I’ve seen a few of my friends posts this year listing all of the books they have read in 2018 and I decided this year to make my own list. In a way, it’s sort of like the opposite of a New Year’s resolution, in that I’m looking back at something I wanted to do this year(read more books), and seeing how I did. The following is a list of the books I’ve read this year, listed more or less in the order I read them, and only books I read in their entirety. I’ve excluded from this list books that I read for classes, as these were not read in my “free time”:).
- Grant, by Ron Chernow. This book is about the life and career of the Civil War general and U.S president, and is a fantastically written biography about the man, who before I had known relatively little about. Also, probably the longest book I’ve ever read.
- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. I have had this book for a while, and finally got around to reading it this year. For those who haven’t read it, I recommend!
- The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis. A devotional book written in the fifteenth century in Europe, and one of the worlds most widely read Christian books. Very thoughtful and still relevant today despite it’s age of over five centuries.
- Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. A fictional novel, but based on the brutal Belgian ivory trade in the Congo region.
- Genghis Khan, by Jack Weatherford. I went to the Reagan Presidential Library while they had the Genghis Khan exhibit going this summer, and picked up this book in the gift shop. A good read for anyone interested in the largest empire in history and it’s most well known figure.
- Gospel of Luke, by anonymous(the Beloved Physician). The longest of the 4 gospels of the New Testament, and also arguably the best written.
- Confession of St. Patrick, by St. Patrick. This is one of only two surviving sources from Ireland’s patron saint, and was an enjoyable, and fairly short read.
- Romans, by Paul. The sixth book of the New Testament, and one of the undisputed letters of Paul.
- The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. This was an interesting book in the way that it takes the opposite point of view than most other Christian writings.
- Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. This historical biography, written by the same author as Grant, is the second longest book I read this year, and was just as well written. Ron Chernow finds a way to make these long, historical biographies very enjoyable and almost like a novel. This is also the book that inspired the extremely popular broadway show Hamilton.
- St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman. This book was written by one of my professors at Pepperdine University, and I bought it after taking his class. There is relatively little known about St. Patrick other than his two handwritten letters, but this book does a great job of putting Patrick’s life in a context, and is overall a well-written biography.
- What Unites Us, by Dan Rather. I really enjoyed reading this book about Rather’s thoughts on patriotism, and the ideals that he believes have always bonded us together as a nation. I agree with the many reviews of this book that note how it rises above dividing partisan issues, and can be read and enjoyed by people on the right or the left.
I’m currently reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose, and will have to include it in next years list, as I’m not even close to finishing it before the new year. However, so far so good! Hopefully next year I can add a few more novels to my reading list, which I seemed to lack this year. A couple other books that I read recently prior to 2018 that I think are worth mentioning as good reads are Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, and One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez.