2018 Year in Review

In 2018 I read 60 books totaling 20,308 pages. This is a decrease from last year when I read 67 books. WHAT HAPPENED? That's pretty easy actually. In the midst of training for my spring marathon, I developed a rather wicked case of plantar fasciitis. So from February until early December I was unable to run. I gained a lot of weight and I was pretty pissed about the whole development. No more two hour training runs spent with my best good book pals. So this was a major blow to my reading goals. My 2017 breakup with Facebook has lasted all of 2018, but 2018 was also the year that Reading While the Ship Goes Down got it's very own Insta page. If you haven't given "us" a follow go check it out. It's mostly pictures of my books. And me with my books. And my books in airports or near lakes. It's peaceful. Bookstagram is the best kind of Instagram.

My average rating was 3.8 this year, up just a tad from 3.7 last year. I don't recall reading that many duds this year, but I also don't recall absolutely dying of love for a book like I did for The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, which I'm still not really over. You can read the review here. So without further ado, here's the rundown for 2018.

Longest Book: A Column of Fire by Ken Follett. While I'm not surprised, given that these Kingsbridge books of Follett's tend to be large, I don't really recall spending that much time with this book. A 927 pages, I think I should remember wondering why it was going on so long, but I don't. I remember mostly being annoyed at the replay of political and historical events and the attempts at making those suspenseful (oh no, will Guy Fawkes blow up Parliament?! - said no one ever after the actual events). Anyway, the fact that I loved both of the earlier books in the series make this book also win in a second category.

Biggest Disappointment: See above. What a sad turn for such a good series. Anyway, you can read that review here.

Best Book: A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman. I can always tell if I've really loved a book if I can't let it go after reading it. Sometimes that takes a few days, sometimes a few weeks. And it typically involves a Wikipedia rabbit hole and possible fan fiction or movie versions. And such was the case with A Man Called Ove. I googled. I watched the Swedish language film. I loved all of it, as I loved Ove, a crotchety old man who was served some of the worst turns life has to offer and still managed to be decent and love again.

You can read the review here.

Shortest Book: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. I've rarely read a novel length work quite like this one. It's more of a collection of stories placed together to detail the plight of a certain demographic into a cohesive sort of collective experience. It was odd and I liked and didn't like it in turns. But it ended up with a 4 star rating because it really managed to tell a story without any actual characters. A testament I think to the strength of the writing, and the topic itself.

You can read the review here.

Best Character: Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky from The Undoing Project. This is a bit of a cheat since these guys are REAL PEOPLE, but they are so fascinating, and they changed the way we look at economics and psychology FOREVER! Two psychologists who thought that somethings that people claimed were true, were just not. And they were right. I loved The Undoing Project so much, I ended up reading Misbehaving by Richard Thaler, and then I realized I needed to go back to school and so in a couple weeks I astrt a certificate program in Data Analytics. Danny and Amos made me realize my brain still works.

You can read the review here.

Worst Book: Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane. To be fair, I also really disliked The Last Mrs. Parrish, but Dennis Lehane is supposed to know what he's doing and has written some really good books. This was not one of them. A meandering boring plot with too much exposition and then a completely unbelievable (not in a good way) ending. Boo.

You can read the review here.

Worst Character: Obviously this has to be someone from The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine. You know, the book that basically says domestic abuse and serial rape are just punishments for horrible people, I just couldn't hang with that. Even if Amber Patterson was a terrible person. She was also a terrible character. She was all bad. There really wasn't a redeeming quality about her, which  made her painfully unreal and damaged the book further.

You can read the review here.

Honorable Mentions:  Oh man, I read some books this year that as a book didn't merit five star ratings, but as concepts or thoughts were really moving and helped develop me as a person. Including Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. (review here) and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (review https://readingwhiletheshipgoesdown.blogspot.com/2018/07/mans-search-for-meaning-viktor-frankl.htmlhere).

Goals for 2019: I've set my goal of 62 books for this year. It's above my 2018 level but not quite at 2017. I honestly don't know how this foot is going to hold up and if I'm not able to run... well I may be crying my eyes out somewhere because running is the thing I do for me. The way I make sure I've gotten enough exercise. So this could be a problem. I'm hoping not though and that I'm going to be back in 1/2 marathon shape in no time.

Will George RR Martin get around to publishing Winds of Winter (signs are pointing to yes!- check out this update), I'm not counting on it (I was similarly disappointed last year and even wrote that EXACT SAME SENTENCE in last year's review - AND the year before that, and the year before that) or I would have set the goal at 52. But if it ruins my reading goal for the year, I'd be okay with that. Having this as the final paragraph of my year in review is becoming kind of a comedy piece of its own. Anyway thanks for reading with me this year!