Sunday, January 01, 2017

TOP 25 BOOKS READ IN 2016



(This is not a picture of me. It is a picture of how I feel when I am reading.)


I had another fabulous year of reading. In fact, my original list of favorites for the year had 33 books on it, so just know that there were 8 runners up!

What makes a favorite book for you? For me, it is an almost undefinable quality but is always composed of one or more facets including the writing, the emotional impact, the depth of enchantment I feel while reading, the new, to me, information or learning, etc. It is all personal opinion. 

Stats: 
Books read: 122
Pages read: 39,123. Average pages per day: 107. Average books per week: 2.3
Published this year: 27
Fiction: 87
Non-fiction: 4
Written by women: 68
Translated: 15
My Big Fat Reading Project: 27
Children/YA: 2
Indie Presses: 6
Speculative/Sci Fi/ Fantasy: 9
Mystery/Crime/Thriller: 12
Plays: 4 (3 were Shakespeare because of the retelling project)
Classics: 1
Memoir/Biography/Autobiography: 4
Poetry: 1
Short Stories: 1
(The numbers add up to more than 122 because some categories overlap.)
 
All those stats are mostly for my records. Make of them what you will. I would say that reading more than 50% books written by women contributed plenty to my reading joy but I also read many excellent books written by men. I think that makes me some combination of good and bad feminist!
 
THE LIST:
(Alphabetical by title, mostly published in other years, and all reviewed on this blog. If you would like to read the review, enter the title in the search box at the top left corner, hit return, and you will be taken there.)
 
All The Ugly and Wonderful Things, Bryn Greenwood
The Big Green Tent, Ludmila Ulitskaya
Commonwealth, Ann Patchett
Contenders, Erika Krouse
The Ecliptic, Benjamin Wood
The Enchanted, Rene Denfeld
Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins
Hagseed, Margaret Atwood
Here I Am, Jonathan Safran Foer
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
La Rose, Louise Erdrich
Let Me Die in His Footsteps, Lori Roy
The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien
Loving Day, Mat Johnson
Moonglow, Michael Chabon
The Queen of the Night, Alexander Chee
Saint Mazie, Jami Attenberg
The Seed Collectors, Scarlett Thomas
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Sweet Lamb of Heaven, Lydia Millet
Swing Time, Zadie Smith
The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen
Uprooted, Naomi Novik
Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
The Woman Who Read Too Much, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

If I follow your blog, I have read your lists for the year's most loved books. If I don't follow you or you don't have a blog, feel free to let me know of great reads I may have missed in the comments. Thanks to everyone who visits here!
 
 

12 comments:

  1. With so many books you read, it is amazing that you selected just a small amount. I added some to my reading list upon your recommendations.

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    1. Great Carmen. I hope you like them!

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  2. That is a truly splendid list of books and I am in awe of the sheer number of books that you manage to read. I did well to get to 90! But many of your favorites are my favorites, also. Funny how that works.

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    1. Thank you Dorothy. I am in awe of how you create a blog post everyday. I guess I read instead. All my life I have wanted to have as much time as I wanted to read. Now I finally do! I love that we have many of the same favorites. But I also know there are some on this list that you tried and didn't like as well. Funny how that works.

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  3. That's an interesting list. I loved Uprooted too, but I think that's the only one I've read - I'm hoping to read some of the others you've mentioned in 2017!

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    1. Good Helen! I got a surge just thinking again about Uprooted when I was making up the list.

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  4. Anonymous8:49 AM

    Great to see you had so many great books to choose from for your favourites list :-) Here's to more great reading in 2017!

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  5. Wonderful stats and list!! What a great year. Here's to more enchanted reading in 2017!

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  6. I loved I'll Meet You There! Great list! http://aazae.com/

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    1. Thank you for the recommendation.

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