Books Read 2018

This isn't as impressive as you might think.

You're about to read a list of a lot of books I read in 2018.

From this list, you might conclude that I'm a well-read person. If you learn that I have a degree in English literature, you'd have further reason to conclude this. 🎓

But college, while it taught me how to appreciate literature, never allowed me to enjoy it. You just can't give a good book the love it deserves if you're on a deadline ⏰ and your only purpose for the poor thing is to extract good quotes! You're lucky if you have the capacity to actually read enough to recognize it as "good." You know how it is.

After college I became completely addicted to Netflix. It takes much less mental capacity to watch TV than to read, so I basically stopped reading. But about ten months ago I had some eye issues that forced me to change my "activity of choice" to listening to audio books from the library. Even now that I am reading paper books again, I've still gotten over my TV addiction and always have 2-3 books going at once, thanks to this experience! 📗

So this list isn't just a brag (buuuuuut it kind of is a little bit. Watching my reading list grow makes me feel pretty good about myself.) This list marks a new passion in my life - one that really should have been there all along!

Book Picking

Almost all of these books are recommendations from other people, as opposed to me picking "what looks good."  This method of choosing reading material has completely changed my relationship with books for two reasons:

It connects me to people.  💑I ask my friends what their favorite books are. And whenever I read a book that my friend loves, I learn a little bit more about them. My friend knows that I trust their recommendation enough to invest hours of my time diving into the same reading journey that they did, and then we also have something to talk about.

It forces me to expand my interests. 📚 Included in the list below are all kinds of books: historical fiction from many periods, modern fiction, classic fiction, things by well-known authors, things by obscure authors, self-help books, young adult fiction, children's fiction, books about modern social issues, and humor. I wouldn't have normally browsed in some of these categories, but reading books in these genres helped me appreciate them, expanded my worldview, and even whetted my appetite in other areas of literature!🌎

Ratings

I'm going to rate these works on how meaningful, useful, or entertaining they were to me. It could be a masterpiece, but maybe I found it dry or confusing or irritating because of my own deficiency, not the book's. Or maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea. Alternately, maybe I loved the book and give it five stars even though I know the majority of the population would find it irrelevant or boring.

You'll just have to either know me well, look up the book online, or ask me for details to decide if you want to read it!

Star Rating System

.

*****: Very highly recommended! This book is so mind-blastingly good that I have read it more than once, and/or plan to read it again, and/or have purchased it to lend it to others.

****: Also highly recommended.. This book moved me or was very fascinating to me, though reading it once was enough.

*** I didn't find it particularly amazing but it was worth the read.

** At times, it was difficult to get through this book for some reason or another, but it had some redeeming factors and wasn't a complete waste of time.

* I had a hard time getting through almost this entire book and sometimes I wanted to throw it.

Also, these categories are kind of arbitrary because many books span multiple genres and subjects. For example, there are some books about social issues that I put in the "memoirs" category instead of the "social issues" category, and some books consider "children's" that I did not relegate to the children's category because I think adults might enjoy them.

HERE IS THE LIST

The List

Anthologies
Various authors inspired by God, The Bible *****
Dickinson, Emily, Collected Poems **
Doyle, Tom, Killing Christians: Living the Faith Where it's Not Safe to Believe (nonfiction) ****
Hemingway, Ernest, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (classic fiction) *
Lewis, C.S., George MacDonald: An Anthology (nonfiction Christian classic) **
O'Mara, Leslie (ed.), Great Cat Tales (fiction and nonfiction) **
Smith, Alexander McCall, The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa (fiction)**


Fiction: Novels
Alcorn, Randy, Dominion**
Alcorn, Randy, Deadline**
Backman, Fredrik, A Man Called Ove***
Bivald, Katarina, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend***
Butler, Octavia, Parable of the Sower***
Butler, Octavia, Parable of the Talents***
Feeney, Alice, Sometimes I Lie****

Grisham, John, The Rooster Bar***
Grisham, John, Ford County**
Jones, Sadie, The Outcast***
Kroese, Robert, The Big Sheep****
Krueger, William Kent, Ordinary Grace***
Martin, Charles, Chasing Fireflies****
McMurtry, Larry, Lonesome Dove***
Stoppard, Tom, Arcadia****
Zevin, Gabrielle, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry****

