What I read in 2018

When I brought out The Book of Book Lists last year, I made a New Year's resolution that for the first time I would make a note of all the books I read in 2018 (for pleasure, a list which included those I read/consulted for work purposes would make it a much longer and quite different list). Here they are below, in the order in which I read them, with some occasional notes of clarification. My favourites are marked with an asterisk.

War and Peace (started 2017) by Leo Tolstoy

Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time (started 2017) by Hilary Spurling

Jacob’s Room is Full of Books (started 2017) by Susan Hill

Bone Ovation (poetry) by by Caroline Hardaker

Moonraker by Ian Fleming

A Good Face for Radio by Eddie Mair

Bedouin of the London Evening (poetry) by Rosemary Tonks

Why read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

* Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

List of the Lost by Morrissey

Watling Street by John Higgs

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

Anton (cartoons) by Antonia Yeoman

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas

DK Guide to Rome

A Library Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey

In Search of Lost Books by Giorgio van Straten

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

Desperate Characters by Paula Fox

Stoner by John Williams

* The Mabinogi retold by Matthew Francis

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Snail that Climbed The Eiffel Tower and Other Work by John Minton by Martin Salisbury

The Death of Arthur (poetry) trans by Simon Armitage

Women and Power by Mary Beard

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome

No More School by William Mayne

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

Eleanor Oliphaunt is Completely Fine by by Gail Honeyman

Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell

Rare Books Uncovered by Rebecca Rego Barry

Following On by Emma John

Mr Weston’s Good Wine by T. F. Powys

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

The Shaggy Dog Story by Eric Partridge

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

Flashman (re-read) by George MacDonald Fraser

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

* Bright Day by JB Priestley

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Battlefield by William Mayne

Wilding by Isabella Tree

My Purple-Scented Novel by Ian McEwan

The Town That Went South by Clive King

* The Overstory by Richard Powers

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans and illus: Michael Smith)

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Walking Away by Simon Armitage

Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth by Catherine McIlwaine

The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Tombland by CJ Sansom

Carousel (poetry and photographs) by Rebecca Goss and Chris Routledge

The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

A Christmas Carol (annual re-read) by Charles Dickens

The Box of Delights (annual re-read) by John Masefield

I didn't keep a list of short stories which I will for next year, but this year they included Bobby Brewster’s First Fun by HE Todd and Crisp New Bills for Mr Teagle by Frank Sullivan.