My 2018 Reading Year

This has been a really weird reading year for me with a lot of reading slumps and a lot of times my reading time got cut into by time sucks, like games on my phones, Instagram, and Litsy. I've done a terrible job of keeping up with my blog reader, staying in touch with my reading community, and responding to comments on the blog. I've missed so many blogging events. I'm not sure that I can give ways that I'll make any of that change in the coming year; listing those kinds of things just seems to add another layer of stress to life and I'd rather move toward reading just for fun instead of the other way.

On the other hand, I've done really well in my reading in a lot of ways. Despite those slumps, I still read/listened to 74 books, which is a big increase over last year. Renewing my library card really helped with the audio piece as I'm finally able to listen when I'm not in my car. Here's how the year shook out:

Total Books Read: 73
Nonfiction: 15
Short Story Collections: 2
Mythology/Fairy Tales: 2
Written by Women: 53
Written by Men: 19
Classics: 6
Diversity: 9
Audiobooks: 23

I'm disappointed in the number of mythology/fairy tale books I read this year, as well as the number of classics. I'd also like to read more diversely than I did this year.

The Best of 2018 (some books may appear on more than one list):

Fiction:
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Circe by Madeline Miller
Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Lying In Wait by Liz Nugent
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A Ladder To The Sky by John Boyne
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Nonfiction: 
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
A Short Guide To A Happy Life by Anna Quindlen
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End by Atul Gawande
Killers of The Flower Moon by David Grann
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Five Days At Memorial by Sheri Fink
Heirs of the Founders by H. W. Brand
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Audio:
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Heading Out To Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

What books were your favorites in 2018? Would you make any changes to the way you read this year?

Life: It Goes On - December 30

Whoa! I did not intend to go blog silent for more than a week! Guess that's what happens when you are both busy and incredibly relaxed. I hope you all had lovely week and enjoyed the holidays. I spent several days off work before the holidays finishing up shopping and getting things ready then it was off to celebrate with our families. Oddly, I didn't get one picture of any of it!

Do you have big plans for tomorrow night? We will enjoy dinner out with friends then we will likely all sit at one of our houses and keep ourselves entertained until we can toast the new year and then go to bed as has become our very beloved habit.

Last Week I:

Listened To: I had several books become available and listened to a couple of hours of each but then they'd have to be returned and I had to put them back on hold. Yesterday, My Year of Rest and Relaxation became available and, at only about 7 hours, I think I'll make it through an entire book before I lose it. Assuming I remember to listen while I'm lolling around the house

Watched: Football, volleyball, college basketball but also Love Actually (twice), Die Hard (twice, because, for some reason, it's a Christmas movie?), and bit of several other Christmas shows as they came on.

Read: I will finally finish Once Upon A River today and then I've got three days to read a book for a review on Wednesday. Reading another thing that's been tough this past week?

Made: Hawaiian ham sandwiches, peanut soup, taco soup, peppermint stick ice cream, coffee cake and the usual Christmas goodies.

Enjoyed: Time with family, lots of down time, and, especially, FaceTime'ing with Mini-me and Ms. S on Christmas Day.

This Week I’m: 

Planning: I usually wait until New Year's Day to take down Christmas, but I'm starting that today this year. I'm not necessarily tire of it (as I so often am); but since it has to come down eventually, it might as well come down sooner rather than later.

Thinking About: Ways to make it through the winter without going bonkers.

Feeling: Relaxed. I've made sure to work in a lot of down time through the holidays. I even told The Big Guy that I would not allow for more than two things to be scheduled into my four-day weekend!

Looking forward to: Is it too early to say "spring?"

Question of the week: How are you celebrating the New Year's arrival?

A Month of Faves On The Screen

Today's prompt asks us to talk about what we watched this year that we loved and if any of the movies we watched were based on books. That made me wonder if I'm the only person who watches movie previews in the theater and tells the people you're with which upcoming movies are based on books. Anyone? Just me? Ok, so some of these movies may overlap but I'm going to run a separate list of movies I watched that were based on books.

Movies I Loved:

1. Won't You Be My Neighbor - about Fred "Mr." Rogers. As soon as we got home, my husband bought a "Mr. Rogers For President" t-shirt, he loved this movie so much.
2. Phantom Thread starring Daniel Day Lewis - so, so slow and odd but also so beautiful and it has really stayed with me.
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society - a wonderful adaptation of the book by the same name. 
4. Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightly - utterly unique adaptation that is another movie that has stayed with me long after I watched it. 
5. Mission Impossible: Fallout starring Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill - not at all the kind of movie that I usually enjoy but Henry Cavill.
6. The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, and Zac Efron - I enjoyed this one the first time I saw it but I liked it even more the second time. 
7. First Man starring Ryan Gosling - Gosling is so good in this one!
8. Bohemian Rhapsody - sure it's emotionally manipulative but there's so much to love about it and, of course, there's the music. 
9. Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blount and Lin-Manuel Miranda - Blount is great as Mary Poppins, the story echoes the original, and there are some fun surprises.
10. Black Panther - great action, great message. 

Movies I Watched Based On Books:

1. The Zookeeper's Wife starring Jessica Chastain based on the book by the same name by Diane Ackerman - I haven't read the book but I really enjoyed this movie set during World War II; it has the tension Suite Francaise  lacked and I loved the story. 
2. Brain On Fire based on the book by the same name by Susanna Catalan - what a sadly disappointing adaptation of an incredible true story. 
3. Suite Française starring Michelle Williams based on the book by the same name by Irene Nemirovsky - too cleaned up, too little tension although beautifully filmed. 
4. Madame Bovary starring Mia Wasikowski based on the book by Gustave Flaubert - beautifully filmed, beautiful costumes but my gosh how I dislike this character which makes liking this movie impossible. 
5. The Phantom of the Opera starring Gerard Butler based on the book by Gaston Leroux - of course the music is fantastic, the sets amazing, and many of the performances wonderful but this one always falls just a big short for me. 
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society based on the book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
7. Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley based on the book by Leo Tolstoy
8. Mudbound based on the book by Hillary Jordan 
9. Mary Poppins Returns based on the books by P. L. Travers

What movies did you love this year? How many of them were based on books?

A Month of Faves: This Is How We Holiday

Today's prompt is to: rep your home’s holiday look, share pictures of your holiday decorations. Christmas tree, your favorite holiday traditions, holiday festivities, favorite ornaments, places to go, holiday drinks, holiday eats, holiday themed reads. I've already overshared my holiday decor and trees but I'm going to make you look at it again.

Now, about those holiday eats:

• The Sweets: years ago I decided I not only didn't have time to make every last Christmas goodie I used to make and that we didn't need all of that stuff around the house. So I told my family they each got to pick one thing. One picked bavarian mints, one picked puppy chow, one picked dipped pretzel sticks, and one picked Christmas cookies. Then I figured out how to make each of those a treat that everyone could help make. It's gotten tough to find a way to get everyone together to help with these things but the kids still insist we make it work. 

• The Soups: on my side of the family, we have a big dinner in the middle of the day on Christmas Eve. This meal changes from year to year. But supper? That is always soups - chili, oyster stew, and taco soup. Why, you may ask? Because it's easy, can be made ahead, and works around going to church services. At this point, I'm certain the grandkids believe that this is a normal Christmas tradition for all families. 

• The Breakfasts: here's another tradition that started in no small part because it's easy. At my parents house, there is always my sister's coffee cake, Danish kringle, and their neighbor also sends over German stollen. There is, after all, a real need to carbo load because these couple of days are very akin to a marathon. When my immediate family is at home on Christmas day, our breakfast is always a green chili egg casserole and cinnamon rolls. This year I don't think we'll be at home on Christmas morning. We might have to have breakfast for dinner!

What are your family holiday food traditions?

All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy
Published November 2018 by Atria Books
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
In my childhood, I was known as the boy whose mother had run off with an Englishman. The man was in fact German, but in small‑town India in those days, all white foreigners were largely thought of as British.

So begins the story of Myshkin and his mother, Gayatri, a rebellious, alluring artist who abandons parenthood and marriage to follow her primal desire for freedom.

Though freedom may be stirring in the air of India, across the world the Nazis have risen to power in Germany. At this point of crisis, a German artist from Gayatri’s past seeks her out. His arrival ignites passions she has long been forced to suppress.

What follows is her life as pieced together by her son, a journey that takes him through India and Dutch‑held Bali. Excavating the roots of the world in which he was abandoned, he comes to understand his long‑lost mother, and the connections between strife at home and a war‑torn universe overtaken by patriotism.

My Thoughts:
You all know I've been struggling to make myself pick up a book and actually read the words. This poor book was the victim of that malaise. Which is a shame because this is just the kind of book I normally eat up voraciously. Story set in India? Check. Family story? Check. History? Check. Beautiful writing? Check. If I wasn't reading this from Netgalley, I might well have set it aside and saved it for a time when I was ready to curl up in a corner of the couch and settle into Myshkin's story.

It really is a lovely, moving story. With a father who is more wrapped in the politics of India than in his son and a mother who abandons them for another life, it's no wonder that Myshkin has grown into a sad, isolated man whose only real connections to the world are the plants he be charged with caring for all of the city and his stepsister. As the book opens, Myshkin has been sent a package from a friend of his mother's. Initially unable to open the package, Myshkin reflects back on his memories of his mother and her life. When he finally is able to open it, her life after she left comes pouring out. Even as my heart broke for her son, I couldn't help but wish for Gayatri to find what she was looking for after having been trapped for years in a life that wasn't meant for a curious, bright young woman.

As much as I loved the poetry of Roy's poetic writing and her story, I was just as impressed with her writings on politics and the arts.

"...she would see that the power and tyranny and cruelties of those civilizations did not survive, the rulers fell and their courtiers lay in parallel lines of narrow marble caskets next to their king, their cats and wives too, but the beauty that had been created remained. The filigree in the windows, the calligraphy on stone, the perfection of the dome she was struggling to draw. The creators of those things, the masons, sculptors, painters, who had no role to play in the great games of power, whose minds were thought inferior, whose opinions were of no consequence, whose wealth counted for nothing: their work remained after all else had vanished. When the world was in turmoil and devastation appeared inevitable, art was not an indulgence but a refuge, its fragments remained after a cycle had run its course from creation through to destruction and begun again. Power crumbles, people die, but beauty defeats time."

If this book sounds like it's as right for you as it is for me, do yourself a favor and make sure you read it when you are ready to fall into Roy's world.