2018 was going to be a big year in books for me from the start. At the end of 2017, I realized I had averaged more than 70 books in each of the last two years, so I set myself what I saw as an ambitious goal: 108 books. It started out as a specific list of books, with the acknowledgement that I would add the occassional Advance Reader Copy (ARC) and would probably end the year at 120 or so – still nearly double my recent average. I distinctly remember even 53 books being very difficult in 2008, but my life had also been much different at the time, as a new person in my day job profession, new husband, and driving 100 miles one way to work for over half of that year. 2018 was going to be much easier – I was working a fairly easy job in a settled position in my career, married to the same lady from 2008, and working just 15 minutes from home.
I started the year with a couple of 19th century philosophical works, Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thorau and On Liberty by John Stuart Mills. Those would be the oldest books I read this year, and the only books published before the current Millenium. Over the course of the year, I would find many amazing books, a few duds, march through my mountain of a TBR (while adding even more, peril of a bookaholic), joined several more book and author groups, started a book blog, and overall surprise myself in a couple of ways:
1) I surpassed my original goal of 108 books in *October*. I closed the year at 156.
2) I didn’t realize it until counting yesterday, but of those 156 books, 46 of them turned out to be ARCs!
But let’s take a brief look at some “best of 2018”, shall we? I believe we’ll break it down by month before finally picking from those selections for the annual award.
Continue reading “2018: My Year In Books”