What I Read: 2018

Last year my goal was 40 books and I read exactly 40 books. This year, I pushed the goal to 50, was on a pretty good roll, and then got cancer which in and of itself didn’t slow down my reading, but chemotherapy made my brain mush.

I still read 35 books though, so I made my annual list for you.

The ones in BOLD are the ones I recommend the most. The ones wit (YA) are young adult lit, (MG) are middle grade books, (P) are novels that are written in verse/poetry, (N) are nonfiction, and (C) are children’s books (aimed at an audience younger than middle school).

1. To Be Where You Are by Jan Karon
2. Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties by Dav Pilkey (C)
3. The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi (C)
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (YA)
5. Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word by Linda Christensen (N)
6. Six Degree: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas (N)
7. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
8. Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents: Reading, Writing and Making a Difference by Richard Beach and Alan Webb
9. I’m With the Bears: Short Stories From a Damaged Planet by Mark Martin
10. Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction by Manjana Milkoreit
11. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Gosh (N)
12. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (YA)
13. Flush by Carl Hiassen (MG)
14. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (YA)
15. I’m Just Happy to Be Here: A Memoir of Renegade Mothering by Janelle Hanchett (N)
16. My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman
17. 100 Days to Brave: Devotions for Unlocking Your Most Courageous Self by Annie F Downs (N)
18. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (YA)
19. Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart (YA)
20. Fat Angie by e.e. Charlton-Trujillo (YA)
21. 180 Days: Two Teachers and The Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle (N)
22. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
23. Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King (YA)
24. The Path to Serendipity: Discover the Gifts Along Life’s Journey by Allyson Apsey (N)
25. Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (N)
26. Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy by James Williams (N)
27. Mockingbird by Kathryn Erksine (MG)
28. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez (YA)
29. Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology by Kentaro Toyama (N)
30. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle (N)
31. Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital World by Maryanne Wolf (N)
32. Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson (N) (P)
33. Dog Man: Lord of the Flies by Dav Pilkey (C)
34. Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey (C)
35. The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed (YA) (currently reading, but will finish before the New Year)

I’m not really sure what to make my reading goal this year. I know I will read a lot for my PhD classes, but that may not be actual books. It’s hard to know. I think I will split the difference between the past two years’ goals and go with 45.

I have quite a pile over here To Be Read. See?

Follow me over at GoodReads to see what I actually read in 2019!

And tell me…what should I add to my To Read pile? What did you read in 2018 that you loved?