You might already know that my primary reading genre is fantasy so it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of my TBR revolving around stories featuring magic and other supernatural elements. In fact, out of the 52 books I wanted to read in 2018, over 3/4 of them were fantasy related, most of the remainder being literary fiction and memoirs.
So, what made up the rest of my list?
This year I have made a very small effort to read some nonfiction books (that are not required reading for my university course). Memoirs seemed like a good place to start – so I picked up Bryan Cranston’s A Life in Parts and was blown away by what I found. Cranson himself reads the audiobook version and I recommend that anyone interested in the actor’s life and career (only a small percentage is dedicated to Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad). I then tried to listen to Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody and gave up after 30 minutes – her reading felt too forced for me, and I got the feeling that she didn’t have too much to talk about. Not enough, at least, to draw me away from other books I was more interested in.
Other nonfiction books I have read include Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity (a wonderful book about the relationship different cultures have with the dead), and Tim Hale’s Smarter Investing (a somewhat light-hearted but content-packed introduction to investing and money management). I will very probably write a review for Doughty’s book soon but in the meantime, I encourage everyone to give it a go.
2018 also sees me trying to read more of the children’s books I missed growing up. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia thus far has proven to be a bit out of my comfort zone with their sometimes overtly religious imagery, but I think it important to not shy away from ideas which contradict your own, least of all in fiction. Shan’s Cirque du Freak has been more successful so far – I really enjoyed the author’s Demonata series growing up and now I can listen to the audiobooks for his vampire series to see if they are as good (spoiler: they aren’t).
My main aim this year was to read more female authors. Why? It just makes sense to me, really. half the population (give or take) are female, so it makes sense to look out for perspective and experiences that female authors put into their books that their male counterparts may not. Of course, there is more to reading diversely than just splitting authors into two genders, and in the future, I hope to read more widely – authors from minority backgrounds will take precedent in 2019. Until 2018, my reading has always been predominantly male (not intentionally so, I might add), but I really want to get it to an even 50/50 as quickly as possible. Although I am not there yet, I hope that by the end of the year I will have reached gender equilibrium on my read list. I will talk more about how I plan on doing this in an upcoming Book Chat.
Thanks for reading, let me know what is on your TBR for 2018 below 🙂
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