This year I focused on less social media, and a stricter media diet in general. I initially set out to read 100, altered my goal to 155, and ended up hitting 162. It’s been nothing short of epic, although next year I plan to focus on longer books, more classics, and re-reading books.

A line from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin in the Game (one of my favorites from 2018) really struck a chord with me:

“… learning is rooted in repetition and convexity, meaning that the reading of a single text twice is more profitable than reading two different things once, provided of course that said text has some depth of content.”

Although I didn’t hit 200, or even intend to, this article sparked my reading initiative at the beginning of the year: To read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading. 162 books was just about perfect for me, although I could have probably squeezed in a couple more, I think there is the real potential of becoming a little too frenetic.

Overall, it was a great literary year, and I’m happy with 25% of my books being five-star reads, and 40% four-star reads. Only 3% were one-star reads.

This was only my second year doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge, but it has completely transformed my reading habits, that and an awesome online book club. I still can’t believe that last year I only read 50 books, but this is definitely the most books I’ve read in a year since a childhood, if that even counts.

Here are a few of my stats, scroll below the photos for a complete list with star rankings.

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85 nonfiction / 72 fiction / 5 poetry — 162* books total (*Approximately half are audiobooks)

64 books by female authors / 96 by male authors

Multiple Books by the Same Author

Four Books: Martha Wells, Stephen King, Seth Godin

Three Books: Kevin Kwan, Deborah Harkness

Two Books: Yuval Noah Harari, Ryan Holiday, Erik Larson, Roxane Gay, Gary Vaynerchuk, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeline Miller, Lars Kepler, Riley Sager, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nayyirah Waheed, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Oldest / Newest Publish Date:

Candide by Voltaire (January, 1759) / Becoming by Michelle Obama (November, 2018)

One Star Reviews: 5 books (all fiction)

Five Star Reviews: 42 books (24 nonfiction, 16 fiction, 2 poetry)

Monthly Book Count:

January: 11, February: 14, March: 15, April: 12, May: 14, June: 12, July: 16, August: 16, September: 14, October: 15, November: 9, December: 14

My Top 8 of 2018:

1. Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
2. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing
3. A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking
4. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
5. The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
6. Circe by Madeline Miller
7. All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
8. Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

Strangest read: The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Most painful: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Nonfiction:

• Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing— 5
• A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking — 5
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari — 5
• Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — 5
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson — 5
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain — 5
• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown — 5
• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder — 5
• Do The Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way by Steven Pressfield — 5
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond — 5
• Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts by Ryan Holiday — 5
• Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi — 5
• Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — 5
• Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz — 5
• Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson — 5
• Calypso by David Sedaris — 5
• Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer by Lisa McCubbin — 5
• In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson — 5
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf — 5
• Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon — 5
• The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story by Ann Rule — 5
• Becoming by Michelle Obama — 5
• Lab Girl by Hope Jahren— 5
• Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker — 4
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin — 4
• The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future by Steve Case — 4
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker — 4
• The Cheese Trap: How Breaking a Surprising Addiction Will Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Get Healthy by Neal D. Barnard — 4
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler — 4
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel — 4
• Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk — 4
• I’ll Be Gone In the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara— 4
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann — 4
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell — 4
• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou — 4
• Poke the Box by Seth Godin — 4
• Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger — 4
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell — 4
• But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman — 4
• Mastery by Robert Greene — 4
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari — 4
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach — 4
• How to American: An Immigrant’s Guide to Disappointing Your Parents by Jimmy O. Yang — 4
• Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson — 4
• How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams — 4
• Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday — 4
• In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides — 4
• Thunderstruck by Erik Larson — 4
• Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment by Robert Wright — 4
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean — 4
• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay — 4
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — 4
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini — 4
• The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli — 4
• Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston — 4
• The Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer — 4
• The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk — 4
• Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron — 4
• Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff — 4
• The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by Seth Godin & The Group of 33 — 4
• Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Andrew McAfee — 3
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — 3
• Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker — 3
• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore — 3
• South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion — 3
• Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks — 3
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg — 3
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert — 3
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert — 3
• Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio García Martínez — 3
• Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Ariana Huffington — 3
• Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life by John McCain — 3
• The Wisdom of Titans: Secrets of Success from Entrepreneurs Who Rose to the Top by William J. Ferguson — 3
• Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston — 3
• Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin — 3
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync? by Seth Godin — 3
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann — 3
• I’d Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers by Guinevere de la Mare — 3
• Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine K. Albright— 3
• Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay — 3
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote — 2
• The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership by Sam Walker — 2
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’tby James C. Collins — 2
• Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis — 2
• The Road to Character by David Brooks — 2

(85)

Fiction:

• The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins — 5
• Circe by Madeline Miller — 5
• All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai — 5
• Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller — 5
• Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney — 5
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood — 5
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie — 5
• Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan — 5
• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson — 5
• The Sandman by Lars Kepler — 5
• Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells — 5
• Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells — 5
• The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell — 5
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness — 5
• Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness — 5
• The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness — 5
• The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar — 4
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng — 4
• The Power by Naomi Alderman — 4
• The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter — 4
• Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty — 4
• Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut — 4
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells — 4
• The Woman in The Window A.J. Finn — 4
• Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — 4
• It by Stephen King — 4
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern — 4
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan — 4
• China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan — 4
• The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler — 4
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang — 4
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde — 4
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides — 4
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene — 4
• Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira — 4
• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey — 4
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid — 4
• HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt — 4
• Candide by Voltaire — 4
• Something In The Water by Catherine Steadman — 4
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles — 4
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy — 4
• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin — 4
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — 4
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman — 4
• I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller by Terry Hayes — 3
• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka — 3
• Into The Water by Paula Hawkins — 3
• All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda — 3
• The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor — 3
• The Dry by Jane Harper — 3
• Artemis by Andy Weir — 3
• The Outsiderby Stephen King — 3
• Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson — 3
• Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman — 3
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë — 3
• The Shipping News by Annie Proulx— 3
• Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells — 3
• Final Girls by Riley Sager — 3
• The Hunger by Alma Katsu — 3
• The Girl Before by J. P. Delaney — 3
• Annabel by Kathleen Winter — 2
• The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager — 2
• The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware — 2
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov — 2
• Elevation by Stephen King — 2
• The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse by Alan Bradley — 2
• New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson — 1
• Drunken Fireworks by Stephen King — 1
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner — 1
• Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler — 1
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell — 1

(72)

Poetry:

• The Sunday Sessions by Philip Larkin — 5
• Salt by Nayyirah Waheed — 5
• Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith — 4
• Nejma by Nayyirah Waheed — 4
• Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur — 3

(5)

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My Favorite Nonfiction of 2018

My 12 Favorite Audiobooks: 2018

My Favorite Fiction Books: 2018 Edition

162 Books in a Year: Results

2018 Year in Books: 162

Top Apps to Amp Up Your Reading

And one more for good measure:

In the time you spend on social media each year, you could read 200 books