Another Year Over...

almost...and a new one just about to begin!

So it's high time I sat down to write my 2018 summary post.

2018 was an odd year for me, full of personal challenges. I juggled, I compromised, I got on with it, I fell apart, I tried again, I reassessed, I held on tight, I let go. Through it all I lived, and loved and learnt.

I'm sure we all have years where things don't necessarily go to plan. Those years where we spend most of our time coping with the fallout from change, death and stress. It's one of the reasons why I love celebrating NYE. The new year promises a psychological reset, a do-over. It's a chance to reflect on the old year, then start again.

I've lived through enough NY's now to know that resolutions are very rarely kept and that changes almost never happen miraculously. But I still find it a time of hope. A chance to look forward.

But before I can do that, I need to review my year in books!

Today I'm in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, sweltering away thanks to a breathless 30℃ day. The promise of a storm is on the horizon and I'm counting down to a quiet NYE beer on the balcony with Mr Books.

According to Goodreads I have read 107 books this year. I gave 6 books a 5-star rating, 2 books a 2-star rating with everything else falling in between (except for the 20-odd books that I haven't finalised reviews for!)

My favourite and most memorable books for the year were Normal People by Sally Rooney, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry and Shokoofeh Azar's The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree.

Azar's book also won my favourite cover of the year award!

My best feel-good, spark-joy book for 2018 goes to both A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and Angela Thirkell's Northbridge Rectory.

I reviewed 85 books on my blog - 49 by female authors and 36 by men. Twenty-four of these books were written by Australian authors and twelve were books in translation. I read eighteen non-fiction titles. I lost count back in February of the number of picture books I read for work!

My longest book, at 1232 pages, was Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

After 365 days, I have come to the end of my Les Miserables chapter-a-day readalong with Nick @One Catholic Life. It was an adventure as well as an exercise in patience and perseverance. A full review will be penned sometime in the NY.

Hopefully I will also finish David Bellos' The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Miserables tonight as well. If I can achieve this I will have completed my Goodreads challenge of 110 books - although I also need to work out how to add multiple editions of books as being 'read'. I not only read the Norman Denny translation of Les Mis, I also referred to the Rose and Donoghue editions throughout the year. But right now I cannot make this happen on Goodreads. I have to assume that it's a weird time zone glitch. In Goodreads land it is still the 30th December, yet I marked my Denny edition as 'read' on the 31st Dec (which is what the date is here right now). My review notes exist in my time but not yet in Goodreads. I'm hoping that after 7pm (my time) I will be able to add the two other editions of Les Mis to my 'read' stats.

As a newbie to Les Mis, much of it was a fresh surprise. But I was amazed at how many ideas and half-truths I had formed about the story from simply being a member of the human race that interacts online, reads voraciously and loves a good meme/gif.

So I don't think I will spoil it for anyone else by jumping straight to the end.

I'm sure I will have a lot more to say about the tragedy and majesty of Jean Valjean's life in posts to come, but for now, I hope that when my time comes, that I can share Jean Valjean's simple epitaph - she lived. She loved.

It happened of itself, in the calm way

That in the evening night-time follows day.

But that is not the end after all!

Because tomorrow is a brand new year and Nick is kicking off a brand new chapter-a-day readalong. We voted and decided that we couldn't manage another 365 chapter book in 2019 (my War and Peace reread will have to wait for another year!) so instead we will be reading four books that add up to 365 chapters (bravo Nick for doing the maths!) 

The 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-along looks a little like this:

• Don Quixote: January 1 to May 8 (126 chapters plus 2 prologues = 128 days)
• The Count of Monte Cristo: May 9 to September 2 (117 chapters = 117 days)
• Lilith: September 3 to October 19 (47 chapters = 47 days)
• The Old Curiosity Shop: October 20 to December 31 (73 chapters = 73 days)

I currently have Don Quixote and The Count of Monte Cristo on my TBR pile, so I will definitely join in for the first two books. The final two will depend on how my year is travelling and whether or not I have acquired a copy of the books in the meantime.

I'm rather nervous about Don Quixote as I have heard many mixed reports about it, but I hope that reading it with Nick & co will keep me going during any tough patches.

An hour after starting this post, Mr Books has finished water-blasting our sandstone pavers, the storm is still threatening to arrive and it is now beer o'clock on New Year's Eve in Australia.

Happy New Year one and all and let's do it all again in 2019!