Books of the Year 2018
This year I wasn’t really sure how much reading I would get through. My first child was born in March and I guessed that my free time would fairly drastically decrease as a result. However, although my free time has definitely reduced, I’ve managed to maintain a similar level of reading this year compared with 2017 (36 books read so far this year vs 36 total in 2017). I think there are two main reasons for me keeping up with my pace of reading from last year.
First, I’m now mainly reading via a Kindle and I carry it with me every day. The beauty of this is that on the bus home in the evening I generally get about 25–30 mins reading time. I then try and also get another 30 mins or so of reading in last thing at night.
Secondly (and more importantly), I’ve started putting down books that I’m not enjoying. I don’t really have a rule about when to do this but, in general, if I’m not engaged by around the 20% mark I now put the book down. I used to persevere with books to the bitter end out of some sort of misplaced pride but I’ve decided life’s too short. Some books I put down I’ll plan to come back to. Others just aren’t for me (sorry, Milkman).
Together, these small chunks of reading time the Kindle allows me and the much larger blocks of time I regain by cutting my losses on some books have helped me continue to discover and digest interesting ideas throughout the year.
So with that said, here are my top 5 books of 2018:
5. Factfulness — I’m generally of the view that things are trending better. This book has loads of good examples about this (read: confirmation bias). One idea in particular that I’ve taken away from it which helps put negative news in context: “If there had been an equally large positive improvement, would I have heard about that?”
4. The Courage to be Disliked — Not exactly a page-turner but there are enough interesting ideas in this book to sustain the slightly slow format. The one idea I keep coming back to since reading it: “All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.”
3. AI Superpowers — One of the most interesting talks of the year I attended was given by Kai-Fu Lee, whose book is definitely worth checking out. I wrote a few more words about why here.
2. Normal People — I read five books from the Man Booker longlist this year. Not one of them was chosen for the shortlist. Of the five I read, Normal People left the greatest impression on me. Although it didn’t make the Booker shortlist, it has since won Waterstones Book of the Year.
1. This is Going to Hurt — Top of UK bestseller lists for months and easy to see why. I had at least five moments while reading this brilliant book where I laughed out loud at things that definitely shouldn’t be laughed at. Love that. Also, as someone who had real experience of the NHS for the first time this year, it was interesting to get a window into how the system “works”.