I read a lot. Growing up, I was the kid who snuck book lights to bed, read by the window at times and was often caught reading by the light of my little Christmas tree in the winter. I read through nap time, I read in church, I hated car rides because I got motion sickness and couldn’t read there, too. Over the summer, my summer reading entry forms looked like scrolls hanging in the town library, several forms taped together to accommodate hundreds of books.
Obviously, my reading as an adult doesn’t quite reach that magnitude, but last year I read a personal record as an adult: 30 books. I log them on Goodreads and have posted them on Instagram as I went. I’m thinking of starting a second Instagram account — a “bookstagram” — to keep me from piling them all together and annoying all my followers who are really there for my cat.
There are a few themes in the books I read. History, particularly women who hold power or accomplish great things, is always prominent in my reading. There was also a lot of science this year, though particularly how it ties to humanity.
Sometimes, the cats help me model the books…
Merlin, too.
Well, here are the books I read in 2018, in the order I read them, with the rating I gave them. If any of them interest you, the instagram posts are hashtagged #HannahsReads2018, and include short reviews. If you ask nicely, and don’t mind highlighting, etc., I might just lend them to you.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Collected Essays of James Baldwin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
South and West by Joan Didion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Memoirs of Catherine the Great ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Awayland by Ramona Ausubel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
100 Dresses by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins — Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and Minimum Wage by Kristin Downey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Girls by Emma Cline ⭐️⭐️⭐️
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
10 Days in the Madhouse by Nellie Bly ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hidden History of Portland Oregon by JS Chandler ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Circe by Madeline Miller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Vanishing Princess by Jenny Diski ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Siege of Lexington Missouri by Larry Wood ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Atlas of a Lost World by Craig Childs ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Great Plains by Ian Frazier ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Merry Spinster by Mallory Ortberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Third Horseman: A Story of Weather, War and The Famine History Forgot by William Rosen⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Rotary Book of Readings ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Onigamiising by Linda LeGarde Grover ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ve started my reading for 2019. I’ve set the bar a little lower, back to 25 books, knowing I have more obligations this year. The first book I’m reading is Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister. Based on the books I’ve read so far this year, I can see social sciences as an emerging theme, but we’ll see where the year takes me.
Oh, and if you know a book I absolutely have to read, go ahead and toss it in the comments!