Books of 2018

I devoured business books in 2018, plus a few historical memoirs and some entertaining fiction. Here's a fun infographic from Goodreads about my 2018 choices.

Movies and shows I liked led me to read Interstellar, Altered Carbon, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Interstellar and TATBILB were enjoyable complements to their movies. The book Altered Carbon gave me some insights into the show's back story. For example, envoys aren't just badasses in combat, they're the elite few who travel between star systems by mental download (i.e. almost instantly) rather than via a century of cryosleep. However, the book is harsh and seems more male-oriented (yes, the show's pretty harsh already). I prefer the Netflix show, which adds all the family ties and a little humor, over the book. The little audiobook Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was based on the movie.

The reverse order was true for Ready Player One — my nephew told me to read the book, first. Then I watched the movie with anticipation, and enjoyed them both. I also read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (the generic cover in the bottom row) and then watched the 1978 movie.

Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild was one of those unexpected books that came through the bookshop and sucked me in (and it sold quickly, after I read it). A poor Brooklyn kid from a dysfunctional family, Clara became Hollywood's first sex symbol — she was Marilyn Monroe before there was a Marilyn Monroe! (Both women admired each other, but never met in person.) Clara had affairs with the most famous men in Hollywood, including Gary Cooper. But she was too honest and open — meaning she didn't know how to play the publicity game. The new "talkies," betrayal, and her forgotten past turned her success into anxiety attacks and broken contracts. Clara is 400 pages of nonfiction that I couldn't put down.

Walden on Wheels was a fascinating memoir of a young man who decided to go to grad school without incurring debt. To make that happen, he used his outdoor skills from life as an Alaskan guide to live in a van — hiding in plain sight on the prestigious campus of Duke University.

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly was deep and spiritually warm. I recommend it for Christians wanting to dig deeper in their faith and those who long for simplicity in life.

The Bookman's Tale and The Thirteenth Tale were very entertaining, especially if you love books and old libraries and mystery.

As for the business books: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz is life-changing for a struggling entrepreneur. I highly recommend it. It referenced the older bestseller, The E-Myth Revisited. E-Myth gave me some good, basic concepts that I now recognize in other books, but the tone is condescending and dated. Michalowicz's latest book, Clockwork, is a more updated, actionable version of the concepts in E-Myth. Clockwork pushes single-owner entrepreneurs to make themselves obsolete — in a good way — so they can actually have a life.

Traction was another excellent read, and I'll be referring back to it often. It's more focused on a company, not just a single person, but has great ideas for constant improvement, from quarterly goals to more efficient meetings. The ideas can apply to small businesses or big companies.

Friends recommended two books to me as preparation for writing a book about my great-great-grandfather. The Perfect Storm gave me ideas about how to present facts and interviews, but I hated reading it! The author seemed to put every fact he ever found into it, from the history of storms to every macabre detail about how to drown. Bleh! (but a good learning experience for an aspiring writer). Empire Made: My Search for an Outlaw Uncle Who Vanished in British India isn't very well known, but it's well done. The mix of personal memoir and historical biography is exactly what I want to do, and Kief Hillsbery's book flows like a novel.

I ended the year with Tarzan of the Apes, the 1912 classic by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I didn't realize that this was the first book in a series — not just sequels as an afterthought, but that this first book ends on a cliffhanger! I liked it much better than Burroughs' Princess of Mars (John Carter no. 1). Although they were written about the same time, the latter book seemed to me over-flowery with Victorian prose. Tarzan still has helpless females (and males, if you didn't grow up in the jungle) and racist undertones from the contemporary culture. However, Tarzan himself is a deeper character and the excitement of battles and rescues is enhanced by human storylines. I've started the sequel, The Return of Tarzan.

Here's my list from 2017.

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Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy good books in 2019!