Top Ten 2018 Releases I Still Want to Read

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Last year I outdid myself with how many new releases I actually read the same year they came out, but even so I felt like there were many, many books from the year that I wanted to get my hands on and never did. These are the ten that I am still most interested to read in the coming years.

1. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
I feel like every book podcast I listen to is constantly referencing this book. It was also nominated for a Goodreads Award, probably because it has a 4.01 rating after more than 98,000 ratings. I am interested to read it!

2. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
I somehow keep bringing up this book in conversation even though I still haven't read it, just because the news story at its core is so fascinating. How do you build a gigantic business on a lie?

3. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
This book had the bookish Internet all abuzz for what felt like the entirety of 2018. After more than 61,000 ratings it still has an average rating of 4.24, so that's promising. As previously established, YA fantasy is not usually my thing, but I took a chance on The Raven Boys that panned out, so I'm willing to give this one a shot.

4. Cringeworthy by Melissa Dahl
Dahl was just on the Ask a Manager podcast last week, which reminded me how much I was wanting to read her book. Even though the ratings aren't super stellar, I still think the information in the book would be interesting, and it sounds like it's entertaining as well.

5. Educated by Tara Westover
This one was on all the best-of lists for 2018, and I can't believe it still has a 4.49 rating after more than 154,000 ratings. It's past time I picked this one up.

6. I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
This is one that I've heard about not just on book blogs and podcasts but also from readers I know in real life, which means it seems to have widespread appeal. Also, I am super here for page-turner-y nonfiction, which it sounds like this is.

7. I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
I keep running across Austin Channing Brown's name, as she inhabits the same intersection of Christianity and social justice as some of my favorite writers. This book is under 200 pages, so there's no excuse for me not to have read it yet (except for the 150 books still on my TBR stack!).

8. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
My friend was just talking about reading "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" and I thought about how I'd put in my review of it that it was "Everything you've wondered about race but were afraid to ask," which then reminded me of this other book that recently came out. I've heard it recommended several times now and it has high ratings, so I'm very interested to pick it up!

9. There There by Tommy Orange
This is another one that people seem to be raving about everywhere I turn. I get the feeling that it's in the vein of being literary and dark in an MFA kind of way, so I'm hoping it's not like Fourth of July Creek, which was a little too dark for me, but I might be completely wrong.

10. When by Daniel H. Pink
It's been a while since I dove into a good pop science book, and I enjoyed Dan Pink's Drive, so I would definitely pick up another book by him.

What 2018 books are still on your to-read list?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Clocks and The Stand
Five years ago I was reading: Against the Gods, The Goldfinch, and War and Peace
Ten years ago I was reading: Copyediting

Top Ten New-to-Me Authors in 2018

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is authors we read for the first time in 2018! Some of these also published their first books in 2018, but most have been around for longer and 2018 was just the first time I'd read anything by them.

1. Kim Brooks
Brooks actually wrote a novel prior to writing the amazing nonfiction book Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear that I read in 2018 after a Facebook friend linked to an article written by Brooks. I related so hard to Brooks' natural anxiety around parenting and her tentative pushback against a culture that equates taking your eyes off your child for a minute with straight-up neglect. Her vulnerability and honesty were what I needed to recover from my own parenting-judgment-related trauma.

2. Truman Capote
This year I finally read some Capote, specifically In Cold Blood. I'm not sure how I feel about nonfiction novels in general, but there's no question that he's an extremely talented writer and researcher.

3. Anne Fadiman
I had heard about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down for literally years, including getting to hear Fadiman speak in person, before finally picking this book up in 2018. And yes, it was as good as everyone had been telling me. Now I keep hearing about Ex Libris, so I think I'll have to pick that one up as well.

4. Gemma Hartley
Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward was Hartley's debut, though she's written articles for years, including the viral "Women Aren't Nags, We're Just Fed Up" that inspired the book. As with Brooks, I'm grateful to Hartley for her vulnerability in sharing the details of her marital arguments that allowed women across the world to see that they weren't alone. (I'm now on a crusade to get more men to read this book.)

5. Arlie Russell Hochschild
I'm not sure "enjoyed" is the right word for Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, but I was deeply impressed by it. Then I realized that Hochschild is almost 80 years old! She's been around for a long time and has quite a bibliography to her name. I'm particularly interested in The Second Shift after a podcast I listen to was quoting from it recently.