Fiction (Based on a True Story)
Alcorn, Randy, Safely Home*****
Marshall, Catherine, Christy****

Fiction: Historical
Brooks, Geraldine, People of the Book****
Doerr, Anthony, All the Light We Cannot See*****
Kelly, Martha Hall, Lilac Girls****
Rivers, Francine, Mark of the Lion, Book 1: A Voice in the Wind*****
Zusak, Markus, The Book Thief****

Fiction: Classics
Alcott, Louisa May, Little Women****
Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, Lorna Doone*
Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights**
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment****
L'Engle, Madeline, A Wrinkle in Time****
Lewis, C.S., The Chronicles of Narnia Book 1: The Magician's Nephew*****
Lewis, C.S.  The Chronicles of Narnia Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*****
Spyri, Johanna Heidi***
Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina***

Fiction: Young Adult
Reynolds, Jason, Long Way Down*
Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter Book 1: The Philosopher's Stone*****
Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter Book 2. The Chamber of Secrets*****
Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter Book 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban*****
Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter Book 4. The Goblet of Fire*****
Yancey, Rick, The Fifth Wave, Book 1****
Yancey, Rick, The Fifth Wave, Book 2: The Infinite Sea***
Yancey, Rick, The Fifth Wave, Book 3, The Last Star***

Fiction: Children's
Corder, Zizou, Lionboy: Book 1 ***
Corder, Zizou, Lionboy: Book 2: The Chase***
Corder, Zizou, Lionboy, Book 3: The Truth***
Fleischman, Sid, By the Great Horn Spoon!***
Lloyd, Natalie, A Snicker of Magic****
Spinelli, Jerry, Maniac Magee*

Nonfiction: Biography
Hillenbrand, Lauren, Unbroken*****
Metaxes, Eric, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy *****

Nonfiction: Humor
Acuff, Jon, Stuff Christians Like*****
Gaffigan, Jim, Food: A Love Story***
Hammer, Toni, Is It Bedtime Yet?***

Nonfiction: Historical
Bruchac, Joseph, Code Talker***
Sadler, Anthony et.al, The 15:17 to Paris**
Shetterly, Margot Lee, Hidden Figures***

Nonfiction: Memoirs/Autobiographies
Brother Yun, The Heavenly Man*****
Druckerman, Pamela, Bringing Up Bebe***
Gaines, Chip and Joanna, The Magnolia Story***
Herriot, James, All Creatures Great and Small****
Kim, Suki, Without You There Is No Us***
Lee, Hyenseo, The Girl with Seven Names****
Minter, Kelly, Wherever the River Runs***
Vance, J.D., Hillbilly Elegy***
Walls, Jeannette, The Glass Castle****
Yousafzai, Malala, I am Malala***
Yuan, Christopher & Yuan, Angela, Out of a Far Country*****

Nonfiction: Self-Help
Beattie, Melody, Codependent No More***
Brown, Brene, Braving the Wilderness**
Duckworth, Angela, Grit*****
Peterson, Jordan, 12 Rules for Life ***

Nonfiction: Social Issues
Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow*****
Nordberg, Jenny, The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan****

Nonfiction: Christian Classics
Augustine, Confessions***
Carmichael, Amy, If ***
Rutherford, Samuel, Letters**

Nonfiction: Christian Life, Devotional-Style Memoirs
Aaby, Elisabeth, Moms Who Matter****
Crabb, Larry, Becoming a True Spiritual Community*****
Dugi, Angela, Godsmiles***
Dugi, Angela, What I Learned Lying Down*****
Evans, Rachel Held, Searching for Sunday*
Hanley, Kristin L., Navigating a Sea of Emotions***
Keller, Timothy, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God*****
Keller, Timothy, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering*****
Terkeurst, Lysa, Embraced***
Young, Sarah, Jesus Calling: for Christmas**

Nonfiction: The Church
Hutcherson, Ken, Here Comes the Bride*****
McHugh, Adam S., Introverts in the Church*****
Murrow, David, Why Men Hate Going to Church****
Rainer, Thom & Geiger, Eric, Simple Church*
Stanley, Andy, Deep & Wide*****
Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Church Life*****