Books of 2018

 Books of 2018

1. Invictus by Ryan Graudin
2. Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke
3. When I was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds
4. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
5. Lincoln in the Bardo by George
6. Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli
7. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
8. City of Thieves by David Benioff
9. Stop! by Alison Bailey
10. Present Perfect by Alison Bailey
11. The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn
12. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
13. Come to the Edge by Christina Haag
14. 1222 by Anne Holt
15. Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson
16. Armada by Ernest Cline
17. You are Here: An Owner's Manual for Dangerous Minds by Jenny Lawson
18. The Map to Everywhere by Carrie Ryan (YA)
19. Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love and Writing by Jennifer Weiner (memoir)
20. Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything by Anne Bogel
21. I'd Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers by Guinevere de la Mare
22. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
23. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
24. In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham
25. The All of It by Jeannette Haien
26. Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger (YA)
27. A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes 1) by Brittany Cavallaro (YA)
28. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
29. Exhile (Keeper of the Lost Cities 2) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
30. The Man in the High Castle by Phillip Dick
31. Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities 3) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
32. The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes 2) by Brittany Cavallaro (YA)
33. Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities 4) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
34. Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler (YA)
35. Lodestar (Keeper of the Lost Cities 5) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
36. Nightfall (Keeper of the Lost Cities 6) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
37. This is Me: Loving the Person You are Today by Chrissy Metz (Memoir)
38. Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki (YA)
39. So Close to Being the Sh*t, Ya'll Don't Even Know by Retta (memoir)
40. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
41. Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist (YA)
42. Good Harbor by Anita Diamant
43. The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky by Summer Heacock
44. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
45. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
46. The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
47. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
48. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (YA)
49. Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick (YA)
50. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume
51. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
52. Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
53. The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
54. The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll
55. The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson
56. An Extraordinary Union (The Loyal League 1) by Alyssa Cole
57. A Hope Divided (The Loyal League 2) by Alyssa Cole
58. The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish (Memoir)
59. The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding (YA)
60. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (YA)
61. We Should All be Feminists by Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie
62. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
63. The High Season by Judy Blundell
64. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
65. I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy by Erin Carlson
66. Meant to be Broken by Brandy Woods Snow
67. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
68. The Power by Naomi Alderman
69. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
70. The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spading
71. Roomies by Christina Lauren
72. The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr (YA)
73. Nine Women, One Dress by Jane Rosen
74. But What if We're Wrong? Thinking About the Past As if it Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman
75. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (YA)
76. Summerland by Michael Chabon (YA)
77. The Blue Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee by Carolyn Brown
78. Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon
79. Circe by Madeline Miller (YA)
80. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
81. Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis (Memoir)
82. This Will Only Hurt A Little by Busy Phillips (Memoir)
83. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
84. Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian
85. Lethal White (Cormoran Strike 4) by Robert Galbraith
86. The Winters by Lisa Gabriele
87. The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak (YA)
88. This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel
89. Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
90. Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCory
91. The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
92. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
93. The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
94. G'morning, Night! Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda
95. Dumplin' by Julie Murphy (YA)
96. Flashback (Keeper of the Lost Cities 7) by Shannon Messenger (YA)
97. We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby (Memoir)
98. The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel
99. The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes 3) by Brittany Cavallaro (YA)
100. Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel
101. Puddin' by Julie Murphy (YA)
102. From Time to Time by Jack Finney
103. Becoming by Michelle Obama (Memoir)
104. The Other Woman by Sandie Jones
105. Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (YA)
106. One Day in December by Josie Silver
107. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandela
108. Side Affects May Vary by Julie Murphy (YA)
109. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

According to GoodReads, that’s 36,532 pages across the 109 books.

Below are some listings of my favorite books from the year. If you’re a reader and want recommendations on what books I’m enjoying, sign up for my book newsletter at www.tinyletter.com/booknerd and once a month you’ll get an email from me with a few sentences on each of the books I read the previous month.

Best Fiction Books
The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
This is How it Always is by Laurie Frankel
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Best Memoirs
So Close to Being the Sh*t Ya'll Don't Even Know by Retta
Becoming by Michelle Obama

Best YA Books
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
Puddin' by Julie Murphy

Best Romance/Rom Com Books
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillroy
One Day in December by Josie Silver

Sallie

My grandma died last Wednesday. I knew this was coming and yet I still feel so sad to have lost her.  Great sobs escaped me as my parents told me the news and discussed their plans for the next week or so.

I was struck by how selfish it was to be sad.  She had been ready to die for three years at least, since she had a stroke that stole her good health from her. Maybe more, since my grandpa died 10 years ago, and she often wondered why she was left behind without him.

At her 90th birthday party

I was able to visit her two weeks ago, during some of the last good days she had.  During the 48 hours I spent with her she told me over and over how beautiful I was, and how happy she was that I had come to visit. It was, honestly, a little awkward for a girl who doesn't know how to accept compliments, but her joy at my presence made me immensely glad to have made the journey. I will treasure that weekend for a long time.

They posted her obituary today. While it's probably more fulsome than the average obit, it doesn't paint a picture of the grandma I want to remember. My grandma made me feel special. I'm one of four children and one of 12 grandchildren, but my grandma saw me.

As a kid, I stayed with her on my own for several weeks each summer.  Together we would walk to the library a couple of times of week, because we both liked to read. My cousins came over, and she would treat us with a walk to the Homewood Grill, a magical place that served soft serve ice cream and hot dogs -- my two favorite foods.

Just weeks after her stroke. She
told me "Don't ever turn 96. It's
all downhill after 96"

When I became an adult, she was an avid reader of this blog and a fan of my Facebook page.  She couldn't figure out how to leave a comment on the blog, but she would tell my mom how proud she was of me for the work I put into losing weight, and she would call me and tell me the same occasionally.  But she never made me feel bad for being overweight in the first place. Even after I regained the weight, I kept trying to lose it because I knew how happy it would make her.  She joined Facebook when she was 92 and commented "like" on all of my posts for the next four years until she had her stroke and had to move into a nursing home.

Touring her garden

I only ever knew her as an old lady, and I wish I had spent more time getting to know her impressions of life as a young woman.  On my last visit, I was desperate to find out how she fell in love with my grandpa. She could recall the circumstances with vivid detail (he was a boarder at the home of one her sorority sisters in college), but she couldn't articulate the feelings (or maybe I wasn't articulating the point of my questions well enough).

The year I was born, my parents moved our family from our homeland of Illinois to the South.  The rest of my life has been spent making annual or bi-annual visits home where we stayed with Grandma.  She was an amazing hostess who had a magic plate (later Tupperware) that was always full of cookies.  No matter how many cookies we ate in a day, the next morning the plate would be full again.  It's a phenomena I've only ever experienced at Grandma's.

With her only daughter, my mama

She was an avid golfer and lamented, that last weekend I spent with her, that she had never gotten a hole in one.  She helped my grandpa run the family business, Johnson and Sons Funeral Home.  She was an active member of more than the average amount of civic and church and social groups.  Everybody liked Sallie, and if you tried to call her on a weekday during her 70s, 80s or early 90s, you wouldn't catch her because the was out socializing.

I know only the bare bones of her life, where she lived, what her parents were like, what she did for fun as a kid, when she married and when she had babies. I'm lucky enough to have several things of hers in my own home, that make me think of her fondly. Every June when my day lilies bloom, I will think of her garden, where these same blooms originated (day lilies are very hardy and easy to transplant, I've learned from her).

I am lucky to have known her. I am glad she is no longer in pain. I just wish it didn't hurt so much for her to be gone.