Best Books I Read in 2018:
This year I read 80 books. These are what I consider the best of the list (in the order I read the books).
- Maus I a Survivor's Tale - My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (1991) Pantheon Books
The Special
Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel about his father and his experiences in
World War II going from a successful garment salesman, then evading capture and
then into Aushwitz
Maus
II a Survivor's Tale - And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (1991)
Pantheon Books
A continuation
of the earlier work that tells of his father's life in the camps until he is
reunited with his wife after the war.
- Mr. Majestyk
by Elmore Leonard (2002) Mariner Books
All he wants
to do is get his melon crop harvested and to market. But he let his
temper get away from him when a local hoodlum tries to drive off his workers
and replace them with drunks. He ends up on a bus with a killer whose
crew tries to break him out and now he has to deal with that man.
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (2016) Algonquin
Each year,
in the Protectorate, a child must be sacrificed to the Witch. But one
year, the witch, who feeds each child starlight and takes them to a better place
and finds good parents, accidentally feeds one child from the moon and keeps
her because her magic will be too wild for most people to control.
- Artemis
by Andy Weir (2017) Ballantine Books
Mr. Weir is
back, this time using the actual name of a NASA project to establish a colony
on the moon. A girl living on the moon
in the Artemis colony, saves her city by breaking all the rules
- The Neon Rain
by James Lee Burke (1987) Henry Holt & Co.
Dave
Robicheaux, a Lieutenant in the New Orleans Police department struggles with
the death of a young woman in another Parrish that is written-off as a drowning
death. He is sure it was a murder and checking into the case causes a lot
of bad guys to come out of the woodwork - even his partner. When his
brother gets shot, he goes after the mobster who was supposed to be his friend.
- Red Sparrow
by Jason Matthews (2013) Scribner
A ballerina
is intentionally injured by a competitor and wreaks her revenge. Then she
is offered a way to keep her mother in their apartment by becoming a spy. She
is sent to Sparrow school, where she is trained to seduce foreign diplomats so
they can be blackmailed to give up state secrets.
- Mr. Mercedes
by Stephen King (2014) Scribner
Bill Hodges,
a retired detective is contacted by the mass murderer about his last case. Only now, the killer plans on something much
more elaborate and deadly.
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (2013) William Morrow
An old man
returns to his childhood neighbor's home and remembers that the pond in the
back was called the ocean.
Excellent
writing from a master storyteller - it includes the mythic triple goddess of
the maiden, the mother and the crone. Gaiman has mixed mythology, fantasy
and reflection of the fears of our childhood and the cost of the mistakes in
our lives. It starts with a wonderful epigraph: "I remember my own
childhood vividly . . . I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let
adults know I knew. It would scare them." -Maurice Sendak
- The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (2017) William Morrow
Three very
different women live through World War II in a castle in Germany.
- The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith aka J K Rowling (2013) Mulholland
Books
Cormorant Strike, a disabled British veteran MP is now a private detective with a ruined love life, enough bills to sink his business and a new temp receptionist. He’s also the son of a rock star. A client wants him to find the murderer of their famous model sister, whom has been ruled a suicide.