2018 Book List

  1. The Girl With Seven Names: Escape From North Korea by Hyeonseo Lee (This was good, and eye opening)
  2. Emma by Jane Austen (I read this every few years.)
  3. No Life for a Lady by Agnes Morley Cleaveland (Memoir of ranch life in New Mexico 1870s-1930s)(Engaging, interesting, and made me want to go to New Mexico again.)
  4. You are Boring, but You are Uniquely Boring: 25 Models for Writing Your Memoir by Louise Plummer and Ann Cannon (a good, easy guide)
  5. The Book of Mormon
  6. The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman (pretty good)
  7. Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood (I liked the beginning and ending but the middle had a little too much political theory for me.)
  8. The Book of Mormon (This was our family reading that took us about two years this time, maybe longer.)
  9. The Book of Mormon (I focused on pulling out concise doctrines and phrases for a new project.)
  10. The Girl Who Wrote in Silk (Not recommended.)
  11. Queen Victoria: From Her Birth to the Death of the Prince Consort by Cecil Woodham-Smith (Minus the chapters about the Crimea and India, I liked it.)
  12. Unified: How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country by Senator Tim Scott and Congressman Trey Gowdy (Not about politics, this book about friendship made me want to be a better neighbor.)
  13. Still Alice by Lisa Genova (I loved it.)
  14. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (A lot of the content made me uncomfortable, but it is quite a story.)
  15. Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness by Rebecca Solnit (I loved the variety of essays in this book. The essay on Thoreau and his sisters was my favorite. I loved the concept that sister is a verb…)
  16. The Gospel Comes With a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield (This is about the power of Christian hospitality. Unfortunately, I did not feel hospitality in her choice of language. It felt like she was writing to an exclusive group, with its own vernacular, which was somewhat unclear to me. I still loved her and I still felt inspired to open my home and my life to others to help bring people to Christ.)
  17. Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? A Story of Women and Economics by Katherine Marcal (She introduced ideas that were completely new to me. I am still thinking about it. I didn’t agree with everything she said, but this is an important book.)
  18. The Book of Mormon (focus: ministering)
  19. My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead (The most comforting, familiar book I could think to read after Daniel left home.)
  20. America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie (I couldn’t put it down.)
  21. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and Anxiety and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari (This challenges everything I thought I understood about depression and anxiety. I didn’t agree with all of his proposed solutions, but so much of this made sense to me. Highly recommended.)
  22. Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 1. The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846. (Really good.)
  23. Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist (Some good truths here.)
  24. The Book of Mormon (focus: references which include Christ)
  25. Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes (I absolutely loved it.)
  26. The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas (Not my kind of book.)
  27. The Gift if the Magi by O Henry
  28. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickins