. Very enlightening about the plight of women and their limited choices in life during 1700 England
I’ve been reintroduced to a couple of oldies.
Elizabeth Goudge is now reprinted. “The Deans Watch” is a good start.
Also George MacDonald, friend of Lewis Carroll and influencer of CS Lewis. “There and Back” is third in a trilogy, but the easiest to read of the three. Very meaty.
You need to check the title of your blog post announcement that you emailed out. It says 2017 in your title and in the body of the message.
I enjoyed Off the Clock this year too! I listened to it on audio and Laura Vanderkam narrates it herself. It always makes a book better for me when the author reads it. They understand the flow and nuance better than a hired narrator, I think.
I can’t believe “Where the Crawdads Sing “ by Delia Owens hasn’t been mentioned…far and away the best book I’ve read in several years.
Yes!!
I agree with you, Mary! I felt absolutely gut-punched with emotion reading about that lonely child surviving in the marsh.
My 5-star reads this year (not including re-reads of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings) included Backman’s “Us Against You” and “A Man Called Ove,” “None Like Him” by Jen Wilkin, “The Hiding Place” (which I’d never read before but loved!), “The Austen Escape” by Katherine Reay (I love all her books), “When Breath Becomes Air,” “All That’s Good” by Hannah Anderson, “I’m Still Here” by Austin Channing Brown,” and your very own “I’d Rather Be Reading.” It was a great reading year!
My top fiction was The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. This book’s structure was different than anything I’ve read before. The main character is trying to solve the mystery of Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder, but he only has one day to do it. He lives that same day over and over, but in a different character’s body. Think Groundhog Day, meets Gothic novel, meets Downton Abbey, meets Ruth Wear. I like books that keep me a little off balance and this one did just that until the last page.
My favorite nonfiction this year was Get Well Soon: The History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them. I love books where I learn things about the world and history. But what really made this a favorite was the author’s humor. It would have been easy to make this a dreary book. It’s about plagues after all. But Jennifer Wright added humor and modern day references into her writing.
I think you’ve sold me on The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Well done! Writing that one down now …
My #1 this year was The Map of Salt and Stars. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Swing Time, Almost Sisters, The Underground Railroad, The Second Mrs Hockaday, The Alice Network and White Chrysthanthemun are all at the top of my list.
I love, love, love Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk! Read it last year and find it such an inspiring book on aging – not because it’s all pretty, as you know it’s not, but because it shows resilience and continued growth.
You sold me! Sounds great!
I have some favorites already mentioned: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Little Fires Everywhere, Everything I Never Told You, Lilac Girls, Educated and discovered Kelly Corrigan. (thanks to this blog) …love love LOVE her books, started with the newest one and immediately listened to every other one…and may go back and listen to each a second time. Oh yes…also absolutely loved Dinner with Edward.
Just started Becoming and sure it will be added to my favorites list.
Thanks for sharing Anne, I would like to wish you a Very Happy New Year to you and your family in advance.
I loved Harry’s Trees I read after I listened to one of your podcasts. I love your podcast what should I read next?. My only regret is that I did not listen sooner.
My favorite nonfiction book was The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe about a high school in Denver where they have a program for teaching refugee teens. My favorite fiction book was Beneath a Scarlet Sky about WW2 in Italy – actually a true story and a real thriller.
I love seeing evertone’s year end top 10/15/18/20. I kind of have to laugh at myself, because when I see your list, Anne, I immediately think, “Oh, she’s reading the same things as I am!” Then I have a ??♀️ moment, because, duh, of course you are – I get 99% of my reading recommendations from you.
My top 10:
?The Poisonwood Bible
?Eleanor Oliphant is Completely ?Where’d You Go Bernadette
4. The Female Persuasion
5. The Ensemble
6. Eleanor & Park
7. Educated
8. The Great Alone
9. Becoming Mrs. Lewis
10. Tell Me More
? I’d Rather Be Reading holds a special place in my heart, because it’s absolutely wonderful and because I was part of the launch team (my first!), which was an absolute blast. Such a great reading year!
My favorite reads in 2018: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead; S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst; Dead Wake by Erik Larson; The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher; Us Against You by Fredrick Backman; The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah; To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey; The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
These are my favorite books read in 2018…The Great Alone, Kingdom of the Blind, Irish Country Cottage, The Widows of Malabar Hill, Wildfire and The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.
I haven’t read The Great Alone yet, but just finished her Winter Garden and loved it! She is a wonderful writer.
My favorites in no particular order: The Nix by Nathan Hill, This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel, and my new favorite author is Fredrik Backman because of Beartown and Us Against You. Except for The Nix, all were recommended by you Anne. ❤️?
In the comments I see many favorites of mine as well as lots of new ones I’ve not heard of. Which is as it should be; there are SO many books published, how could anyone read them all??? 🙂 I read 74 books this year and my top ones are:
The Boat People, Sharon Bala
Harry’s Trees, Jon Cohen (thanks WSIRN)
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline
The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Woods (thanks WSIRN)
Looking forward to another stellar reading year in 2019. Thanks Anne and WSIRN group for such amazing recommendations and such clearly articulated analysis of the books. It makes it much easier to decide “What Should I Read Next”!
I forgot to include The One-in-a-Million Boy on my list – so good!
This has been an absolutely fantastic reading year, thanks to this blog and community and WSIRN. Thanks, Anne and everyone who contributes!
My highlights:
– When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
– Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny
– A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
– Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
– Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
– Middlemarch by George Eliot
– What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
– A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
– Zita the Spacegirl trilogy by Ben Hatke
– Mighty Jack/Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke
The last two items are kids’ graphic novel series that completely stole my heart. Fun to read on my own and to share with my kids.
I love that Ben Hatke’s books made your list, they surprised me while I was reading it 🙂 They are favourite here too (Mighty Jack 2 is the first my daughter read on her own, start to finish!!)
Argh! MORE books for my enormous TBR pile/list!
My favorite reads in 2018 (notice they didn’t come out in 2018; I’m really behind.) were “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande (everyone should read about making end-of-life decisions); “Lilac Girls” by Martha Hall Kelly, based on the lives of three WWII-era women, which answered the question about how “normal” people turn into monsters; and “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng, just so beautifully written while addressing pertitent themes.
I liked
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens
BEST COOK IN THE WORLD: TALES FROM MY MOMMA’S TABLE by Rick Bragg
And 2 more set in India-
SECRET DAUGHTER (Gowda)
THE SPACE BETWEEN US (Umrigar)
Reading everyone’s lists makes me wish for so much more reading time! There are so many of your titles that I wish were on my list for this year! Here are my lists:
FICTION
Middlemarch – George Eliot (I will be finishing today or New Year’s Day at the latest!)
The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton
The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas
Less- Andrew Sean Greer
Peace Like a River – Leif Enger
White Houses – Amy Bloom
Heating and Cooling – Beth Ann Fennelly
Peter and Wendy – J.M. Barrie
NON-FICTION
I’d Rather Be Reading – Anne Bogel (I saved this for my Christmas reading and it was delightful in every way!)
Becoming – Michelle Obama
Tell Me More – Kelly Corrigan
Women and Power – Mary Beard
So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport (this was the first book I read in 2018 and this, along with Deep Work, has influenced my entire year at work.)
Anne, thank you for being a part of our lives. You make them so much richer with beautiful stories well-told, challenging topics, and a sense of community. “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading!” Happy New Year to you and your family.
And in a category all her own is
A Trick of the Light – Louise Penney
The Beautiful Mystery – Louise Penney
I’ve been savoring this series. It has its own page in my book journal. (Flavia de Luce has a page, too!) I love these characters so much that I save them to read when the season corresponds with the season in the books. How is that for nerdy? I don’t care, it makes me happy! I think it’s time to read How the Light Gets In!
What a great idea! I hope you enjoy How the Light Gets In – it’s my favorite in the series so far (I’m 11 books in.)
Elise,
I’m so glad to hear that!
I’m also reading middle march, and enjoying it, but I won’t finish my new years (it’s been a hectic month, and I really feel like I can’t do it justice when I fall into bed some nights.)
Sarah,
I can’t recommend Juliet Stevenson enough! It’s so alive you feel like you’re experiencing everything w/ her. And her ability to create clear, distinct voices in the group scenes is genius! I’m so glad there is someone else on the Middlemarch journey with me. I started with the group, but life & Work got in the way & I fell woefully behind. Thanks to Juliet’s reading I’m loving being back in the thick of it. How can a 147 year old book feel so insightful and alive today?
I read Middlemarch years ago and remembering loving it so much so much that I had (with the whole hearted consent from my family)the the minister at my grandmother’s funeral read a passage from it:
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch
I finished A Place For Us yesterday based on the podcast recommendation and it broke my heart. I’d say it was the best book I read in 2018. I discovered your podcast a few months ago after my car radio died and have really enjoyed it. Looking forward to hearing you in 2019!
In addition to Tell Me More & A Place For Us, my top five of the year included White Houses by Amy Bloom, the Heart’s Incredible Furies by John Boyne, & There There by Tommy Orange.
My favorites: Lonesome Dove; The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul; Searching for Dragons; American Gods; Circe (hey look something written in the last 5 years…); Organizing Solutions for People With Attention Deficit Disorder; and as a bonus I’ve finally found a guilty-reads author that doesn’t leave me feeling like I’ve about cardboard cutouts, so when I need my usual fun romance palate cleanser I’ve been reading everything by Tina Gower/Alice Farris.
I love The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul! Such a uniquely silly and fun book. It always makes me happy to see lighthearted sci-fi/fantasy on people’s lists.
Thanks for all of the great recommendations. If I were able to read all that you suggested and those your readers recommended, it would fill my reading list for 2019! My favorites were a Gentleman from Moscow, Beartown and Glitter and Glue. Thanks for leading me down new reading roads this year!
I just borrowed the 3 Marisa De Los Santos “Love Walked In” books from the library – for my Kindle. Thank you!
Oh my goodness, I need to quit my life and just spend all my time reading, so many of these look so good!
For me, my favorites of the year included:
The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir by Ruth Wariner
A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans (I’m not particularly religious, but I find her attitude toward her faith refreshing)
The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I kept the patio, lost the lawn, and fed my family for a year by Spring Warren
Educated by Tara Westover
Saving Alex by Alex Cooper
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
I’ve spent the last two years trying to read down my Goodreads Want to Read list (it’s now down to 140, from 332!!!). It’s been packed with nonfiction for the most part, and while I’m still going to continue to read it down (and never let it get that high again!), my goal for the 2019 is to incorporate a lot more fiction into my life, so I’ll be checking this blog often for ideas! Happy New Year to Anne and everyone! 🙂
In no particular order, some of my favorites: Beneath a Scarlet Sky, The Golim and the Jinni, The Bear and the Nightingale, Follow the River, Us Against You, The Last Child, Harry’s Trees, The Sun Does Shine, Where the Crawdads Sing.
I love when I see comments by people who has similiar taste in books as I do , Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Follow The River and The Golem and The Jinni are among my all time favorite books!
My top 5 reads of 2018 are mostly represented already in the comments, but there are a few unique titles.
1. Harry’s Trees (thanks for the rec!)
2. Where the Crawdads Sing
3. The Alice Network
(I read ‘The Room on Rue Amelie’ right after I finished The Alice Network and it was just as good!)
4. The Hate You Give
5. Both of the thrillers by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen blew me away! -The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl
Also…
True Crime – The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Memoir – Educated by Tara Westover
Backlist – The Kitchen House (may be a contender for top Historical Fiction of all time for me!)
Some of my favorite reads from this year:
– A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake
– Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
— Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham
— Good as Gone by Amy Gentry
— Man Called Ove by Frederik Bachman
Happy New Year!
I loved my 2018 reading life and am so excited for 2019. Some of my favs were: The Widows of Malabar Hill, Six Stories, Educated, Hillbilly Elegy, and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell.
Eek! I just checked and there are a lot of 5 star entries in my 2018 read list. That means its been a good reading year, right? Right. Here’s some highlights:
-A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
-Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
-Sing, Unbuired, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
-All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (so excited to read her latest Women Talking in 2019)
-The Break by Kathleen Vermette & Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez for my CanLit picks of the year (although Miriam Toews is Canadian too…)
-Arcadia by Lauren Groff
-Heavy by Kiese Laymon
-Educated by Tara Westover
I am part of the way through Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver and it is good enough it will be on this years list and next year’s since I won’t be able to finish it in the next several hours (ok maybe if I ignored my family…)
Here’s to another great year of reading, fellow book lovers!
I can’t not give credit where its due … so I must add
-Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
-The Boat People by Sharon Bala
-Speak No Evil by Uzodimma Iweala
-The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson
Anne, I love to hear your short list of favorite, but would love even more, the long list. Even if it takes all day, I’m game! What would be even better is a list of all your recommendations for the year in one long and beautiful list! I could read about other people’s favorite books all day! THANK YOU!
Hah! Agreed!!!
It’s good to hear you’ll never tire of book recommendations!
My three favourite books this year have been:
Catherine McKinnon, Storyland (an Australian novel about generations of people living in the Illawarra region north of Sydney); WG Sebald, Austerlitz (not new, but profoundly moving); Gail Honeyman, Elinor Oliphant is completely fine.
I’ve also enjoyed discovering Elly Griffith’s murder mysteries about a forensic archaeologist in Norfolk; Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm; and Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire
I have read more – both more quantity and more good books – this year, thanks in large part to this blog, the WSIRN podcast & the MMD book club!! It’s super hard to narrow down my list of favorites, but here are 10 I really loved:
*The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
*I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
*The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
*The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
*The Odyssey, as translated by Emily Wilson
*Educated by Tara Westover (on audio)
*Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny
*There There by Tommy Orange
*Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
*and of course, I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel!
Happy New Year, fellow book nerds!!
Did you find “Educated” to be a good book for audio? The book club I attend is reading it this year.
Loving this list, Anne! Definitely adding a few of these to my 2019 reading list.
I read 30 books this year (I usually read 50-60 books). But this year was crazy busy with school and work.
Here are my favourites:
Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan (currently reading)
Hindsight by Justin Timberlake
Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!
Oh I forgot. Also loved The Break by Kathleen Vermette and The Boat People by Sharon Bala. Highly recommend both!
My favorite reads from this year are The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Educated by Tara Westover, and the first two books of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.
My favorites from 2018:
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami
Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
What a great year!
I’ve just discovered Modern Mrs. Darcy and this group! Thanks to all for such intriguing reading suggestions. Some of my favorites this year were: ROBIN by Dave Itzkoff; LETTERS FROM SKYE by Jessica Brockmole (recommended by Margaret Manning of Sixty and Me), INSEPARABLE by Yunte Huang; SENDING CHRISTMAS CARDS TO HUCK AND HAMLET by Joe Mills (poetry by a gifted professor at UNCSchool of the Arts); THE GOOD NEIGHBOR: THE LIFE AND WORK OF FRED ROGERS by Maxwell King; THE VELVETEEN DAUGHTER by Laurel Davis Huber; I have I’D RATHER BE READING on order, and it’s due to be delivered in 2 days! Can’t wait!! Happy reading in the new year!
Stay with me was my favorite book I read this year. Also, I really enjoyed a new to me author-Liane Moriarity-loved What Alice Forgot and Big Little Lies. Looking forward to the 2019 reading challenge!
