This is one of my favourite posts to write because I get to look through on all the books that I’ve read the past year! I’ll be dividing the post into three categories: an overview of this year’s reading (this is new for the blog, but I’ve always done it on Dayre so I’m bringing it here), my favourite books of the year, and the books I read for this year’s SEA Reading Challenge.

Just a note, I only switched to this blog fairly recently, so most of the links lead back to my old blog.

Reading Life in Review (2018)

This year, I read 184 books, which is the most I’ve read in 5 years (thanks for keeping track, Goodreads!). I haven’t beaten my record of 247 books in 2013, but I doubt I’d ever beat that now that I’m in the working world.

Some stats from the Year in Books 2018 from Goodreads:

At a total of 58,577 pages over 184 books, this means that the average page length of each book is 318.35 pages. I wish Goodreads also had mean and median, so I could see if I’m reading longer or shorter books too.

I think I found the shortest book read this year, Killer Fashion, through a podcast, but I can’t remember which one (round-up post of podcasts to come!). I do remember being unimpressed because it was so short, though. As for the longest book, Winter of the World, that was a doozy. It did not help that I read the first book, Fall of Giants, in 2013 and pretty much forgot a lot of the characters. Thankfully, I managed to remember who was who after a while!

And yes, I’ve finally read Jane Eyre. Slowly catching up on all the popular books that other people are reading!

As for Heath Robinson’s Home Front, that was one of the books I bought in England! I got it at the Churchill War Rooms and I thought it was on household management in WWII, i.e. one of those books the British government put out to encourage people to be thrifty, but it turned out to be a book about Heath Robinson’s cartoons. Unfortunately, I’ve never heard of Heath Robinson so I assumed he was the author. The comics were funny, the text was hit and miss.

Just wanted to put this here to remember that The Girl in the Tower was the first book I reviewed! The Bear and the Nightingale was fantastic (one of my favourite books of 2017) and The Girl in the Tower was great. It wasn’t a favourite book, but it was a worthy sequel.

I don’t quite recall the other two books in the screenshot, but that is why I write reviews – so that I have a reference.

Best Books

Out of all the books I read, 10 books and 2 series made it into my ‘Best Of’ list. This list is basically full of books that I read and made such a great impression that I went “this is definitely going into the list!” As you can guess, it’s very unscientific and based solely on my feelings.

1. Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holliday: You need to read this to know how the various media companies manipulate the truth (and us), as well as what we can do to reduce this. It’s scary, eye-opening, and much needed for anyone in today’s society.
2. Do You Believe in Magic? by Paul A. Offit: One thing I cannot stand would be anti-vaxxers and people who find ridiculous reasons not to trust modern medicine. This book takes a look at 7 areas of alternative medicine and looks at the history and lack of science behind them. If you know someone who’s mistrustful of modern medicine and you need more facts to counter them, this is the book for you.
3. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: This getting on my ‘best of’ list shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It features a magical library with spy-librarians who go into different realms to ‘acquire’ valuable books. Irene, a librarian, and her new mentee Kai, must work together to find a rare book. I loved this book because both the characters and worldbuilding was fantastic. The fact that this is a book about book-related magic just made it better.
4. The Lost Princess by George MacDonald: I found this when my Church library was letting go of books and I wonder why I didn’t find it earlier! This lyrical fairytale was beautifully illustrated and the message was as beautiful as the language. One of my favourite quotes from the book:
   

   “Nobody can be a princess, do not imagine you have yet been anything more than a mock one – until she is a princess over herself, that is, until, when she finds herself unwilling to do the thing that is right, she makes herself do it. So long as any mood she is in makes her do the thing she will be sorry for when the mood is over, she is a slave and not a princess.”

