What I Read in 2018

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Looking over my reading from this past year I realized that the only way to describe it was as the year of the audiobook.  We got an Audible subscription this year and I officially listened to more books than I read.  I think that means that I got more books in than I otherwise would have since I'm generally listening to books while I'm doing other things like cooking or driving or unpacking moving boxes.  

So many moving boxes.

It probably ate into my actual reading time a bit though.  Especially any time I spent unnecessarily sitting in my car listening to a bit more of my book instead of coming inside and facing real life :)

I read an embarrassing amount of Agatha Christie mysteries which I clearly love, but my favorite actual books were the Lucy Maud Montgomery biography, Wendell Berry's latest and one Agatha Christie, Absent in the Spring, which was not a mystery at all but one of her character studies written under her pen name:

Lucy Maud Montgomery:  The Gift of Wings, by Mary Rubio
This was a very long but very readable biography of L.M. Montgomery.  If you are interested in her life and writings then you would probably enjoy it.  Her life wasn't at all what I imagined it to be--it was filled with a lot of pain and disappointment--and this book doesn't spare you from all the bad bits.  I enjoyed it more than The Woman Who Was Chesterton, by Nancy Brown, a biography of G.K. Chesterton's wife, which was interesting for all of the things I learned about Frances Chesterton and the Chestertons as a couple, but not as well written.  Rubio's book read more as a story while Brown's felt, at times, like a stilted list of facts she had gathered.  To me anyway.

The Art of Loading Brush, by Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is like a beacon of common sense and reason in our troubled political times.  This book is filled with great essays and short stories on the state of our culture and a vision of what we've lost and what we could have again with a bit of work.  Okay, a lot of work.  If you want to better understand agrarianism, or just have some good old fashioned advice on a life well lived this book is for you.  Really Wendell Berry should be required reading for everyone.

Absent in the Spring, by Mary Westmacott
I read this while I was in the hospital after Timothy's birth and it has really stuck with me.  It's one of the six non-mystery books that  Agatha Christie wrote under the pen name Mary Westacott.  The main character is an older woman who sees herself as the epitome of upright womanhood and, luckily or unluckily, ends up stranded in a train station in the middle of the desert with nothing to occupy her time but her own thoughts. This eventually leads her to examine her life and she, as well as the reader, gradually see her for who she really is as her frivolous and self-occupied personality is exposed.   It would ruin the story to tell you what she does with that information, but I'm still pondering the ending all these months later.  If you were going to read one novel from this list I would recommend this one.   

   

When it comes to audio books, I tended to listed to really long ones because when you are using Audible credits they need to be WORTH IT.  Which explains why I listened to The Complete Sherlock Holmes.  I also managed to listed to The P.G. Wodehouse Collection--twice.  I do love Wodehouse, but he's more of a diversion for when you want to be amused and not think heavy thoughts.  Like when you are unpacking your library (again) and wondering if everyone is right and maybe moving all those boxes of books every one to three years really is crazy.**

My favorite audio book though was Gone with the Wind which was also very long, but it was the first thing I listened to last year and I still think about it.  I've seen the movie but never read the book and as I approached the final chapters I was really hoping that the movie had taken liberties with the ending.  Spoiler alert--it didn't.  It was the idea of Scarlet's that she would be able to be good later, become more like her mother when she was older, but couldn't see that the choices she was making were turning her into who she was and would be right then really stuck with me.  It reminded me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity about how every choice we make is bringing us either closer or further away from God.  As you read (or you know, listen) you can't help but wish she could see herself for who she really is and start making better life choices.  Sometimes I just wished I could shake her.  If you've ever wanted to read Gone with the Wind but thought it was too long to try, you should definitely give the audio book a go.  I followed up by listening to Uncle Tom's Cabin which should probably always be paired with Gone with the Wind to balance any romantic ideas of life in the South that the later might stir up.  I realized that, although I could have told you the plot and historical importance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, I had never actually read it myself.  It was good timing for both books  since I'm working through the Civil War with David this year.

These lists seem like a lot and also not nearly as much as I used to be able to get through when the kids were younger and there were less of them.  Probably because so much of my time is taken up by homeschooling now, which also requires a lot of me reading books out loud, just not ones I get to choose for myself.  I did include the ones I read as pre-reading for David this year in my list though.  I was hoping to finish all of his books last summer but that proved to be an unrealistic goal :)

Now I'm back to just keeping up with all of the ones I didn't get to during my pre-reading time on Fridays and staying a week ahead of him.  I'd like to say that I'll get through all his sixth grade books in advance next summer, but we'll be moving again so....probably not.


Well, here's the full list of all my 2018 reading and listening, for all of you who have persevered this far. Make sure to tell me what your favorite book from last year was.  I obviously still have space on my nightstand for a few more before the piles topple over!


Actual Books:

1. The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology, by P.G. Wodehouse
2. Death in the Air, by Agatha Christie
3. The Pale Horse, by Agatha Christie
4. Hickory Dickory Death, by Agatha Christie
5. The Clocks, by Agatha Christie
6. There is a Tide, by Agatha Christie
7. Sleeping Murder, by Agatha Christie
8. The Woman Who Was Chesterton, by Nancy Brown
9. Miss Marple:  The Complete Short Stories, by Agatha Christie
10. Murder with Mirrors, by Agatha Christie
11. Lucy Maud Montgomery:  The Gift of Wings, by Mary Rubio
12. The Art of Loading Brush, by Wendell Berry
13. The Secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie
14. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
15. At Home in Mitford, by Jan Karon
16. For the Family's Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macauley
17. Third Girl, by Agatha Christie
18. Elephants Can Remember, by Agatha Christie
19. Absent in the Spring, by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
20. Mitten Strings for God, by Katrina Kenison
21. Village School, by Miss Read
22. Seductive Poison:  A Jonestown Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple, by Deborah Layton
23. Araham Lincoln's World, by Genevieve Foster
24. Of Courage Undaunted, by James Daugherty
25. Village Christmas, by Miss Read

Audio Books:

1. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
2. Jane of Lantern HIll, by L.M. Montgomery
3. The P.G. Wodehouse Collection, by P.G. Wodehouse
4. The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley
5. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
6. Uncle Tom's Cabin,by  Harriet Beecher Stowe
7. Anne of Green Gables,by  L.M. Montgomery*
8. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by Andrew Peterson
9. North!  Or Be Eaten!, by Andrew Peterson
10. The Monster in the Hollows, by Andrew Peterson
11. The Warden and the Wolf King, by Andrew Peterson
12. The Floating Admiral, by The Detective Club
13. The Adventures of Sally, by P.G. Wodehouse
14. Something Fresh, by P.G. Wodehouse
15. The P.G. Wodehouse Collection, by P.G. Wodehouse*
16. Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
17. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis*
18. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien*
19. Halloween Party, by Agatha Christie
20. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
21. Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie
22. 4:50 from Paddington, by Agatha Christie
23. Crooked House, by Agatha Christie
24. Endless Night, by Agatha Christie
25. Emma, by Jane Austen*
26. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
27. Desperate:  Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe, by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson
28. Murder for Christmas:  Tales of Seasonal Malice, by various
29. The Christmas Hirelings, by Mary Elizabeth Bradden
30. Educated:  A Memoir, Tara Westover
31. Murder in an English Village, Jessica Ellicott

*re-reads, or re-listens as the case may be

**Don't worry.  I decided it is clearly not crazy.  I am not a crazy book lady.  Pay no attention to the picture of the current state of my nightstand.