{"id":5776,"date":"2018-12-25T00:09:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T13:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5776"},"modified":"2020-12-23T21:51:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T10:51:34","slug":"my-favourite-books-of-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/my-favourite-books-of-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favourite Books of 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, that<\/em> was a year. A year in which a lot of my favourite reads involved escapism and humour, because the real world was not an especially fun place to be. I read 54 books that were new to me (I don’t count re-reads). About a third of these books were adult non-fiction, a third were adult fiction, and the remaining third were books for children and teenagers. Here are the books that I liked the most in 2018:<\/p>\n

Adult Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"'BehindBehind the Scenes at the Museum<\/em><\/a> by Kate Atkinson was a brilliantly funny account of a Yorkshire childhood, related by a not-entirely-reliable narrator with a lot of eccentric relatives. I don\u2019t know how I managed to get this far in life without reading any Kate Atkinson novels, but clearly I need to read the rest of her work. I also enjoyed whimsical, meandering Winter<\/em><\/a> by Ali Smith, another new-to-me writer whose work I need to explore. I have<\/em> read most of Alan Hollinghurst\u2019s books and The Sparsholt Affair<\/em><\/a> was optimistic and heartwarming (not words I ever thought I\u2019d use to describe a Hollinghurst novel), a beautifully observed story about the families that gay men and lesbians construct for themselves.<\/p>\n

Non-Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"'Girt'The Disaster Artist<\/em><\/a> by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, the hilarious story behind one of the worst movies ever made, was a truly fascinating read. I also enjoyed Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia<\/em><\/a> by David Hunt, a very silly and mostly accurate history of the first decades of colonial Australia, and How Not To Be A Boy<\/em><\/a>, Robert Webb\u2019s funny, thoughtful memoir about a boyhood spent absorbing toxic messages about masculinity. <\/p>\n

\"'DependsI also liked John Safran\u2019s Depends What You Mean By Extremist: Going Rogue with Australian Deplorables<\/em><\/a>. Safran gets to know Muslims who support ISIS; Muslims who hate ISIS but also hate Jews, Christians and gay people; Jews who hate Muslims; white supremacists who aren’t as white as you’d expect; anarchists who hate racists but think anti-Semitic violence is okay; and conservative Christians who hate Muslims even though there doesn’t seem to be much practical difference between their belief systems. While most of these extremists come across as confused attention-seekers with no real ability to threaten society, Safran makes the serious point that most Australians \u2013 secular, rational, democratic Australians \u2013 don\u2019t understand \u201cthe mindset of the devout: magical thinking, seeing patterns in the world, a sense that there are no coincidences, a determination that friends and strangers must be saved, karma and providence\u201d. This was a timely read, full of Safran being his usual annoying but hilarious self.<\/p>\n

Children\u2019s Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"'TheFor some reason, none of the Young Adult books I read this year captured my interest. I\u2019m sure it was me, rather than the books, which were mostly well-reviewed and award-winning. I had more luck with books aimed at younger readers. I liked The Endsister<\/em><\/a> by Penni Russon, Front Desk<\/em><\/a> by Kelly Yang, and Peter\u2019s Room<\/em><\/a> by Antonia Forest. I also enjoyed the first book in The Terrible Two<\/em><\/a> series by Jory John and Mac Barnett, illustrated by Kevin Cornell, with well-drawn characters, a clever plot and lots of humour.<\/p>\n

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on Memoranda posts this year, with special thanks to the Antonia Forest fans who make such thoughtful contributions whenever I do a Forest read-along. I haven\u2019t been blogging much lately due to um, life, but I hope to get back into it now that I\u2019m on holiday. Happy Christmas to everyone celebrating it and Happy End of 2018 to everyone else!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that was a year. A year in which a lot of my favourite reads involved escapism and humour, because the real world was not an especially fun place to be. I read 54 books that were new to me (I don’t count re-reads). About a third of these books were adult non-fiction, a third … Continue reading My Favourite Books of 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,293,18],"tags":[197,273,25,276,264,277,279,275,274,281,280,262,268,266],"class_list":["post-5776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-childrens-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-alan-hollinghurst","tag-ali-smith","tag-antonia-forest","tag-david-hunt","tag-greg-sestero","tag-john-safran","tag-jory-john","tag-kate-atkinson","tag-kelly-yang","tag-kevin-cornell","tag-mac-barnett","tag-penni-russon","tag-robert-webb","tag-tom-bissell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5776"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5788,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions\/5788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}