Books of 2018
I made a goal last year that I would read more. A lot more than I have recently been reading, which is an easy goal, comparatively speaking. In previous years I would be happy to have got through a few novels annually.
In 2018, I committed to read 20 novels. This would be a challenge, or at least that was my initial reaction.
I have always liked reading, especially when I get to choose the titles.
I remember when I was in Grade 11 and should have been studying for a Biology test. I just couldn't do it. If the left-brain vs. right-brain is really a thing (see I never did well in Science), I am 80% right-brained... or more. Meaning: I am emotionally driven and super creative. Basically, I will sing and dance all over your logic and then bake you some cookies as an apology.
Anyways, I was procrastinating hardcore and picked up a novel, any novel. This one happened to be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Big mistake. I think I read it all one night and needless to say I didn't fare too well on that biology test.
However, I was taken into a wonderful world of fiction. I loved Jane as a character so much. She was educated, independent and such a badass.
A gorgeous, young missionary dude proposes marriage to her near the beginning. ***Spoiler *** She says NO. She's all like, "Umm... I don't see myself going in that direction and have other ambitions" and that was in 1847 people! It's a wonderful love story about finding yourself, dealing with flaws, and discovering truths. All round, one of my favorite novels.
Fast forward a few years and I was consumed with university textbooks, reading about psychology and sociology theories. The novels I did get to read in my English classes weren't too thrilling and none that I can think of really left a big impression on me (Life of Pi and Anne of Green Gables were good). Between working part-time and going to school full-time, there wasn't much wiggle room to do much else, let alone read for hours books for pleasure. What a notion!
Then the babies came. Oh wait, no I am getting my own chronology mixed up... first moving to Edmonton, dabbling in stand-up comedy, dating and marrying, yaddy yaddy yadda. Mom brain-fog is a real thing.
Then the babies did come. And owning my first Smartphone. These two things basically ate up five years of my life, easy. Although I do faintly remember reading and being horrified and fascinated with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein while we were residing in Ottawa. So good!
So back to this past year and me saying, "Hey self, what's up? Cool, cool. Let's do some reading together and use that big wrinkly organ up there besides reading brightly coloured pages with rhyming verses? Good? Alright."
So I started finding some random books off of our Little Libraries that we have set up in town. I also fell victim to Reese Witherspoon's book club.
Side note: Reese felt that the movie industry (which is notoriously male-dominated) features women's roles as basically either a dumb bimbo or a heartless witch with a B type character. There wasn't a lot of layered, deep roles for women to play. So she has a production company and a book club that looks for books that are authored by women and have women protagonists and she buys the rights for and make movies of them! Brilliant, right? Anyways, this book club features female authors and female characters that are in mystery, romance, historic fiction and all that good stuff. I highly, highly recommend it.
https://hello-sunshine.com/book-club
I began reading and reading. Saying "NO" to Netflix and curling up in my bed for hours to get through the books. Not every book was a real page-turner but the vast majority left me happily satisfied (as you can see from the ratings below).
-1- The Boy Who was Raised a Dog; and other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz (4/5)
-2- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain(5/5)
-3- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (5/5)
-4- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (4/5)
-5- Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (4/5)
-6- The Light We Lost by Jill Santapolo (4.5/5)
-7- Happiness: The Crooked Little Road by Heather Harpham (4/5)
-8- You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld (3.5/5)
-9- The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (3/5)
-10- Erotic Stories of Punjab Women by Balli Kaur Jaswal (4/5)
-11- The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (4.5/5)
-12- The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish (3/5)
-13- Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman (4.5/5)
-14- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (4/5)
-15- Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton (4/5)
-16- The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (4/5)
-17- Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes (3/5)
-18- #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso (3/5)
-19- Still Lives by Maria Hummmel (3/5)
-20- Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin (4/5)
-21- The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (4/5)
-22- The Innocent Wife by Amy Lloyd (3.5/5)
-23- Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (4/5)
-24- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (5/5)
-25- Saying Stylish by Candice Cameron (3/5)
-26- The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom (2.5/5)
-27- Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon (4/5)
-28- This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel (4/5)
-29- Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (5/5)
-30- This is a Book by Demetri Martin (5/5)
-31- Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha (4/5)
-32- The Other Woman by Sandie Jones (3.5/5)
-33- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (4/5)
-34- The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman (5/5)
-35- Elenaor Ophliant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (5/5)
-36- They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky; The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak (5/5)
-37- Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod (4/5)
-38- One Day in December by Josie Silver (4/5)
-39- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (3.5/5)
-40- China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan (4/5)
This next year of 2019 I have a new list of novels (besides the ones from Hello Sunshine- Reese's bookclub). I plan to tackle Wikipedia's list of Children's Classics from the 20th Century. Some I will attempt to read aloud to Little Dragon and Honey Badger, others will be for my own gain. Here we go...
