I love the year-end lists of best movies, best songs, biggest news stories, and best books that come out at the end of the year. It's a pop culture lesson all in one place. (which I need after realizing how bad my knowledge of pop music was at a party yesterday with some Navy spouses who are mostly about 10 years younger than me. We played one of those headbands games where you have to guess your identity - and I didn't know half the people. Made me feel like an old lady.) Here at last is my own yearly summation of what I've read, too. Time to review the old 2018 list and start a new one for 2019!
My reading was about average in 2018 - 50 books total that I wrote down. I read some essays and journals and parts of books for my nature writing class that I didn't record because they weren't complete books, but would add to a total page count, if I were keeping track of that. The Norton Anthology of Nature Writing has been my near constant companion these last few months, and I bought a couple collections of critical essays that I haven't quite finished, but I'm almost done with them - they'll go on the list for 2019. I also didn't write down some of the short chapter books the little one and I read - I regret to say she discovered those rainbow fairy books and we've read a few of them, making the transition to books without a picture on every page, but I really need to be more intentional about what we are reading.
Here is my yearly review
8 books were rereads - but some of those I read long ago - The Hiding Place, A Wrinkle in Time, Walden. Some not that long ago: Till We Have Faces. Of the rereads, I enjoyed revisiting The Hiding Place and Wendell Berry books, but Walden also was inspiring to revisit - but more of an investment.
4 books were children's books - A Wrinkle in Time, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Happy Times in Noisy Village, Saints for the Small by Frank Morriss, which I wanted to buy from the library because it was a very entertaining presentation of saints' lives. We've read 100s of picture books - I should keep track of my favorites. My most recent favorite new picture book was Red Sky at Night - the text is weather proverbs that aren't really narrative, but the pictures, silhouettes against colorful watercolor landscapes, tell a story of a father figure (maybe a grandpa) taking two children on a boat trip to an island, where they play until they flee before a coming storm. I thought it was brilliant; the four year old was entertained. I'm not so fond of some of the other new picture books that are done in a style that seems more appropriate for adult design - process color, lifeless figures, too much going on on each page. The effect is hard to look at.
I count 5 books that could be called classics: Walden, The Great Divorce and Till We Have Faces (arguably), Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, Trollope's Sir Harry Hotspur. Maybe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? You might make the case that only Walden is really a classic on this list - so this category needs some additions next year.
Maybe only 8 books might count as spiritual reading - we read more novels for book club this year, so I'm not including those. My favorite of these was The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day - it provided much to contemplate and provoke. My mom gave me a gift subscription to Magnificat for my birthday, so I started reading that midyear also, as I mentioned last post. A real boon. I meant to read it to the kids in the mornings, but it stayed on the back of the toilet mostly.
13 books would fall into the category of "Nature Writing." Of these, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Cheryl Strayed's Wild - sometimes best sellers are disappointing. I always like reading Scott Russell Sanders, and his Staying Put did not disappoint. (Perhaps I am partial to him because he is also a Hoosier, although not by birth.) Terry Tempest Williams' book about National Parks and Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost also were delights to read. I added more books by both of these authors to my Amazon Wish List after reading some essays they wrote. These books were library finds, and I just checked out another one by Solnit. Williams has a Mormon background and I don't know that Solnit writes from any faith tradition, but they both convey a sense of the sacred in the ordinary. (Sidenote: I am also growing my Thriftbooks.com list - have been buying more from them this fall and moving away from Amazon. Sometimes better prices, and always less advertising. My son's friend also just recommended the Better World website,too.)
4 literary journals are included on this list and 2 books of poetry. My sister-in-law gave me the Paris Review last year, and this year she gave me The New Yorker. These are some of my favorite presents - and I am grateful to my mom - thank you, Mom! - for Magnificat. I need to give more gift subscriptions. Was happy to subscribe to First Things on the request of my oldest.
12 books were novels. I best of all loved, loved the Godden book. I always like her books better than I expect to, and Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy was no different. Well written, engaging plot, uplifting theme.
Worst: Ready Player One: I cannot get over how bad I thought this book was compared to how many people like it. Did I miss something? Were my expectations too high? Or do people really like nostalgia trips and are willing to read bad dialogue in exchange for reliving Family Ties reruns?
6 books were nonfiction/memoir/self-help books not counted in my list of books of a spiritual nature, although Teaching from Rest and One Beautiful Dream are definitely books with a Catholic perspective. I Don't Know How She Does It was less helpful than I hoped. The Gardener and The Carpenter was more interesting as a parenting book than I expected. I wish I had spent more time with Marilynne Robinson's book about her reading life.
That leaves novels and short stories - 14 in this category, which has some overlap. The Library at the End of the World was mildly entertaining but it didn't seem worth spending much time on. Bridge of Sighs I had to work to get into but ended up liking more and more as I read it.
Looking ahead: Reading more classics and "hard books" is now on my list after this review and inspiration from a first read of 2019 Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It looks at the effects of digital learning on the brain - a really good read, not just because it confirms my suspicion that kids don't learn to read deeply or retain as much information on digital texts as they do by reading print texts, but also because it provides both research and expert quotes arguing for the importance of contemplation and reflection - both encouraged and facilitated by deep reading. I wrote down a bunch of quotes to share eventually. Also TBR: I have A Sand County Almanac on my bedside table, David James Duncan on my wish list, Solnit's Wanderlust in the library bag, and I've started Rules of Civility, which I am really enjoying so far, but am waiting for something to happen. Is it just a portrait of a Russian gentleman living in reduced straights in the Metropol Hotel or will the plot thicken? We shall see.
Also in my stack: Rome guide books. Our trip is a month away and I have a lot of planning to do. Easy for a couple college kids to bustle around Italy; harder for a group of seven on a budget.
A summary of my reading trends this year is pretty similar to the last few years: nature literature for class, Catholic/Christian books for book club. Random finds from the library or little free library book boxes. This year I am starting a new book club that follows the list of the
Read Harder Book Challenge, so more to come!