6. Colleen McCullough
Long books don't always justify their length, but McCullough's The Thorn Birds did. There was enough detail to give you a rich picture of the Australian scenery, but always enough plot to keep the book moving and make it unpredictable. By the end, you've spent a lifetime with the central characters and feel their emotions deeply and personally. That's a talented writer.

7. Sandhya Menon
I read two of Menon's books in 2018: her debut, When Dimple Met Rishi, and her second book, From Twinkle, with Love. I appreciate that her books manage to feel real while also giving the reader a happy ending. Her characters are imperfect but earnest, and she can write a love story that's actually more about family or friendship or identity in a genuine way. I'm looking forward to her next one!

8. Janet Mock
I finally read Mock's memoir, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, this year and was impressed by both her life story and how she tells it. She recognized that she had a new story to tell (as a trans woman growing up poor and black in Hawaii) and nicely balanced her personal story with some larger information about being trans in America. I'm interested now to read her newest book, Surpassing Certainty.

9. Kevin Roose
I had had The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University on my TBR list for far too long before finally picking it up this year. Not only is Roose's story of a semester at Liberty University fascinating in itself, but he's also an astoundingly good writer, particularly for having written this at 19. This book ranks up there with some of the best memoirs I've read. His follow-up book, Young Money, has not gotten as good ratings as his first one, so I may or may not pick it up. (It seems more journalistic, rather than a memoir.)

10. Maggie Stiefvater
I think I've probably raved enough about the Raven Cycle series and how I put it off for too long, so I'll just say that I'm impressed that Stiefvater could get me to really love a series in a genre that I usually don't like at all. I'm undecided whether to try The Scorpio Races or All the Crooked Saints next.

Which great authors were new to you in 2018?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? and The Stand
Five years ago I was reading: Against the Gods, The Goldfinch, and War and Peace
Ten years ago I was reading: Copyediting

Review of 2018 Bookish Goals

Now that we're in 2019, it's time to look back at my 2018 goals and see how well I did. Then it will be time to share my 2019 goals! Here's what I wanted to accomplish in 2018.

1. Read the His Dark Materials series.
I did it! I enjoyed listening to the full-cast audio production of these books. It turns out that all this time I'd thought that I'd read the first two books in middle school, but I definitely only read the first one. The first book was excellent, the second book was confusing, and the third book was a trash fire of nonsense. Oh well!

2. Read the whole Chronicles of Narnia series.
I did not do this, but I'm all set to do a buddy read of the books in publication order in 2019. I already finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this week!

3. Finish the Hercule Poirot books.
I did it! It took me just about two years to read through all 37 books. I haven't yet decided if I want to make a goal to tackle more Christie in the new year, or give it a break for a while.

4. Reread the Belgariad and Malloreon series on audiobook.
I completed half of this goal: I listened to the Belgariad series in 2018. I hope to get through the Malloreon series in 2019. I wasn't a huge fan of the audiobook narrator, but he grew on me as I got further into the series.

5. Read something my sister recommends.
My sister recommended Night Film by Marisha Pessl, and I thought it was excellent! I turned out to like it much better than the Pessl I'd had on my TBR list for the longest time, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which I also ended up reading this year. My sister definitely has a taste for creepy books, though: Her past recommendations have been Stolen (about a kidnapper) and You (about a stalker).

6. Read some of the unread books on my bookshelf.
I pretty much failed at this. I read one book I had in hard copy, Disunity in Christ. I also started working through R For Dummies. And that's it. However, for Christmas I got a custom library stamp (as mentioned here) so I think that will prompt me to read more of my unread books, since I can't stamp them until I know whether I want to keep them! (Thankfully I own very few unread books to begin with.)

7. Get roughly 50% of my 2018 reads from my TBR list and 50% from elsewhere.
So it turns out that it's not a good idea to make a goal to read books off your TBR and then make every other goal about books that aren't on your TBR. Whoops. Out of the 124 books that I read in 2018, 43 were from my original TBR list, or 35%. That was the same number I read last year when I was actively trying not to read books on my TBR. Oh well — it's a new year!

8. Read at least three books published in 2018.
A whole bunch of my favorite authors ended up releasing books in 2018, plus I heard about several that I had to get my hands on immediately, so all told I read 15 books published in 2018, which is definitely a record for me. And half of these ended up on my "best of" lists for 2018!

9. Read some 2017 releases.
I read six books published in 2017, which is more than I expected to get to. One of them, When Dimple Met Rishi, also ended up on my favorites list for the year.

10. Promote the Best of the Bunch linkup more.
I didn't exactly do a stellar job of actively promoting this, but I did remember to link up with the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up each month, so I consistently got 2-4 people linking up each month. Best of the Bunch is an easy linkup to participate in and I find it fun to see what everyone's favorite reads of the month were, so I hope it will continue to grow!

What were your bookish goals for 2018 and how did you do?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Peter Pan and Americanah
Five years ago I was reading: Life After Life and War and Peace
Ten years ago I was reading: The Screwtape Letters and Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

Top Ten Fiction Reads of 2018

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Last week I shared my favorite nonfiction reads of the year. I definitely had a longer list of top-notch nonfiction for this year, but I still managed to come up with ten fiction reads that I enjoyed the most in 2018!

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
In a rare move for me, I actually read this book twice after it was published in September. (I recommend the audio version.) It's fast-paced and engaging, but also grapples with questions of fame and power in a way I can't remember seeing in another book. Just be prepared that the ending is a setup for the sequel!

2. The Belgariad series by David Eddings
This series was a childhood favorite of mine and still the only high fantasy series I really like, and it was fun to revisit old friends through the audiobooks. I did not get to the Malloreon (the sequel series), but I plan to listen to those books in 2019.

3. The Clocks by Agatha Christie
I finished off the Hercule Poirot novels this year, and this was my favorite of the ones I read in 2018. It's creepy and unpredictable and different from many of the other Poirot books.

4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The full-cast audiobook production of this book was delightful; I love the world-building and the action-packed plot. Unfortunately the rest of the series went downhill for me.

5. I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios
Although this was in some ways a predictable YA romance, it was also something different, set in a rural town with a love interest who's come back mentally and physically wounded from Afghanistan at nineteen. Much of the plot, particularly involving side characters, did not go where I expected, and I appreciated the balance of realism with happy ever after.

6. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
I adored this sequel to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. I laughed, I cried, I related hard to Leah's perfectionism, and I liked getting the chance to see the characters from Simon from a different perspective.

7. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
This is the rare series that just gets better and better with each book. I liked the mystery itself, I liked the slow-burn romance, I liked the representation of PTSD, and I liked the exploration of different kinds of unhealthy relationships. I don't recommend reading this if you haven't read the first three books in the series yet, but if you have — definitely pick this up!

8. The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater
I've seen people losing their minds over this series for years, but YA fantasy has never been my thing so I put it off until this year. And then it was so flippin' good! Three out of the four books were 5-star reads (it's hard to have a perfect series ending), so unlike some series, I wholeheartedly recommend the entire thing.

9. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
This is like a tour of Australia filled with heartbreakingly real characters who face impossible decisions. It's unpredictable in the best way. It's slow to get into, but it's very much worth it.

10. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
This lived up to the hype as an adorable, feel-good romance that was predictable but not as much as I expected. I can be nit-picky about YA romances, but I genuinely enjoyed this read.

What were your favorite fiction reads this year?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Sophie's Choice and Americanah
Five years ago I was reading: David and Goliath and War and Peace
Ten years ago I was reading: Traffic

Top Ten Nonfiction Reads of 2018

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is about books we want Santa to bring, but since I so rarely ask for hard copies of books, I decided it was a good chance to go back to the format I used before last year's crappy reading year and share my ten favorite nonfiction reads from this year, followed next week by my ten favorite fiction reads of the year. I had so many good nonfiction reads this year that it was hard to narrow it down! Here are my favorites.

1. Ask a Manager by Alison Green
This book is a must-read for anyone in the workforce. It's a compilation of useful scripts for the most common and most difficult conversations you're likely to have at work. Of course, I also highly recommend the Ask a Manager blog.

2. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Noah explores the complexity of race and class in South Africa not through the shock value of dredging up his worst memories, but in between the lines of the stories about his pranks, his friendships, his failed attempts at dating, and his complex family relationships. I laughed, I cried, and I wished it were longer.

3. Fed Up by Gemma Hartley
It's not an exaggeration to say that this book has transformed my marriage. Hartley articulated my personal experience (and that of many, many women in different-gender relationships) so perfectly that I told my husband, "I'd do almost anything to get you to read this book." He listened to the first 15 minutes, said everything suddenly clicked for him, and before I knew it I had an equal partner in the running of our daily lives. Women will appreciate it, but men need to read it.

4. Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
This puts aside common paradigms of the Bible as a handbook for living or a puzzle to be solved and instead highlights the themes that recur throughout this book of stories, why they're there, and how they're relevant to our daily lives.

5. March (Vols. 1-3) by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
These books tell the story of Lewis' involvement in the civil rights movement in clear and compelling detail. I knew some of the key pieces about this history already, but it was fascinating to be told the entire story as a complete narrative, and the integration of the story with the artwork was excellent.

6. Radical by Michelle Rhee
This is both a memoir of Rhee's controversial career in education reform and a battle cry for parents, teachers, students, and politicians to use their voices to fight for every student to have a quality education. Rhee focuses heavily on the importance of teachers — both why effective ones should be better rewarded and why incompetent ones should not be protected.

7. Small Animals by Kim Brooks
Brooks captures perfectly what it is like to be a parent in modern-day America, how the majority of your decisions are spurred by fear — fear of what will happen to your child if you don't do everything correctly and/or fear of what others parents will say or do if they believe you aren't parenting correctly.

8. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Through the lens of a specific girl's medical drama, Fadiman shows just how difficult it is for Hmong culture and Western medicine to even begin to understand one another if neither has the time or resources or inclination to make the effort. It's a comprehensive look at the importance and difficulties of crosscultural communication.

9. Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild
This was a difficult but important read about the way Tea Partiers and Trump supporters think about themselves, their country, and the environment. It doesn't provide a clear plan for getting these folks to use the same set of facts as the rest of us, but it does provide a fuller picture that can hopefully prevent progressives from making missteps in trying to reach across the aisle.

10. The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose
Roose's story of leaving his liberal bubble to spend a semester at Liberty University was at turns fascinating, amusing, enlightening, and confirming of my own thoughts and beliefs. I'm astounded that he wrote this while in college, as the writing ranks up there with some of the best memoirs I've read.

What were your favorite nonfiction reads this year?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Sophie's Choice and Americanah
Five years ago I was reading: Code Name Verity and War and Peace
Ten years ago I was reading: Traffic

Top Ten 2018 Reads So Far

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

We've passed the halfway point of 2018! It's time to take stock of our reading so far this year and share what have been our favorites. Here are my 5-star reads (not counting rereads) of the year, plus a couple of notable 4.5-star reads. These books weren't all published in 2018 (though a few of them were), but I read them all for the first time this year.

1. Ask a Manager by Alison Green
My favorite May read. This is a fantastic compilation of scripts to use in all different kinds of situations at work.

2. Feeling Good by David D. Burns
This book is a classic for a reason and I see why psychologists recommend it. It's a powerful, practical guide to mood regulation through combating faulty thinking patterns.

3. Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
My favorite June read. It puts aside common paradigms of the Bible as a handbook for living or a puzzle to be solved and instead highlights the themes that recur throughout this book of stories, why they're there, and how they're relevant to our daily lives.

4. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
My favorite April read. It's a funny, sweet, well-crafted sequel to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

5. Radical by Michelle Rhee
My favorite March read. It's both a memoir of Rhee's controversial career in education reform and a battle cry for parents, teachers, students, and politicians to use their voices to fight for every student to have a quality education.

6. Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild
This was a difficult but important read about the way Tea Partiers and Trump supporters think about themselves, their country, and the environment. It doesn't provide a clear plan for getting these folks to use the same set of facts as the rest of us, but it does provide a fuller picture that can hopefully prevent progressives from making missteps in trying to reach across the aisle.

7. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
This is like a tour of Australia filled with heartbreakingly real characters who face impossible decisions. It's unpredictable in the best way.

8. The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose
Roose's story of leaving his liberal bubble to spend a semester at Liberty University was at turns fascinating, amusing, enlightening, and confirming of my own thoughts and beliefs. I'm astounded that he wrote this while in college, as the writing ranks up there with some of the best memoirs I've read.

9. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
My favorite February read. It lived up to the hype as an adorable, feel-good romance that was predictable but not as much as I expected.

10. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
My favorite January read. It's a collection of quotations from Fred Rogers, and it prompted me to order the daily calendar that I now have on my desk.

What are your favorite reads of the year so far?

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Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: A Walk in the Woods and Evil Under the Sun
Five years ago I was reading: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Thinking, Fast and Slow
Ten years ago I was reading: The Left Hand of Darkness