Your Best Reads of 2016?

[Mary Ellen]

I meant to start this a couple of weeks ago, because I always enjoy reading everyone's lists! I only read 24 books in 2016. Here are a few I thought were outstanding.

Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics by Michael Wolraich A read for another GR group, for which I got a free copy from the publisher. Teddy Roosevelt, Taft & Robert Lafollette. I found resonance for the 2016 electoral circus.

The Other Side of the Tiber: Reflections on Time in Italy by Wallis Wilde-Menotti A woman's reflections on her life in Rome as a young woman and in northern Italy in middle age.

My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth Because I am a big fan of Call the Midwife

And the books I read with this group were very worthwhile: EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU and THE GREEN ROAD

[Sherry, Doyenne]

I pared it down to the ten:


The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith
Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

[June]

I love lists like this too! Here are my favorites, not necessarily in order:

The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Helios Disaster by Linda Boström Knausgård
Beloved by Toni Morrison
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

[Mary Anne]

I read many good books in 2016, but these were my favorites:

Between the World and Me - Coates
Early Warning - Smiley
The Door - Szabo
Can You Forgive Her? - Trollope
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Stevenson
The Story of a New Name - Ferrante
David Copperfield - Dickens
The Scapegoat - du Maurier
Vinegar Girl - Tyler

[Deb]

I had a lot of books I really liked from 2016, here are some, the more group appropriate :)

Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair With the Sea by Trevor Norton
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Island Home by Tim Winton

[Sara]

I read a number of very good books in 2016. In no particular order, here are some of my favorites:

A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Garden of Evening Mists
The Girls
My Name is Lucy Barton
The Nest
A Place We Knew Well
the Ruth Galloway series (I read all published so far)
the Temeraire series (I read 8 of the full 9)

Looking forward to seeing everyone's lists!

[Gina]

These were my favorites for 2016. It was a great reading year.
Run with the Horsemen
When Breath Becomes Air
The Gift of Rain
Everybody's Fool
Cannery Row
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
The Nightingale
Crossing to Safety
The Garden of Evening Mists
A God in Ruins

[Ithacagirl]

I have read few books in 2016

Chronicle of a death foretold
Love in the Time of Cholera
Like Water for Chocolate
The Japanese Lover
The Ages Of Lulu
Querido Atticus

[Mary]

I agree with Gina. I, too, had a great reading year. I've listed only those I gave 5 stars but there are so many others I read and liked so much this year.
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles and their Secret World War by Stephen Kinzer
Truman by David McCullough
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
The Bone Bed, Flesh & Blood, Depraved Heart - all by Patricia Cornwell (OK, I must admit astonishment at these entries. I almost never give 5 stars to books in this genre much less 3 in a row by the same author.)
The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books, a Great Courses lecture series by Professor Grant L. Voth

[Sheila]

The reading I most enjoyed in 2016 was re-reading the books of Carlos Ruiz Zafón many I'd read before but some were new reads.
My top read was Laila Lalami's The Moor's Account
My others great reads included
Donna Tartt's Secret History,
Robertson Davies's The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business,
Anthony DoerrAll the Light We Cannot See
Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation

and in terms of short story reads my favorites were
"At Christmas Time" by Anton Chekhov
"Trains and Other Childhood Curiosities" by Siddharth Disgupta

[K]

I love reading everybody's 2016 favorites. My top ten reads (not in any order) from 2016 are:

A Little Life
The Orchardist
Epitaph
Mrs. Bridge
Nobody's Fool
Brooklyn
The Amateur Marriage
True Grit
Euphoria
Slaughterhouse-Five

[Ann D]

In reviewing my reading for 2016, I noted that I am much more likely to give 5 stars to a non-fiction book than a fiction book. I also tend to give 5 stars to books that I really enjoyed, especially if they make me laugh or smile. I read a lot of worthy books that usually merited 4 stars.

So here are my 5 star fiction reads:

The Green Road
Commonwealth
The Fishermen
Paradise Lodge
The Summer Before the War
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice

The last 3 are definitely in the just thoroughly enjoyed reading category.

[Mary]

Ann, I totally agree that I tend to give 5 stars to books that were a pleasure to read. I also read a lot of books with great literary merit that I only give 3 or 4 stars to. And it's never an indication that I didn't appreciate their quality but that, for one reason or another, they weren't a great pleasure to read.

[Jane]

I read 67 books, and here are my favorites in no particular order.

THE CUCKOO'S CALLING by Robert Galbraith
AN UNNECESSARY WOMAN by Rabih Alameddine
THOSE WHO LEAVE AND THOSE WHO STAY by Elena Ferrante
CROOKED HEART by Lissa Evans
BLACK SWAN GREEN by David Mitchell
COMMONWEALTH by Ann Patchett
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles
A WOMAN IN BERLIN by Anonymous
THE TRESPASSER by Tana French
AND JUSTICE THERE IS NONE by Deborah Crombie

[Chris]

Redeployment
Humboldt's Gift
The Sound and the Fury
De Niro's Game
You Are Not a Stranger Here
The Nix
The Tsar of Love and Techno
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Sometimes a Great Notion
The Hours

[Kenneth P.]

So many books mentioned above were among my favorites: Black Swan Green, Redeployment, Deep South.

On the subject of Edna O'Brien's Little Red Chairs which I thought was great, I must add The Butcher's Trail which chronicles the international, if somewhat clumsy and imperfect effort to get so many of these war criminals into handcuffs.

[Terry]

I just realized that I so rarely give 5 stars that I can't look for 5 star books to tell you what was best! I must be a hard grader.....

So out of the 4 star books, here were my 2016 favorites:

Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost
Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Population: 485 : Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (which I was reading to see if we wanted to buy for the grandkids' bookshelves)

[Nicole]

I'm pleased to see I'm not the only one so late on this....

In 2016, I discovered two authors that everyone else already knew about: Anthony Trollope and Thomas Bernhard. They are both well worth reading, particularly Trollope, with whom I am completely smitten.

In a similar vein, I read quite a lot of Saki, whom most of us know from a single, much-anthologized, short story: The Open Window. He's consistently hilarious though, very witty, with an edge of mean, well worth reading more of.

I also re-read The French Lieutenant's Woman, which I haven't read since college, and which is fantastic.

Finally, A Brief History of Seven Killings is perhaps the best of all my 2016 books. I was reluctant to read it with all the hype, but it turns out to deserve it all.