5. Smaller and Smaller Circles by F. H. Batacan: This is the kind of book that I started the SEA Reading Challenge hoping to discover. Father Saenz and Father Jerome are fighting against an uncaring bureaucracy as they try to find the culprit behind the murder and mutilation of young boys. This is a fantastic mystery that brought me into the Philippines that the author was writing in and made me feel so much for the characters.
6. Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida: I wanted to cry reading this book. Naoki Higashida is so brave and both his essays and his poetry show the strength of the human spirit. It is a moving and uplifting insight into the mind of an autistic person, reminding us to look beyond the surface.
7. Educated by Tara Westover: This book deserves every bit of praise that it got. It’s the memoir of Tara Westover, a girl who was raised by a paranoid father and a mother who drifted into alternative healing. Despite abusive family dynamics that made it almost impossible for her to go to school, she managed to break free of her chains and get into college with the help of people outside her family. The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” comes to mind because Tara could not have done it without all the people encouraging her.
8. Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan: Another fantasy book that I loved (do you see a trend here?)! Midnight Never Come tells the story of two parallel courts – the human court of Queen Elizabeth and the faerie court of Invidinia, queen of the Onyx court. The book tells the story of two members, Deven from Queen Elizabeth’s Court and Lune of the Onyx court as they scheme to increase their standing, and then, to save each other. It’s another book with amazing worldbuilding and I enjoyed the sequel novella, Deeds of Men, as well.
9. How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny: I have read and enjoyed the Three Pines series for years now, but How The Light Gets In is by far the best book in the series. You’ll have to have read all the previous books because it takes the subplot (the running side-story) and turns it into a suspenseful story. All the characters are wonderfully written and my heart was given several scares in this story.
10. The Once and Future King by T. H. White: Another fantasy story that was fantastic. This is the classic retelling of the Arthurian legends. It starts off pretty light hearted, but as Arthur becomes king and his larger mission (imposing the rule of Law and harnessing the destructive power of his knights) appears, the story gets more and more solemn. There is quite a lot of humour and no small amount of anachronisms (especially in the first book), but everything feels very natural and timeless.
11. The Anne of Green Gables series: I finally started this series this year and it is fantastic! I read it mostly because I wanted to watch the Netflix series, and while I’ve given up on the Netflix version (too dark), I’m still enjoying this. I always think that the next book will be the one that disappoints me, but it’s not happened yet. Looking forward to finishing this series next year! Latest book read: Anne of Windy Poplars
12. The Fairacre Series: I found this series while searching for cosy reads and it has not disappointed. The Fairacre series is set in the rural British countryside, starting in the 1950s, and tells the story of the people in the village with wit and compassion. This is another series that I’ll try to finish this year – perhaps I’ll move on to Miss Read’s other books after! Latest book(s) read: Miss Clare Remembers & Emily Davis

SEA Reading Challenge 2018

I started this challenge in 2017 because I wanted to read more local writing. The whole idea was to read books inspired by South East Asia, by South East Asian authors. It came about mostly because I was tired of searching for ‘local’ books and finding books that were either too literary (which is not my thing) and/or written by authors who weren’t even living in South East Asia, even if they came from there – I find that the diaspora tends to write about different issues from people who didn’t live their countries, and that doesn’t resonate with me as much.

You’d think that being back in Singapore would mean that I read more books, but that wasn’t the case. I read a total of 7 books this year, which puts me as a ‘scholar’. For the record, my reading achievements were:

• Domestic: 1-2 books
• Weekend Traveller: 3-4 books
• Exchange Student: 5-6 books
• Scholar: 7-8 Books
• ASEAN: 9 or more books

And countries that are in South East Asia are:

• Vietnam
• Laos
• Cambodia
• Thailand
• Myanmar
• Malaysia
• Indonesia
• Philippines
• Brunei
• Singapore
• East Timor

Now that I’ve recapped the basics of the challenge, here are the books I read:

1. The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid (Singapore): This was a fantasy novel inspired by Malay culture. Ria is a medusa who protects the citizens of Nelroote, an underground city. Everything is as it is, until she meets Eedric, a human with monster blood. I really loved the premise of this story, but the execution fell a little flat for me – it was a bit slow and a bit too heavy on The Message (about race relations). It’s probably a personal thing, because this book won the Epigram Books Prize
2. Track Faults and Other Glitches by Nicholas Young (Singapore): This collection of short stories was recommended to me and it was exactly the type of thing that I started this challenge wanting to read. The stories are fun, well-written, and all set in Singapore.
3. The Sea is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia (Southeast Asia): This collection of steampunk short stories features writers from around the region. Some of them, like On the Consequence of Sound and Working Woman, were great, but others didn’t really connect for me. I thought that the collection was rather uneven, and on the whole, I liked those that didn’t try to have this ‘us vs them’ sort of mentality and/or weren’t overtly activist fiction.
4. Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan (Philippines): This is one of my favourite books of the year, so scroll up if you missed it just now.
5. The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata (Indonesia): This book proved to me that I can handle non-traditional narrative styles, which was a relief because I gave up on so many books that I tried reading for this challenge that I wondered if I was unable to read something a bit more experimental. The Rainbow Troops is about a school in Belitung, its students, and the teachers trying to teach them. It’s not your typical feel-good story, but it’s pretty heart-warming.
6. The Zenith by Duong Thu Hong (Vietnam): And we’re back to me not being able to something non-traditional. The Zenith is by one of the most important Vietnamese novelists, but I just did not understand it. There were two stories, but I didn’t get how they connected until the end and there were so many speeches in it that I lost track of what was going on. If it weren’t for the challenge, I might not have finished this.
7. A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint (Singapore): I managed to pull myself together to read one more book before the year ended, and it was a mystery. This was pretty fun – put an old, grumpy Singapore detective in Bali, give him a murder, and then see what happens. The ending was unexpectedly touching as well, and it made for a good end to the challenge for this year.

Looking back, I definitely read too many books set in Singapore and/or by Singaporean authors. I’ll have to continue this next year because I think there are more gems to be found. I just hope I can find them.