Recent Reads: The 2018 edition

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. Far too long. But as it turns out 2018 was the first year that I’ve recorded ALL the books I’ve been reading, (I even created some sort of poor man book bullet journal). So this post is going to be easier for me than if I was relying on my quite frankly terrible memory!

I thought I’d round up the things I read, and then do a little recap about my favourites. 

I managed to get through 42 1/2  books in 2018, which, given my lay about status might not sound like many, but when chemo brain makes reading hard (honestly, not being able to remember what happened on the page you left off on is so frustrating) and you’ve watched as many random Netflix shows as I have, I think it’s a pretty decent number! In fact, I have to say I am pretty proud of it. 

Some of these books were hardback – I love a hardback – some were paperbacks, some were 99p kindle first reads, some were just normal kindle purchases. Some were whim purchases based solely on the cover art. Some were recommendations and loaned books. Some were absolute flops. Some have stuck with me for months and months and become books I implore people to read. Some were read during chemo insomnia, some were devoured in the garden in the sun, others in bed on days I couldn’t get up, some read on my phone whilst on dog walks because I just couldn’t put them down……

So, onto what I read in 2018; 

1. This must be the place – Maggie O’Farrell – ****
2. A year of Marvellous Ways – Sarah Winman – ****
3. Everything I never told you – Celeste Ng – ****
4. Calling Major Tom -David M Barnett – ***
5. One of us is lying -Karen McManus – ***
6. The Party – Robyn Harding – **
7. Little fires everywhere – Celeste Ng – *****
8. In the dark, In the woods – Eliza Wass – ***
9. The Copenhagen Affair – Amulya Malladi – ****
10. The Vanishing of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell – ****
11. The versions of us – Laura Barnett – ***
12. Trespassing – Brandi Rees – **
13. The places I stopped on the way home – Meg Fee – ****
14. Eleanor Oliphant – Gail Honeyman – ***
15. To all the boys I’ve loved before – Jenny Han – ****
16. Eat Up – Ruby Tandoh – *****
17. Zennor in Darkness – Helen Dunmore – ****
18. The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao -Martha Batalla – *****
19. Us – David Nicholls – **
20. Come a little bit closer – Rachel Abbott – ***
21. All over the place – Geraldine DeRuiter – **
22. Tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris – *****
23. All the light we cannot see – Anthony Doerr – *****
24. Without a hitch – Bettina Hunt – ***
25. The history of the rain _ Niall Williams – **
26. The keeper of lost things – Ruth Hogan – ***
27. The good Liar – Catherine Mackenzie – ***
28. Leah on the beat – Becky Albertalli – **
29. The boy in the striped pyjamas – John Boyne – ****
30. Together – Julie Cohen – ****
31. The thinnest air – Minka Kent – **
32. I will never leave you – S.M Thayer – **
33. The memory shop – Ella Griffin – *****
34. The summer of impossible things – Rowan Coleman – *****
35. Where the light gets in – Lucy Dillon – ***
36. The cancer whisperer – Sophie Sabbage (I didn’t finish this book – it was too preachy!) – *
37. The book thief – Markus Zusak –  ****
38. Big little lies – Lianne Moriarty – ****
39. Where’d you go Bernadette? Maria Semple – *****
40. Missing pieces – Laura Pearson – ***
41. The ragged edge of the night – Olivia Hawker – *****
42. I let you go – Clare Mackintosh – ***
43. D-Day – Anthony Beevor (I’m still reading this……..)

This is my second Maggie O’Farrell novel, the first was Instructions for a heatwave, and I love her style of writing. You’ll see, I read another in close succession. I loved the way this book jumped between the books current day and the characters pasts. I was so bought into Daniel and Claudette’s lives that I just wanted to find out everything about their pasts, especially why Claudette, the world-famous actress, had become a recluse in the wilds of Ireland.

And now I get to start the pile of books I collected over Christmas and my birthday and ordered at the back end of the year and have just sat looking at for a while. But I’ll need more.


Tell me, what have been your favourite reads of late. Give me inspiration. Give me a direction in which to turn! Give me more books I have to buy and slowly bankrupt myself doing (or I happily take hand me downs!)