In each of the last three years, my goal has been to read 50 books. This blog post summarises aspects of my 2018 reading year. I also tweeted short reviews using the hashtag #read2018.
- In 2016, I read 53 books.
Blogposts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Goodreads: 2016 Reading Challenge. - In 2017, I read 62 books.
Blogpost: #read2017: My year in books.
Goodreads: 2017 Reading Challenge. - In 2018, I read 93 books.
Blogpost: (you are reading it!).
Goodreads: 2018 Reading Challenge.
An assortment of statistics
Out of the 93 books:
- 37 books with Australian authors
- 60 books by women
- 39 fiction books
- 14(?) non-fiction books about political/current events
- 8 ‘Little Books on Big Ideas‘
- 4 books about teaching or maths (or teaching maths)
- 4 authors, multiple books (Terry Pratchett: 2, Veronica Roth: 4, Jessica Townsend: 2, Laura Ingalls Wilder: 3)
- 2 cookbooks
- 6 re-reads
- 3 books aloud (‘Roar’ (Samantha Lane), ‘Minefields’ (Hugh Riminton), ‘Dark Emu’ (Bruce Pascoe), and two substantially underway.)
Books I couldn’t put down (in chronological order)
It’s not a ‘Best Of’ list, but twelve books that I couldn’t put down. (There are probably more in this category on the long list.)
- Nevermoor (and also Wundersmith), Jessica Townsend
- The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
- The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
- Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
- Anna and the Swallow Man, Gabriel Savit
- Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
- Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
- Teacher, Gabbie Stroud
- Any Ordinary Day, Leigh Sales
- Chemistry, Weike Wang
- Becoming, Michelle Obama
- The Life to Come, Michelle de Kretser
Books I couldn’t stop thinking about (in chronological order)
I could not stop thinking about these books for the impact they made on me. Most of these also belong on the previous list.
- Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie
- Lampedusa, Pietro Bartolo, Lidia Tilotta, Chenxin Jiang
- The Trauma Cleaner, Sarah Krasnostein
- The 57 Bus, Dashka Slater
- Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Anita Heiss (Editor)
- Between Us, Clare Atkins
- One Hundred Years of Dirt, Rick Morton
- Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe
- On Patriotism, Paul Daley
- No Friend but the Mountain, Behrouz Boochani
- Terra Nullius, Claire Coleman
- Staying, Jessie Cole
A book with a real ‘wow’ moment
- Terra Nullius, Claire Coleman
More and more ‘tells’ were revealed, until ‘BAM!’.
The books (in reverse chronological order)
The short reviews are archived at this link: #read2018.
Wonder in Mathematics 