Two books which I sent to others in my family were ‘The Philosopher’s Flight’ by Tom Miller, a laugh out loud gender bending, world building, alternative history story. And, ‘To Obama With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope’ by Jeanne Marie Laskas which was just an amazing read about the people who wrote letters (and poured their hearts out) to the White House (and the people who read EVERY letter) over the challenging eight years of his administration.
Tied for favorite:
-Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
-We Were the Lucky Ones
Anne—I am a teacher and I found WSRIN over summer break this year and it changed my life! I read maybe 4 or 5 books in 2017, and I read 32 after finding WSIRN in July! My 2018 favorites list is long, and very WSIRN inspired. In order of dates read:
For the Love by Jen Hatmaker
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson
Emma by Jane Austen
Reading People by Anne Bogel 🙂
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
Rush by Lisa Patton (this was SO good on audio!!)
Still Life by Louise Penny
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
I’m so happy to hear it! I hope 2019 is every bit as good. 🙂
Agenda-driven and trendy. Anne, please have more independent thinking and bow less at the altar of current trends. May 2019 be a better literary year for you.
The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
The Other Alcott by Elise Hooper
The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
Becoming MomStrong by Heidi St. John
The More of Less by Joshua Becker
What a great reading year 2018 was! I set a hefty goal of 110 and made it! I read a mix of everything from award winning children’s lit to classic adult lit. I realized that I really enjoy biographies and memoirs, thanks to keeping a good reading log. One of my favorites was Tony Danza’s book-I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had. The book took me back to teaching in the inner city. I ended my year with The Gentle Art Of Swedish Death Cleaning. A friend of my daughter recommended it because we live in a small home and have unintentionally become minimalists this year. I recommend it for anyone looking to focus on the important in their life. I have yet to nail down my 2019 goal but am excited to get started with a good audiobook, Harry’s Trees, while making a 1300 mile trip on January 1! We’re traveling as I write this. Happy new year Anne!
Good best of the year list, Ann. Montana 1948 is one of my all-time favorites. I have had Harry’s Trees on my radar for awhile and I have a copy of The Dreamers waiting nearby. Here are some of my favorites from 2018:
Best Fiction:
1) The Overstory
2) The Princess Bride
3) Fight No More: Stories
4) The Mars Room
5) Virgil Wander
Best Nonfiction:
1) When They Call You a Terrorist
2) The Right Stuff
3) The Spirit Catches You
4) Bad Blood
5) The Night of the Gun
I had such a hard time narrowing down my list! I ended up with a top 15 for the year, including A Place for Us, This Must be the Place, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Just Mercy, The Ensemble, Calypso, and others. Thanks for continuing to fill my TBR list, Anne!
An American Marriage
Pachinko
Calypso
I had a great reading year in 2018. I loved:
Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng)
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman)
An American in Marriage (Tayari Jones)
The Bright Hour (Nina Riggs)
The Likeness (Tana French)
Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Jenny Han)
A Study in Scarlet Women (Sherry Thomas)
A Place for Us (Fatima Farheen Mirza) – I just finished this yesterday!
I first read Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove a couple of years ago and loved the book and the author. Several people mentioned Ove, Beartown and Us Against Them but no one mentioned Britt Marie Was Here. I think that might be my favorite Backman or at least tied with Ove. Like A Man Called Ove, it is sweet, touching and very funny!
My favorite books of 2018:
Kitchens of the Great Midwest
The Year of Magical Thinking
Born a Crime
Educated
Piecing Me Together
Knowing God
You Are What You Love
The Rest of God
Where the Crawdads Sing
The Remains of the Day
Lethal White
Calypso
And
Kingdom of the Blind
I almost shot coffee out my nose when I saw today’s message about “1000 books to read before dying” – and new books are being written every day!
My favorite books read in 2018 are:
Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger
Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein* (*Ordinarily steer clear of books written from an animal’s perspective but it worked and I loved this book!)
