Lady Demelza's Year in Books 2018

Well I must say I am ashamed at the paucity of this list, yet again. I have recently been learning about how social media changes your brain, making it want to take in information in small pieces and articles, rather than reading books the old-fashioned way. I've had to realise that this is an issue, and I've started making some changes to address it. I hope that my efforts will be reflected in the next Year in Books.

1. The Walworth Beauty by Michele Roberts 2017
2. Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas 2001
3. The Children's Home by Charles Lambert 2016
4. After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry 2014
5. Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson 2016
6. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick 2011
7. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 2015
8. The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen 2010
9. Songs of the Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes 2004
10. Dragon's Green by Scarlett Thomas 2017
11. Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban 1974
12. The Olive Readers by Christine Aziz 2005
13. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes 1936
14. Folk by Zoe Gilbert 2018
15. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 2000
16. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler 1997
17. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood 2009
18. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 2014
19. Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes 2010
20. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1981, English translation by Gregory Rabassa 1982
21. The Colours of All the Cattle by Alexander MacCall Smith 2018
22. Payback by Margaret Atwood 2008
23. The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks 2017
24. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman 2017

I think the best book I read this year, just by a fraction of a hair's width over the other top books, was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I was disappointed in the ending, but actually that just made it all the more realistic, so I couldn't fault it for that. A sublime book, I'll be interested to see other works by this author.
I must give a mention to Songs of the Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes. An autobiographical true story of an autistic woman who learns how to 'be human' from a band of gorillas in a zoo. Yes, I said true story. It's amazing.

The worst book I read this year, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, apparently isn't a crappy book at all, it's critically acclaimed. And that's probably why I made myself keep reading it after the first chapter, but it was a crappy reading experience, that's for sure. I felt like I was trapped in someone's bad trip. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig was a complete fail. I didn't find one thing in it that felt like a compelling argument to stay alive. The parameters of his arguments were not consistent with my life experience. Anyway, I'm still alive. I have a to-read pile of books. That's a reason to stay alive. The books are in this world.

You can also see my earlier Years in Books for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.