2018 Year in Books: 162
This year I focused on less social media, and a stricter media diet in general. I initially set out to read 100, altered my goal to 155, and ended up hitting 162. It’s been nothing short of epic, although next year I plan to focus on longer books, more classics, and re-reading books.
A line from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin in the Game (one of my favorites from 2018) really struck a chord with me:
“… learning is rooted in repetition and convexity, meaning that the reading of a single text twice is more profitable than reading two different things once, provided of course that said text has some depth of content.”
Although I didn’t hit 200, or even intend to, this article sparked my reading initiative at the beginning of the year: To read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading. 162 books was just about perfect for me, although I could have probably squeezed in a couple more, I think there is the real potential of becoming a little too frenetic.
Overall, it was a great literary year, and I’m happy with 25% of my books being five-star reads, and 40% four-star reads. Only 3% were one-star reads.
This was only my second year doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge, but it has completely transformed my reading habits, that and an awesome online book club. I still can’t believe that last year I only read 50 books, but this is definitely the most books I’ve read in a year since a childhood, if that even counts.
Here are a few of my stats, scroll below the photos for a complete list with star rankings.
85 nonfiction / 72 fiction / 5 poetry — 162* books total (*Approximately half are audiobooks)
64 books by female authors / 96 by male authors
Multiple Books by the Same Author
Four Books: Martha Wells, Stephen King, Seth Godin
Three Books: Kevin Kwan, Deborah Harkness
Two Books: Yuval Noah Harari, Ryan Holiday, Erik Larson, Roxane Gay, Gary Vaynerchuk, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeline Miller, Lars Kepler, Riley Sager, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nayyirah Waheed, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Oldest / Newest Publish Date:
Candide by Voltaire (January, 1759) / Becoming by Michelle Obama (November, 2018)
One Star Reviews: 5 books (all fiction)
Five Star Reviews: 42 books (24 nonfiction, 16 fiction, 2 poetry)
Monthly Book Count:
January: 11, February: 14, March: 15, April: 12, May: 14, June: 12, July: 16, August: 16, September: 14, October: 15, November: 9, December: 14
My Top 8 of 2018:
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Circe by Madeline Miller
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
Strangest read: The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Most painful: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Nonfiction:
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing— 5
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking — 5
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari — 5
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — 5
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson — 5
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain — 5
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown — 5
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder — 5
Do The Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way by Steven Pressfield — 5
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond — 5
Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts by Ryan Holiday — 5
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi — 5
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — 5
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz — 5
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson — 5
Calypso by David Sedaris — 5
Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer by Lisa McCubbin — 5
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson — 5
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf — 5
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon — 5
The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story by Ann Rule — 5
Becoming by Michelle Obama — 5
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren— 5
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker — 4
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin — 4
The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future by Steve Case — 4
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker — 4
The Cheese Trap: How Breaking a Surprising Addiction Will Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Get Healthy by Neal D. Barnard — 4
Yes Please by Amy Poehler — 4
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel — 4
Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk — 4
I’ll Be Gone In the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara— 4
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann — 4
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell — 4
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou — 4
Poke the Box by Seth Godin — 4
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger — 4
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell — 4
But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman — 4
Mastery by Robert Greene — 4
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari — 4
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach — 4
How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents by Jimmy O. Yang — 4
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson — 4
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams — 4
Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday — 4
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides — 4
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson — 4
Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment by Robert Wright — 4
The Library Book by Susan Orlean — 4
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay — 4
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — 4
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini — 4
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli — 4
Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston — 4
The Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer — 4
The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk — 4
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron — 4
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff — 4
The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by Seth Godin & The Group of 33 — 4
Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Andrew McAfee — 3
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — 3
Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker — 3
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore — 3
South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion — 3
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks — 3
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg — 3
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert — 3
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert — 3
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio García Martínez — 3
Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Ariana Huffington — 3
Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life by John McCain — 3
The Wisdom of Titans: Secrets of Success from Entrepreneurs Who Rose to the Top by William J. Ferguson — 3
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston — 3
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin — 3
Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync? by Seth Godin — 3
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann — 3
I’d Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers by Guinevere de la Mare — 3
Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine K. Albright— 3
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay — 3
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote — 2
The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership by Sam Walker — 2
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by James C. Collins — 2
Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis — 2
The Road to Character by David Brooks — 2
(85)
Fiction:
The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins — 5
Circe by Madeline Miller — 5
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai — 5
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller — 5
Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney — 5
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood — 5
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie — 5
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan — 5
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson — 5
The Sandman by Lars Kepler — 5
Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells — 5
Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells — 5
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell — 5
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness — 5
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness — 5
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness — 5
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar — 4
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng — 4
The Power by Naomi Alderman — 4
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter — 4
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty — 4
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut — 4
All Systems Red by Martha Wells — 4
The Woman in The Window A.J. Finn — 4
Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — 4
It by Stephen King — 4
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern — 4
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan — 4
China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan — 4
The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler — 4
The Vegetarian by Han Kang — 4
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde — 4
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides — 4
The Quiet American by Graham Greene — 4
Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira — 4
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey — 4
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid — 4
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt — 4
Candide by Voltaire — 4
Something In The Water by Catherine Steadman — 4
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles — 4
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy — 4
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin — 4
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — 4
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman — 4
I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller by Terry Hayes — 3
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka — 3
Into The Water by Paula Hawkins — 3
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda — 3
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor — 3
The Dry by Jane Harper — 3
Artemis by Andy Weir — 3
The Outsider by Stephen King — 3
Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson — 3
Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman — 3
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë — 3
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx— 3
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells — 3
Final Girls by Riley Sager — 3
The Hunger by Alma Katsu — 3
The Girl Before by J. P. Delaney — 3
Annabel by Kathleen Winter — 2
The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager — 2
The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware — 2
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov — 2
Elevation by Stephen King — 2
The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse by Alan Bradley — 2
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson — 1
Drunken Fireworks by Stephen King — 1
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner — 1
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler — 1
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell — 1
(72)
Poetry:
The Sunday Sessions by Philip Larkin — 5
Salt by Nayyirah Waheed — 5
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith — 4
Nejma by Nayyirah Waheed — 4
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur — 3
(5)