2018: The Year In Books

Another year has come to an end and it is time to take a look back at the 22 books I read over the past year, 6 less than last year.  Of those 22, 7 were non-fiction and, of the 15 novels, only 1 was a TV show tie-in.  Only one of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, and 12 were e-books.  I read over 7,000 pages, my lowest total since at least 2013.

Once again, a majority of the books I read this year were by authors I’ve never read before. The 15 authors that I read for the first this year were:
Mamrie Hart
Dan Harris
Ginger Zee
Krysten Ritter
Karin Slaughter
Michelle West
Paul Ruditis
Michelle McNamara
David Ross
Don Yaeger
Araminta Hall
Amber Tamblyn
Laura Lippman
Lauren Graham
Drew Magary

There was not a single author that I read multiple titles from during 2018.

6 of the books I read were released this year, while 1 of them was released last century, exactly 60 years ago

Finally, the breakdown by month.  My vacation in September certainly helped pad its totals a tad bit.

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Book 8 (of 52) – How I Survived My Summer Vacation Vol. 1

How I Survived My Summer Vacation – Michelle West, Nancy Holder, Cameron Dokey, Yvonne Navarro, Paul Ruditis

This collection of 6 short stories, billed as Volume 1 though the only one released, takes place between seasons 1 & 2 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  Buffy has gone to Los Angeles to spend the summer with her estranged father while Willow, Xander, Giles, Angel, and Jenny Calendar hold down the fort in Sunnydale.

It was nice to return to the old Scooby gang once again, but I think this would have worked better as a singular effort rather than as a collection from multiple writers.  As is, it was a bit of a disjointed experience, with character personalities, especially Giles, shifting from story to story.  But, as the last Buffy book left in my drawer of things to read, finishing it was a bittersweet experience.  Maybe one day I’ll go searching for the novels I haven’t already read.