Yes, I know we’re already nearly 3 weeks into 2019, but finding the energy to sort through my previous year’s book choices had thus far eluded me. Why is this? In short because I consumed more content on this go-round than ever before, putting in a crazy cram session at the end to complete 60 books for the first time. How some of you reach 70, 100, and beyond will probably always remain a mystery to me, as I was pretty sapped after just those. I guess it’s because of the way I tend to read, being more of a savorer than a speedster. But to each his or her own, as long as the books bring enjoyment.
And I can say I still found a lot of that in my selections. All told, I read 50 works of fiction, including 18 contemporary, six historical, twelve psychological, and fourteen sci-fi/fantasy. I also took in ten nonfiction books: five of them to do with travel and five memoirs. The latter category has become more interesting to me lately, as many tend to narrate their own these days. And speaking of narration, 43 off my reads were as audiobooks, which I would surmise is also a record.
With that breakdown in mind, I thought I would give you my top five works of fiction and my top three nonfiction pieces. I’ve been trying to read more of the last, but I guess I still tend to lean toward escaping reality when possible.
Wings Unseen, Becca Gomez Farrell
My first book of 2018, I particularly liked this by an author who had met me via Twitter a few years ago after having promoted my blog to someone else. It’s an epic fantasy adventure full of travel, royalty, tests of loyalty, and a fight against some rather scary-sounding insects. The depth of description in her cities was something I’ve rarely encountered, and truly made the story come to life.
Alone, Brett Archibald
This is a story about a guy who fell overboard into the Indian Ocean after becoming ill on bad food and tossing it into the sea. He was forced to survive in the waves with frightening sea life for almost a month, losing nearly all of his weight in the process. It documents the beginning of this process, tales from his friends as they related them to him later, and other things. I think I finished it in three days.
Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
Ok this one made everyone’s list I’m sure. Another fantasy, it takes place in a Nigeria-like country and involves magic, a gladiator-style battle, treks through the wild with mysterious animals, and royalty dethroned. I wasn’t sure if I would like this one, but was hooked as soon as I started; being so unable to sleep in anticipation of reading more tat I got up around 2 on a workday to complete it.
The Story of Arthur Truluv, Elizabeth Berg
A quiet story, this work spoke to the peace of growing old with someone, and the challenge of accepting that person’s passing. Arthur, in an unnamed but large urban area, still hops on the bus to visit his wife’s grave and have lunch with her every day, in all kinds of weather. He befriends a lonely teen, and along with some of the other elderly neighborhood residents helps her turn her life around. Read by Berg herself, it is at times humorous and slightly sad. But I was touched.
Ruthless River, Holly Fitzgerald
Similar to alone but different, Fitzgerald writes about she and her husband eating lost after an ill-conceived rafting trip down an Amazon tributary, the Rio Madre de Dios. Their honeymoon across South America was supposed to come to a spectacular end, but it almost cost them their lives as they were forced into a tight spot from which the raft could not be moved by an unexpected thunderstorm. Food nearly ran out as well as hope, until… well you’ll just have to read. I don’t know why I just have a thing for these kinds of stories, but they definitely made up a significant chunk of last year’s reading.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A slightly compressed history of Columbia’s dark days in the late 90’s and early 00’s, as seen through the Santiagos, a rich family in Bogota, and the the Sanchez’s, a family that produced Petrona, one of the Santiagos’ cleaners. We see the rise of Pablo Escobar and what he did to his opponents, as well as the events that led many to become refugees at the height of militant groups like the FARC. This is a good read for anyone who wishes to understand why so many in that part of the world are scrambling to try and enter the US, and is thus a good contemporary consumption as well.
This Burns My Heart, Samuel parker
Another that sheds light on a different culture, this book takes place in Korea a few years after the Korean War. A young woman there, Soo-ja, struggles to deal with a marriage that was largely forced upon her and cope with lost dreams. We see this within the context of Korea itself as its identity)ies) were shaped by forced within and without. It was also vivid, giving a real sense of what it felt like to walk the streets of large city and small town alike in the mid to late Sixties over there.
Educated, Tara Westover
Another that nearly everyone read, my wife and I enjoyed sharing this, as well as something like four others over the course of that year. And this title in particular gave lots to talk about. Westover explores what her life was like in rural, deeply devout Mormon Idaho; living largely off the educational and cultural grid of the U.S. Estrangements from violent family members, entry into and excelling in the college system, and learning to cope in the wider world made up the story’s breadth. On the whole I found it enjoyable, if disturbing.
And that’s a relatively small subset of what I read. I think it gives a fairly accurate sense of the diversity of titles I navigated. If you want to see my full list as it unfurls, as was the case last year, follow me on Twitter and watch for my book tweets in which I state the book number, tag the author if he or she is on there, and give a short description of the book’s contents. I really need to do more writing in 2019, but till then, here’s to plenty of happy reading in all of our futures!