What I read in 2018

I love reading and talking about books! It brings me so much joy to share this love with my friends and students. Last year I shared “What I read in 2017” to highlight my favorite books of the year.

2018 Reading Data

It’s crazy to say I achieved my 2018 reading goal of 100 books. Of these books, 42 were audiobooks and 58 were books (24 physical & 34 ebooks). I always try to read more than I listen. I read a total of 19388 pages, and listened to approximately 191.35 hours of books (rounded to nearest 15 minute, and divided by 2 since I listen on 2x speed). If I had been paying a little more attention to page data, I would have pushed myself to hit 20k pages.

One of my favorite parts is that I keep fairly extensive reading data. I used to use Goodreads, but found that I like entering and analyzing my own data. Make a copy of my book spreadsheet. Each year, I add a new tab and track the same data. It’s fun to see my trends and graphs as the year progresses. And yes, Harry Potter has its own category–do the math, 100 total books and 7% Harry Potter–yes, I did a full series re-read in November and December!!

There are a couple books that I technically read more than once this year, but only counted once. For example, 3 of my classes and I did a read-aloud with We Are All Made of Molecules (Susin Nielsen), but I only counted it once. And, all the edits and such of Fueled by Coffee and Love: The Refill probably equate to reading it at least 5x all the way through.

As you can see from my graph, I read a ton of YA. I truly enjoy this genre, and I appreciate the complexities of the stories as well as the self-discovery. Plus, there are so many talented authors out there writing for my students, and I want to pass along these recommendations.

Some of my favorite books from 2018 are: 

• Love, Hate, & Other Filters (Samira Ahmed)
• Rebel Seoul (Axie Oh)
• Dear Martin (Nic Stone)
• Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda (Becky Albertalli)
• Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
• At the Edge of the Universe (Shaun David Hutchinson)
• The Porcupine of Truth (Bill Konigsberg)
• I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Erika Sánchez)
• Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi)
• The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo)
• Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit (Jaye Robin Brown)
• March, Book One (Andrew Aydin and John Lewis)

Even though I don’t blog about every book I read and I’m super far behind on blogging, I do enjoy sharing about some of my book highlights on my “What is Mari Reading” blog. It’s all just for fun, and a great distraction from chores and such.

This year I don’t have any big reading goals, other than to finish at least 52 books and read more than I listen. I’m also intentionally reading more diverse books, specifically LGBTQ+ YA novels and novels written by authors of color. I didn’t track this data in 2018, though skimming my list it’s over 50% of the books I finished.

As always, I’d love your book recommendations!