2018 in Books

Calibre 2018

This year I continued last year’s trends of reading cook books and stories I’d purchased as part of a Humble Bundle or Story Bundle. This led to some great surprises like Singularity Girl, which I really liked and Kissing Booth Girl which had a bunch of haunting short stories. Because it was the 200th anniversary, I started off the year reading Frankenstein for the first time ever. I read that together with the Sword and Laser book club. Much later in the year I also read Zer0es with the book club. This year I read my first Cuban SF novel with A Planet for Rent and that was a really neat read. But there were two big universes I tackled in 2018. I read nearly all of the novels in The Expanse and I read nearly all of the remaining books, short stories, and novellas in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. In fact, reading all of Mistborn Era 1 and 2 and the Stormlight Archive books 1-3 (all that’s out now) took up nearly all of my reading time. I’d set a goal of reading 45 books. I read 81, but would have read many, many more had it not been for the 1000+ pages of each of the Stormlight Archive books.

At the time I write this (a few days into 2019) I have 985ish (because I have some Calibre catalogs in there) ebooks and emagazines. Of those, 704 are unread.

Some Goodreads stats:

  • I read 23,910 pages across 81 books
  • Shortest book was Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania at 40 pages.
  • Longest book was Oathbringer at 1248 pages
  • Most popular was Frankenstein also read by 1 million others
  • Least popular was Cook’s illustrated 2018 Annual only read by one other person
  • My average rating was a 3.7

My favorite book in 2018 was The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

So, here are the books I read in 2018:

  1. Chew Vol 4
  2. Cook’s Illustrated 2017 Annual
  3. Chew: Smorgasboard Edition Vol 2
  4. Holiday Entertaining
  5. The Mad Tinker’s Daughter
  6. Frankenstein
  7. Superman: An unauthorized biography
  8. Chew: Smorgasboard Edition Vol 3
  9. The Final Empire
  10. Kissing Booth Girl
  11. The Emperor’s Soul
  12. Murder at the Vicarage
  13. Amberville
  14. Chester 5000 XYV
  15. Chester 5000: Isabele and George
  16. The Well of Ascension
  17. Bitch Planet Vol 1
  18. Bitch Planet Triple Feature
  19. Bitch Planet Vol 2
  20. Sex & Violence
  21. The Secret History of Star Wars
  22. Beyond Lies the Wub
  23. Caliban’s War
  24. The Best Mexican Recipes
  25. The Witch of Portobello
  26. The Plot to Hack America
  27. The Hero of Ages
  28. Mistborn Adventure Game
  29. Cook’s Country 2016 Annual
  30. Ready Player One
  31. Megaman 3
  32. Cook’s Country 2017 Annual
  33. The Way of Kings
  34. Neon Noir
  35. White Sand Vol 1
  36. You’re Not Fooling anyone when you take your laptop to a coffee shop
  37. An Election
  38. Ultimate History of Video Games
  39. Food Processor Perfection
  40. Planet BBQ
  41. Prepare to Meet thy Doom
  42. Abaddon’s Gate
  43. Damnation Alley
  44. Singularity Girl
  45. The Perfect Cookie
  46. Words of Radiance
  47. The Future is Japanese
  48. Cibola Burn
  49. Edge Dancer
  50. Sixth of the Dusk
  51. The Virtuous Feats of the Indomitable Miss Trafalgar and the Erudite Lady Boone
  52. The Churn
  53. Altered America
  54. Dungeon Hacks
  55. Nemesis Games
  56. Legion
  57. Muffins and Biscuits
  58. Storm Front
  59. Legion: Skin Deep
  60. The Vital Abyss
  61. Batman Vol 1
  62. Batman Vol 2
  63. Batman Vol 3
  64. The Marshall’s Lover
  65. Dinner Illustrated
  66. The World’s Most Dangerous Geek
  67. Babylon’s Ashes
  68. Katamari Damacy
  69. Milk Street Tuesday Nights
  70. Zer0es
  71. Oathbringer
  72. Nightflyers and Other Stories
  73. Legends of Texas BBQ
  74. The Alloy of Law
  75. Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania
  76. A Planet for Rent
  77. Adrift on a Sea of Rains
  78. Shadows of Self
  79. The Bands of Mourning
  80. Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell
  81. Cook’s Illustrated 2018 Annual