Top 10 Books of 2018
- Julie Heming
- Dec 31, 2018
- 3 min read
I somehow managed to read 84 books in 2018. Here are my favorites. (These are not books published in 2018, but books I read in 2018.)
number9dream by David Mitchell [novel]
Eiji Miyake is in Tokyo, searching for his father, who he's never met before. The novel shifts between his real experiences and imagined adventures, sometimes so seamlessly that it's hard to tell one from the other.
The writing is beautiful, employing a dreamy surrealism with Eiji's teenage voice, creating a unique coming-of-age story that balances the internal and external worlds in frightful, wondrous new ways.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng [novel]
A novel that seemingly exploded over the summer, Little Fires Everywhere tells the story of thrifty artist Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl when they move into a wealthy neighborhood in Ohio. Mia rents the apartment from Elena Richardson, and also cleans for the Richardson family.
The Warrens and Richardsons grow close, but when a local white couple adopts a Chinese baby, the two families take different perspectives on the adoption, and parenthood in general. It's not perfect, but it's the best adoption story I've read yet.
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell [novel]
Sometimes, classics are hyped up, and when you actually sit down to read them, sure, you can appreciate their literary contributions, but you're bored out of your mind. The novel that christened "big brother" is not that kind of classic.
It's an imaginative, chilling look at the future (and our present), in which the government watches everything and everyone, the news is censored and falsified, and friends and enemies are impossible to separate. The ending really shocked me, perhaps because of it's realism, and the prevailing of the state over the individual.
Flesh, Tongue by Yaya Yao [poetry]
Yao's debut collection of poetry begins boldly: the first poem outlines her phone number in Cantonese and she builds various swear words from it.
The rest of her poems are just as interesting, as she unflinchingly moves though themes of language, identity, family, and place.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline [novel]
Life is pretty bleak in the year 2044, and Wade spends most of his time playing in a virtual reality game (OASIS), where he can escape his real world and become the player Parzival.
Wade competes in a huge game in the OASIS, but finds that the game has ties to the real world government, with real spies, real conspiracies, and real death.
Pretentious literary nerds will scoff at this one, but I read this novel in two days. I forgot how enjoyable it was to read a plot, rather than character, based story, and how easy it can be to fly through action-packed pages. You don't need to be a gamer to like it.
Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto [novel]
Yocchan's father dies in a murder-suicide with a woman he was having an affair with. This leaves Yocchan and her mother to re-assume their lives, but things don't just go back to the way they were. They move to a different part of Japan, get new jobs, meet new friends and lovers...
It's an older-age coming-of-age tale, one rendered beautifully, and not terribly sad or full of rage, considering the context. Yocchan deals with grief, love, and acceptance, and her passion, as well as hesitancy and rationalization, make her a protagonist I closely identify with.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee [novel]
An epic of a novel that follows a Korean family through several generations as they emigrate to Japan and face challenges and hardships, everything from war and poverty to racism and stereotypes.
Love, family, and cultural identity all play a big role in this novel that spans about 80 years.
Written on the Sky: Poems from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth (trans.) [poetry]
A tiny book (it could easily fit into a pocket) of short Japanese poems translated by Rexroth. The poems are simple and easily accessible, but there's a calmness, acceptance, and openness to beauty that astounds me and almost leaves me breathless.
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett [novel]
I love a good piece of existentialist fiction, and this fits the bill. Malone is, as the title gives away, dying. The whole novel exists within one room, where Malone is lying in bed. He isn't sure how he got there, or who is taking care of him.
As the novel progresses, we see his daily actions, how he tries to occupy his time, and how time begins to slip away. It's also an interesting meditation on language and story-telling itself.
Instinct to Ruin by Lora Mathis [poetry]
Mathis's poetry is raw and emotional. They struggle with abuse, depression, and the surge of emotions they feel at any given time. None of which are beautiful. But I could feel the healing power writing has for them, and the growth and self-love that appears through the collection, though minimal, though ever-changing and in flux, is beautiful, and beautifully done.
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