My Top 12 of 2018 aka How to Set Some Reading Goals

The major publications have already released their “best of” book lists for the year. But nope, at A Lifely Read, I like to push it to the very, very end. Major newspapers/magazines/websites have a reason for pushing their lists a bit early: No new books are being released at the end of the year and publishers want people to buy books for the holidays. (Did you see the article about printing issues that “derailed” holiday book sales?)

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Set your goals on a post-it next to your two phones and old-school adding machine. (STOCK IMAGE, duh!)

People often create reading challenges for a New Year, so I’m going to frame my Best Books of 2018 List according to the 12 months of the year. These aren’t necessarily the months that I read the books, but you’ll see why I’m slotting them in. Second caveat: Unlike official “best of” books lists, these are not just books published in 2018…I just happened to read them this year. My blog, my rules, okay?

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If the Shoe Fits (It Never Does): On Donal Ryan, Apricot Irving, and Liminality

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From a Low and Quiet Sea, by Donal Ryan & The Gospel of Trees, by Apricot Irving

About a year ago, a woman named Marianne Cantwell gave a TEDx talk in Norwich, UK about “fitting in.” Show me a person who has no worries about this, and I will show you my canary yellow Doc Marten boots. **

Cantwell says this about fitting in: “It’s like from the outside you look like you fit, but secretly, a little piece of you never feels that you 100% fit into any of [your worlds].” She then discusses the word ‘liminal,’ “a state of in-between-ness, like you’re not quite one thing, but not quite another. You’re on the borderlands.”

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