I definitely didn’t read as many books in 2018 as I did in 2017, but it was a good reading year nevertheless. I read 32 books in total:
Middle-grade and YA: 6. Highlights: Re-reading The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, which I find as fun and quirky now as I did when I was a child. Finishing up Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks books with The Penderwicks at Last, with its warmth and sweetness. (I especially love how Birdsall writes about dogs. Aww.) Kat and Meg Conquer the World by Anna Priemaza, which was smart and fun and depicted a story of teen friendship with lots of heart.
Fiction for grown-ups: 17. Highlights: Winter and How to be both by Ali Smith, who is one of my favorite authors: I love how linguistically/stylistically playful her books are, and also how full of empathy. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, with its themes of history and memory and family and its compelling plot. Inferno by Eileen Myles, with its wry humor and descriptions of life as a queer writer in New York. Malacqua by Nicola Pugliese, with its descriptions of Naples and water and weather and a city/society that just doesn’t work properly.
Non-fiction (including autobiographical comics): 9. Highlights: Calypso by David Sedaris, which made me laugh a whole lot even though I’d read a lot of the pieces before. Going into Town by Roz Chast, because Chast captures the things she likes about New York City so well (and because I like a lot of the same things she does), and also because her art is always so fun to look at. The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, because it was interesting to learn more about artists whose stories I only knew slightly, and because I liked the way that Laing included bits of her own New York experience.
I don’t know what 2019 will hold for me, reading-wise, but I’m looking forward to reading more books from my own shelves (I know: I say that most years) and seeing where my reading moods take me.
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