The Ice House – Laura Lee Smith
This Must Be the Place – Maggie O’Farrell
Reading with Patrick – Michelle Kuo
Sometimes I Lie – Alice Feeney
Great Reckoning – Louise Penny*
(*I hadn’t heard of Louise Penny until this year and I’ve chosen 3 of her books for my 2019 Reading Challenge – SO good!)
My favorite book of 2018 was Educated. What a testament to human resilience.
I’ve read so many good books in 2018 Here are a few of what I thought the best:
Norwegian By Night by Derek Miller
The Language of Secrets by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Down the River Unto the Sea by my favorite Walter Mosley
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Faithful Place by Tana French (another big Tana French lover)
A Delicate Truth by John le Carre
A. Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin
The End of the World Running Club by Adrian Walker
Two Kinds of Truth a wonderful Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly
True confession – LOVE all of the Michael Connelly books! Read 5 last year just didn’t include them in my best of 2018 list. Especially loved audiobooks read by Titus Welliver
Welliver wonderfully plays Harry in the Bosch series on Amazon Prime – well-done addition to the books
For fiction- Loved WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING and just finished ONCE UPON A RIVER. Couldn’t put either done.
Nonfiction: BECOMING rereading it with my 8 yo daughter on audible. Even better the second time, especially as Michelle Obama narrates it. Loved LEARNING BY LIVING by Eleanor Roosevelt. Discovered it through WSIRN. It is amazing how relevant it is today!
Thank you Anne for helping me find the best books for me. My 2018 favorites; Nonfiction – The Power of Moments, Martin Luther. When, The Reason for God, Made for More, Live Like a Narnian
Fiction – Lilac Girls, Watership Down, Dreamland Burning, We Were the Lucky Ones. Angle of Repose, Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, Bridge of Clay, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Blue Castle Short Stories – Tenth of December and my favorite middle reader selection Okay for Now.
*Everybody Always by Bob Goff (nonfiction)
*Unbroken by Laura Hillebrand(read in Hawaii right before going to Pearl Harbor- really appreciate our Greatest generation!)
*Educated by Tara Westover
*Persuasion by Jane Austen (favorite re-read)
*Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser – Pulitzer Prize 2018 – read to finish the MMD challenge. Great way to end the year. It is a definitive biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder while intertwining the history of the West and the laborious struggle of the American farmer.
I read a lot of books this year and my goal is to read even more next year. I am part of your challenge and will get to that soon! This year my favs were:
* The Hate U Give
* Bird Box
* Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
* This is How It Always Is
I always love seeing what books were people’s favorites for the year! I am reading Harry’s Trees right now. I’ve talked about some of my favorite 2018 reads here:
https://thesimplyblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/a-look-back-at-my-2018-reading-year/
My favorite books read in 2018 (in no particular order) were:
Before We Were Yours – Lisa Wingate
The Great Alone – Kristin Hannah
Unbroken: A WWII Story… – Laura Hillenbrand
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
Tell Me More – Kelly Corrigan
Salt to the Sea – Rpta Sepetys
I don’t have any in common. see mine here, by format and genre: https://wordsandpeace.com/2019/01/01/year-of-reading-2018-part-1-my-top-14/
Happy New Year of reading!
My favorite books of 2018 were:
Fiction:
-Beartown & Us Against You – Backman
– The Music Shop – Joyce
– Varina – Frazier
– Saints for All Occasions – Sullivan (my new fave author)
Nonfiction:
– Just Mercy – Stevenson* my book of the year!
– Educated – Westover
“Educated” is on the schedule for the book club I attend and I’m really looking forward to it!
I just finished “Tell Me More” yesterday and loved it! I laughed, I cried…you know the drill. Thank you for the recommendation!
I just read “I’ll Be Your Blue Sky ” based on your recommendation. Loved it! I read the first 2 in the series first – but didn’t really enjoy. Also didnt need to read them – “…Blue Sky..” is a stand alone book mostly.