Kaia's 2018 Book List
KEY:
*Didn’t finish +Re-read ^Made me cry #For school
N.B.
The bolded titles are my top reads of the year.
Many of these did not come out this year, but were new to me.
When you come across titles that made me cry, know that it was not always only because I was sad, but rather because I felt that exquisite, painful mix of joy and sadness and gratitude at being alive and at having such beautiful words in my life.
JANUARY
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles^
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing*
The Door by Magda Szabo^ (translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix)
Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith+
FEBRUARY
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry^^
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller+#
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald+#
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Himself+#
Father Comes Home From the Wars by Suzan-Lori Parks
Best American Short Stories 2012 edited by Tom Perotta*
Akata Witch* by Nnedi Okorafor
Light Years by James Salter
MARCH
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore^
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward^
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
APRIL
A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, Edited by Sun Yung Shin
Dear Martin by Nic Stone^
Am American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna Van Praag
Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne+#
Bluets by Maggie Nelson+
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson+
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison^
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe+
MAY
The Silence of our Friends by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller+#
Nature Poem by Tommy Pico
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner^
Truevine by Beth Macy*
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie+*
In the Language of my Captors by Shane McCrae
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison+#
JUNE
This Will be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (translated from the French by Tina Kover)
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai^^
Akira: Book 1 by Katsuhiro Otomo
JULY
Akira: Book 2 by Katsuhiro Otomo
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl*
Bone by Fae Myenne Ng
The Fire This Time Edited by Jesmyn Ward^
AUGUST
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer+
Waking Up White by Debby Irving
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodsen
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi+^
The Sharp Teeth of Love by Doris Betts*
One Day We’ll All be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
SEPTEMBER
There There by Tommy Orange^
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling+
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling+
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling+^
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez^
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass+#
OCTOBER
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling+^
In the Other Room or The Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl+
Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds^
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling+^
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling+^
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi ^+#
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling+^
NOVEMBER
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald+#*
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo^
A manuscript by a friend from graduate school
DECEMBER
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne+#
The Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang^
Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Heavy by Kiese Laymon