In 2018, I committed to read 20 novels. This would be a challenge, or at least that was my initial reaction.
I have always liked reading, especially when I get to choose the titles.
I remember when I was in Grade 11 and should have been studying for a Biology test. I just couldn't do it. If the left-brain vs. right-brain is really a thing (see I never did well in Science), I am 80% right-brained... or more. Meaning: I am emotionally driven and super creative. Basically, I will sing and dance all over your logic and then bake you some cookies as an apology.
Anyways, I was procrastinating hardcore and picked up a novel, any novel. This one happened to be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Big mistake. I think I read it all one night and needless to say I didn't fare too well on that biology test.
However, I was taken into a wonderful world of fiction. I loved Jane as a character so much. She was educated, independent and such a badass.
A gorgeous, young missionary dude proposes marriage to her near the beginning. ***Spoiler *** She says NO. She's all like, "Umm... I don't see myself going in that direction and have other ambitions" and that was in 1847 people! It's a wonderful love story about finding yourself, dealing with flaws, and discovering truths. All round, one of my favorite novels.
Fast forward a few years and I was consumed with university textbooks, reading about psychology and sociology theories. The novels I did get to read in my English classes weren't too thrilling and none that I can think of really left a big impression on me (Life of Pi and Anne of Green Gables were good). Between working part-time and going to school full-time, there wasn't much wiggle room to do much else, let alone read for hours books for pleasure. What a notion!
Then the babies came. Oh wait, no I am getting my own chronology mixed up... first moving to Edmonton, dabbling in stand-up comedy, dating and marrying, yaddy yaddy yadda. Mom brain-fog is a real thing.
Then the babies did come. And owning my first Smartphone. These two things basically ate up five years of my life, easy. Although I do faintly remember reading and being horrified and fascinated with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein while we were residing in Ottawa. So good!
So back to this past year and me saying, "Hey self, what's up? Cool, cool. Let's do some reading together and use that big wrinkly organ up there besides reading brightly coloured pages with rhyming verses? Good? Alright."
So I started finding some random books off of our Little Libraries that we have set up in town. I also fell victim to Reese Witherspoon's book club.
Side note: Reese felt that the movie industry (which is notoriously male-dominated) features women's roles as basically either a dumb bimbo or a heartless witch with a B type character. There wasn't a lot of layered, deep roles for women to play. So she has a production company and a book club that looks for books that are authored by women and have women protagonists and she buys the rights for and make movies of them! Brilliant, right? Anyways, this book club features female authors and female characters that are in mystery, romance, historic fiction and all that good stuff. I highly, highly recommend it.
https://hello-sunshine.com/book-club
I began reading and reading. Saying "NO" to Netflix and curling up in my bed for hours to get through the books. Not every book was a real page-turner but the vast majority left me happily satisfied (as you can see from the ratings below).
-1- The Boy Who was Raised a Dog; and other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz (4/5)
-2- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain(5/5)
-3- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (5/5)
-4- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (4/5)
-5- Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (4/5)
-6- The Light We Lost by Jill Santapolo (4.5/5)
-7- Happiness: The Crooked Little Road by Heather Harpham (4/5)
-8- You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld (3.5/5)
-9- The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (3/5)
-10- Erotic Stories of Punjab Women by Balli Kaur Jaswal (4/5)
-11- The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (4.5/5)
-12- The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish (3/5)
-13- Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman (4.5/5)
-14- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (4/5)
-15- Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton (4/5)
-16- The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (4/5)
-17- Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes (3/5)
-18- #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso (3/5)
-19- Still Lives by Maria Hummmel (3/5)
-20- Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin (4/5)
-21- The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (4/5)
-22- The Innocent Wife by Amy Lloyd (3.5/5)
-23- Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (4/5)
-24- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (5/5)
-25- Saying Stylish by Candice Cameron (3/5)
-26- The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom (2.5/5)
-27- Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon (4/5)
-28- This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel (4/5)
-29- Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (5/5)
-30- This is a Book by Demetri Martin (5/5)
-31- Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha (4/5)
-32- The Other Woman by Sandie Jones (3.5/5)
-33- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (4/5)
-34- The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman (5/5)
-35- Elenaor Ophliant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (5/5)
-36- They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky; The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak (5/5)
-37- Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod (4/5)
-38- One Day in December by Josie Silver (4/5)
-39- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (3.5/5)
-40- China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan (4/5)
This next year of 2019 I have a new list of novels (besides the ones from Hello Sunshine- Reese's bookclub). I plan to tackle Wikipedia's list of Children's Classics from the 20th Century. Some I will attempt to read aloud to Little Dragon and Honey Badger, others will be for my own gain. Here we go...
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