Laura’s Top 10 Books of 2018

I’m always a little behind on my top ten books from the past year.  I’ve got links to reviews of my favorite books of 2018 below in my list.  I had a hard time narrowing down my list so I have quite a few books in my runner’s up list as well.  Let’s discuss what you think of my list in the comments below.  What were your favorite books of 2018?  Were any the same as mine?

These are the ten books I loved the most that I read in the year 2018.  It doesn’t mean they were necessarily published in 2018.  I also didn’t count books that I was reading again for the second time (The Long Winter for example by Laura Ingalls Wilder).  These were the books I read and then couldn’t stop thinking about long after I’d read the final page.  They are in no particular order, but are my top ten favorite books.  They are a mix of non-fiction, historical fiction, mystery, romance, literary fiction and classics.

1. And Then There were None by Agatha Christie - This was pretty much the perfect mystery novel.
2. My Grandmother Asked Meto Tell you She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman - An exceptional and interesting story with magical elements woven throughout about a gifted girl learning how to deal with grief and bullying.
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon  - A great coming of age story and a mystery seen through the eyes of the autistic narrator.  I just thought it was a mystery and was blindsided by the deep emotional turn the book took. 
4. Every Note Played and Still Alice by Lisa Genova - Both of these novels were 2018 Kewaunee Library Book Club picks, and both were excellent looks at how neurological diseases affect someone and their family.  They were both great books to discuss.
5. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - Awesome in both print and audiobook, this classic novel is a wild ride into the hypocrisy and lunacy of war.  I can't wait for George Clooney's new series based on this book.
6. The Giver by Lois Lowry - I will admit, I'm still creeped out by the end of this book.  A good look into the horror we can create when we try to make the perfect world.
7. Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenadore - This historical fiction novel blew me away with a heart rending story involving the boarding schools that were used to assimulate Native American Children and tear them away from their culture.
8. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood - Another great book for book club, The Handmaid's Tale provided a lot of discussion.  Could you see this dystopian future happening?
9. The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin - There is a reason why we call off school when we know the weather will be cold, and it's The Children's Blizzard.  It's a horrifying true story of the blizzard of 1888.
10. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - A hilarious love story told by an autistic professor. It was a unique novel that made me laugh out loud a lot while reading it.

Runner’s Up:  The Endless Beach and Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan, Movie Nights withthe Reagans by Mark Weinberg, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, The Storied Life of A.J.Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield, and The GreatAlone by Kristin Hannah

Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You by Dolly Parton

Title: Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer

Author: Dolly Parton
Read by: Dolly Parton
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: Approximately 1.5 hours (2 CDs)
Source: Penguin Audio Review Copy

Dream More is a positive little book with a great message. Dolly Parton is world famous for her singing, song writing, and movie career, and also for her image and body. As she states in the book, people sometimes focus on the outer aspects of Dolly Parton, and ignore her other positive inner aspects. For example, she is a very successful business woman and part owner of Dollywood. She has also started a very successful Literacy Program to help bring reading to all children. I was impressed by how she has spent her life trying to help the people in her home community and people in general. She sounds like a genuinely lovely human being that deserves to be judged for her accomplishments rather than her appearance.

Dream More is actually an extension of a commencement speech that Parton gave at the University of Tennessee. She added to the speech and came up with this great book. She basically gave great words of advice such as how to dream big dreams and work to accomplish and would follow up the advice with a story about how that advice helped her on the path to stardom. She also sang a few songs including “Coat of Many Colors,” which is a truly wonderful and inspirational song.

Dolly Parton read this book herself and gave it her own special charm. I loved listening to it on my way to and from work and would definitely listen to more audio from her. It also has inspired me to put some of her CDs on my wish list.

I recommend this audiobook and think it would be a great gift for the dreamers in your friends and family or maybe for you!

One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathon Tropper

Title: One Last Thing Before I Go

Author: Jonathon Tropper
Read by: John Shea
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: Approximately 8.5 hours (7 CDs)
Source: Penguin Audio Review Copy

I will admit, when I first started listening to this audiobook, I was ready to turn it off. Drew Silver leads a very sad and depressing life. He was a drummer with a one-hit wonder band. His fleeting fame cost him his wife and daughter, and he now lives in an apartment building, the Versailles, full of sad divorced men like himself. They are a very sad lot also with depressing stories of lost families and lost self-worth. A lonely life filled with no love and a distance from all of his family members is the hallmark of Drew’s life. He is so down and out now that he and his friend Jack sell their sperm to a study at a local hospital. It was exactly during this description of the process of selling one’s sperm, that I was ready to eject the CD and move on to another book. I didn’t, and I am glad I did not.

Silver discovers that he has a heart condition and he will only live with a life-saving surgery, performed by his ex-wife’s fiancé, a man that he can’t quite bring himself to hate. Silver decides to opt out of the surgery and to spend his days remaining trying to repair his broken relationships and find meaning in life again. His main focus is his daughter, Casey, but he also spends time with his father and ex-wife, Denise. The book gets comical at times, but also remains serious. It overall asks the question, what makes your life worth living?

I will just say that by the end, I loved Drew Silver and his entire crazy family. The ending was unexpected and brought tears to my eyes. I found myself constantly thinking about this book long after its conclusion. I previously read The Book of Joe by Tropper and enjoyed it, but I enjoyed this book even more. It is a masterpiece.

John Shea was a great narrator of this audiobook and gave a real voice to all of the characters.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Title: This is How You Lose Her

Author: Junot Diaz
Read by: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: Approximately 5 hours (5 CDs)
Source: Penguin Audio Review Copy

This is How you Lose Her is the first book I’ve read (or listened to) by Junot Diaz, but it will not be my last. This is How you Lose her was a brilliant series of short stories, mostly involving Yunior and his ill-fated love life.

If I would have read this book before I was married, I might have given up in despair. Most of the reason Yunior loses his loves is because he is a very unfaithful man and his girlfriends invariably find out. What brings this beyond a sad tale of a sad man that can’t keep it in his pants is the background story of Yunior. It was interesting how he came to America as a youngster and lived in the shadow of his older brother. As he older brother wasted away from cancer, Yunior tried to find meaning in life and love. By the end, Yunior has come a long way from his youth as an immigrant, but he still has not found the true meaning of love. One quote I loved from the book is “the half-life of love is forever.”

Overall, I enjoyed the story of Yunior. While he was not always a character I could relate to or even like, he had a compelling story full of vivid details of life as a Dominican immigrant. I was fascinated. Author Junot Diaz read the story himself and I now identify his voice completely as Yunior.

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Title: Shadow of Night

Author: Deborah Harkness

Read by: Jennifer Ikeda

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Length: Approximately 24.5 hours (20 CDs)

Source: Penguin Audio Review Copy

Shadow of Night is the second riveting novel in the wonderful Discovery of Witches trilogy. Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont continue their search for Ashmole 782 while also escaping from their prosecutors by “time walking” with Diana’s power to Elizabethan London. Once there, Diana meets a new coven and works on improving her use of her powers. Matthew has replaced his past self, which is always a tricky time travel problem when you are an ancient vampire and travel to an era that you once existed during. I’m not sure how I feel about this use of time travel. I think it might have been more interesting to have the past Matthew still there and to try to keep the past and future Matthews apart.

During Elizabethan times, Matthew was a part of the School of Night which included the thinkers of the day such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman and Thomas Harriot. Matthew is excited to see his old friends, especially his best friend Christopher Marlowe. Diana enjoys getting to know them all too, except for Marlowe who despises her for the love that Matthew shares with her and not him. They have many adventures trying to find Ashmole 782 and to navigate the dangerous politics at the time to stay alive. Diana tries to learn how to use her power, while falling deeper in love with Matthew.

I loved this book. I loved the romance between the two leads and I especially loved the historical detail of Elizabethan England. The one thing missing was the characters from the 20th century that I had grown to love in A Discovery of Witches. I can only hope they return in Book three. I also was annoyed by Marlowe. I think if I were Matthew, I would have disowned him as a friend long before he did. Anyone else annoyed?

Shadow of Night was a beautifully written and engaging novel and I can’t wait until Book 3. Jennifer Ikeda is the same narrator as in A Discovery of Witches and once again she did a fantastic job of bringing a unique voice to each character. This made the audiobook a joy to listen too. I highly recommend this novel.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Title: A Discovery of Witches

Author: Deborah Harkness
Read by: Jennifer Ikeda
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: Approximately 24 hours (20 CDs)
Source: Kewaunee Public Library

I have wanted to read A Discovery of Witches since I first saw it light up the blogosphere last year. Billed as an “adult version” of Twilight, I was instantly intrigued. I received the second book, Shadow of Night to review from Penguin Books, so I knew it was finally time to read (or listen to in this case) the first book.

Diana is an avid historian of alchemy and also a witch. After her parents were tragically killed when she was a child, Diana has decided to live her life as “normal” as possible to blend in with the humans. In this world, there are four types of “creatures” – Vampires, Witches, Demons, and Humans. I think it is very interesting that Demons are people that are usually frenzied and more artistically persuaded.

While at the library in Oxford, Diana comes upon a magical manuscript, Ashmole 782, and her life is forever changed. Feeling that the manuscript is magical, she quickly sends it back. It is too late however, as no one has accessed that particular manuscript in over 150 years. All creatures have sensed that she has the ability to do it and they start to watch her. One such creature is Matthew Clairmont, a handsome vampire.

Matthew is threatening to Diana at first as witches and vampires do not in general get along. Soon Diana realizes that Matthew is trying to protect her from a variety of creatures that wish to do her harm. As they grow closer, a forbidden love springs up. Will Diana and Matthew find Ashmole 782? Will they stay save from the variety of creatures that are against a mixed creature relationship? You will have to read it to find out.

I LOVED this book. It took me a bit of listening to get into it, but afterwards I was hooked and looked forward to my drive to and from work. The romance was chaste, but intense. Diana was a strong woman coming into her own and I liked it. I enjoyed the mystery and the use of history in the book. Although this wasn’t historical fiction by definition (although book 2 is), it had many references to historical events that a history buff like myself could enjoy. Diana and Matthew have a wonderful chemistry. I have to say although this book deals with very different subject matter, it reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. They both are weighty books with fascinating detail, a strong heroine, and sparks between the two main characters that you can almost see.

Overall, if you are looking for an “adult Twilight,” skip the terrible Fifty Shades of Grey and come right to this very adult book that really has nothing to do with Twilight except for staring a very sexy vampire and his love for a woman not of his species.

I listened to the audiobook version and my way to and from work and loved it. Jennifer Ikeda is a word class narrator. She has excellent voices for all of the characters and really brings them to life. I really enjoyed all of the secondary characters and she was a large part of the reason why!

It’s the Middle Class Stupid! By James Carville and Stan Greenberg

Title: It’s the Middle Class Stupid!

Author: James Carville and Stan Greenberg
Read by: James Carville and Stan Greenberg
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Length: Approximately 7 hours (6 CDs)
Source: Review Copy from Penguin Audio – Thank-you!

I like politics, but I was a little scared to listen to this audiobook. I wasn’t sure who James Carville and Stan Greenberg actually were to begin with and I was afraid the book would be a screaming partisan rant. Instead I found a very thoughtful debate about the current status of the middle class and what can be done to improve its lot. As I am firmly in the middle class, I was very intrigued with this premise and found myself frequently agreeing with Carville and Greenberg.

While both Carville and Greenberg were advisors to Bill Clinton and are on the liberal side of the tracks, they both found fault with both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s platforms. I was only annoyed a few times by a few “facts” that weren’t quite right. One quip about the state of politics in Wisconsin was wrong in which they stated that firefighters and policemen had their union rights and pensions cut. In fact, they were not cut, which is part of the debate. Only the teachers and other public workers unions were busted in Wisconsin (Democratic) while the Republican leaning Firemen and Police Unions were left intact. That is why the law was actually just struck down by a judge because it was so partisan based.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the way Carville added Southern sass to the audiobook while Greenberg had the more level headed reading. It was very interesting learning their backgrounds and entry into politics and I enjoyed their views on the middle class and how both parties need to bring the focus back on the middle class. This is a great book to listen to during a heated campaign season.