Just like 2017, I decided to follow Goodread's reading challenge, but since that previous year was a struggle for me to maintain pace, due to heavy topics or big books, I decided to downplay my goal from 30 to 20 books, to have more time between books and to also allow more varied activities and pauses.
In 2018, I completed 22 books, in current or unfinished process for another 3. I read a total of 6001 pages read, abandonned 4 books partway (total another 241p), not counting giving up on a King short story on page 2 when he horrifically killed a cat. Details: this entry and the next.
To help my goal, I also decided to mix and match topics, short and longer books, and started with a book that a friend had offered, J.K. Rowling's Quidditich for the ages, a short tiny book, companion to the Harry Potter series. It was fun and fast. (81 pages)
Then, I set out to the biggest, longest reading part of the year: The Sherlock Holmes boxset, with the prospect of other books between those of Sherlock. Thus, I first read the Study in Scarlet, and the Sign of the Four ; (192 pages total for these)
A psychology book edited by Ochberg, called Post-traumatic therapy for victims of violence, which by definition was a heavy and sometimes triggering topic, requirred intermittent reading, alternating with the stories comprised in The Adventures, and the Memoirs, of Sherlock Holmes. (Ochberg's book was about 355 pages whilst Adventures+Memoires 503)
A french book, Dark Vador Vs Monsieur Spock, filled several goals: that of reading more books in french ; that of reading non-fiction ; and short books between all the long ones. (it added 115 pages to my total)
More non-fiction followed with Anne Frank's diary (307 pages) and Froud+Lee's Faeries (216p), which served as symbolic breaks in Sherlock Holmes stories - symbolic to Doyle's break of 7 years.
Then, I resumed reading this detectives' investigations, with The Hound of the Baskervilles (116p), and left out the second part of the book which is the story The Valley of Fear, written many years later. Thus, I remained at 7 completed books and 52% of 8th (not counting the skipped book which was the second that I started) for a while.
on April 10, I marked a short break, mirroring once more Doyle's. I chose a nonfiction, Symbols & magic in Egyptian art, as I've been into each of these 3 topics (art, Egyptology & symbolism) for a good portion of my life. (224p)
I then alternated The Return of Sherlock Holmes (303 pages) as I didn't care to drag this art book to appointments or to the park, and concentrated only on it when I was fully done with this art book.
In may, I read The Valley of Fear to finish another Sherlock book, completing the 48% that I had left in April, adding 147 pages to the count.
June & summer were rich reading months, including Mémoire d'Hadrien, its notes, and an essay about it ; the author imagined memoirs sent in forms of long letters from one emperor to another, in this additional french book for 2018, expanding another 375+240 pages to my already busy page-count. Between the fiction and nonfiction parts of mémoires, I read Henry James' turn of the screw - a 121 pages long novela which was adapted in the 1961 movie The Innocents.
The casebook (230p) closed my Sherlock Holmes reading and then 2 more french book followed, both in psychology, one about phobias, which was rather basic and didn't teach me much of anything new after my numerous readings and extensive research on the topic, and the other was about violence, trauma & resilience, a bit more informative and yet not fully filling my needs. (125 and 232 pages).
Asimov's I, Robot short stories, the first in what would become the Robot series, but in a modernized edition where all dates had been changed, was my fiction and light hearted read between these heavier topics, adding 245 pages to the count.
Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's Good omens was a delight and a great break before and during the third french psych book, also about resilience after trauma. (412 and 228p)
Come September, Henry James made his return to my reading hands, with his Aspern Papers, rather short (112p) and quick read, and although not my favorite of his, still entertained me.
After that, and for the majority of this same month, I read Orwell's 1984, at times difficult due to some content - including a few emetophobia triggers (326p).
October wasn't an easy reading month, as we travelled. During waiting, and flights and a bit during our stay over in London, and once back home, I read two stories in Tolkien's book of lost tales, 2.
From this point on, from October to mid-December, I struggled with my energy and concentration levels, losing the capacity to read. I tried to be geeky and read Shelley's famous Frankenstein, thinking it was its 200th anniversary year, and in a way it was - but I read the 1831 version, as I came to learn - which, gladly, doesn't have too many differences with the original, only language choices but not content or plot changes. So, in a way, I managed this geek move. I even read a portion of the essay parts included in the edition borrowed from the library, before having to return, totally 280 pages out of its 470.
Then, weeks past and all over a sudden, it was mid-December. I'd abandonned 5 books during the year (listed bellow and again in the next entry) and had already fully finished 21 books, read Frankenstein story in full (but not the entire additions as mentioned above), and thus, I decided to resume reading in an attempt to progress further in Tolkien-lore.
So, on the 17th, I started Beren & Lúthien, offering several versions of one of the stories I read in the lost tales 2 ; on the 17th I read the book introductory parts, and since I lacked time and didn't wish to take this hard cover with me to an appointment, I decided to start a nonfiction, the last of the year ; to remain in Tolkien-spirit, I read the first chapter of Paul Kocher's Master of Middle-Earth (14 more pages).
I completed Beren & Lúthien on the 24th (280 pages) and resumed Lost tales 2 with one more story and Christopher Tolkien's notes and commenaries for it. At the end of 2018, I made it to 57% of this book, at 222 pages, but since each tales in rather long and dense, I couldn't finalize this book before the turn of the year, and shall be my first for 2019.
Let's see the page counts for 2018 :
81+192+355+503+115+307+216+116+224+303+147+121+375+240+230+125+232+245+412+228+112+326+280+280+222+14 = 6001 in completed or mostly completed books.
Out of these, 1315 pages were in French, VS 4686 in English.
A total of 1772 pages were non-fiction, VS 4279 of fiction.
Abandoned in 2018:
- Les verges du ciel, which a friend had offered, as by page 78 I still disliked the style, the unclear plot, and characters didn't appeal to me in the least ; one acutally repelled me.
- Infernal city which was supposed to be in universe of the Elder Scrolls video game series just didn't feel like it beloned anywhere near it, and thus, after 67 pages, I gave up.
- Les mécanismes de défense. : Théorie & clinique, was a book that kept feeding me freudioan and post-freudian obsessions about oedipus complex and other subconsicious sexually-based "explanations" of people's inner-defense mechanisms, and after 27 pages, I had to fight off the impulse to burn the book down to cinders, as I do not adhere to these freudio obsessions. (no worries, I do not burn books).
- 69 pages was all that I managed reading in Jacob's Room, the first of Virginia Woolf's books that I really couldn't get into at all.
- I made it only a couple pages in a Stephen King book which includes 2 short stories. His content is too graphic for me, so after the initial wish to check only a short story, so I wouldn't have to comit to a long reading, I realized that even these shorter pieces aren't for me.
99 of these were in French, 142 in English ;
214 were fiction and 27 non-fiction.
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