Books. Of the 51 books I read in 2018, my clear favorites were Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eighth Months and Twenty-Eight Days and Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Rushdie’s book was rich with delights, and Joyce’s book disarmingly sweet. In all 33 of the books were fiction, 18 non-fiction. I read four “best of” series (short stories, mysteries, O. Henry Prize), and four books by Betty Cavanna (including The Black Spaniel Mystery, a book I bought back in the early 1960s through the Scholastic Book Club but never read). I also read two of the “Freddy” books, by Walter R. Brooks, and read Michael Cart’s book about Freddy and his author, Talking Animals and Others. I read three books about cooking, restaurants, and bars (RC director John Mersereau’s How To Grill A Gourmet, Ruth Reichl’s Tender At The Bone, and Ernie Harburg’s book about the Del Rio, Liberty, Equality, Consensus and All That Jazz.
Movies. I saw 44 movies in 2018. Clear favorites were Black Panther and Ready Player One. Other favorites included Isle of Dogs and The Green Book. Movies I liked fairly well: Maze Runner: Death Cure, I, Tonya, Game Night, Tom Raider, Red Sparrow, Jurassic World 2, Ant-Man and Wasp, Skyscraper, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Rich, Crazy Aliens, Little Women, Venom, and The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
Tangled Veil Research Institute 