The Best Books of 2018

I completed 62 books this year (just above my minimum aim) with 2 rejects. That’s not exactly good but I’ve been struggling with low reading speeds for a while now – at around 50% of normal too often – so maybe still achieving 62 isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I’ll still be aiming for my usual 70 next year. I guess we’ll see! As usual with my end of year review I’ll split the Fiction and Non-Fiction with the BOLD titles being the best of the best.

Fiction:

Deadly Beloved by Max Allan Collins
Secret Harmonies by Paul J McAuley
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Non-Fiction:

The Empire of Necessity – The Untold History of a Slave Rebellion in the Age of Liberty by Greg Grandin
Narvik by Donald Macintyre
Merchant, Soldier, Sage – A New History of Power by David Priestland
Rebels Against the Future – The Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age by Kirkpatrick Sale
The Battle of Matapan by S W C Pack
Why it’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere - The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason
The War in the West – Germany Ascendant 1939-1941 by James Holland
Governing the World – The History of an Idea by Mark Mazower
With Wings Like Eagles – The Untold History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda
The Myth of the Strong Leader – Political Leadership in the Modern Age by Archie Brown
The Road Not Taken – How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revolution 1381-1926 by Frank McLynn
Amiens 1918 by Gregory Blaxland
Revolutionary Russia – 1891-1991 by Orlando Figes
Lords of Finance – 1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
The War in the West – The Allies Fight Back 1941-1943 by James Holland
A Brief History of The English Civil Wars – Roundheads, Cavaliers and the Execution of the King by John Miller
With Our Backs to the Wall – Victory and Defeat in 1918 by David Stevenson

So, a little thin on fiction but a gratifying number of Classics in there – both actually read and enjoyed. Some of them surprised me a great deal by being much better than I’d suspected. The non-fiction is, rather inevitably, history heavy and also heavily tilted towards both World Wars which, I suppose, is my largest comfort zone. It does have a ‘lazy’ feel to it but that doesn’t take anything away from the quality of the reading. There’s also a number of political history books which I’m happy with as well as more evidence for my growing interest, indeed fascination, with all things Economic. What I do notice though is an almost total absence of female authors. I’ll look to address that in 2019.

Along with looking at the gender bias in my reading I’m going to see if I can drag myself away from military history and away from concentrating too much on the 20th Century. Again it’s the era I tend to habitually gravitate to but there’s many more centuries of human history that I can at least explore if not devour. One thing I feel the need to add to my reading schedule is much more analysis – essentially trying to understand how we arrived at this present mess and where it’s going next. I think that’s an important focus in the year(s) ahead.  I’m also going to be looking at my planned future reading. Presently the stack of 12 (presently 13) books on my couch means that I’m pretty confident of my next (approximately) 3 months’ worth of reading. Although I do like this element of focus – controlling my butterfly mind – it does at times feel just a bit too controlled for my essentially rebellious nature so I’m going to introduce a weird random element soon. What I intend to do is this: When I finish a book in future I’ll roll a dice. If it comes up a six I will pick a ‘free book’ from anywhere in my collection. I’ll roll a second dice to determine if it will be fiction (odd) or non-fiction (even). This will add enough ‘random noise’ into my reading habits to keep things nice and interesting. [Yes, I know it’s weird and convoluted but if it wasn’t it would be me. Here’s to 2019!] 

Oh, and I almost forgot The Best Title of the Year (by far): How to Stage a Military Coup – From Planning to Execution by David Hebditch and Ken Connor. Honourable mentions go to: Gut – The Inside Story of our Body’s Most Under-Rated Organ By Giulia Enders and Rebels Against the Future – The Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age by Kirkpatrick Sale.