Book List 2016


Once again it’s time to make my wishlist of books I want to read this year and below that, a list the books I actually do get around to reading

You can also check out how I did the last couple of years on my Book Lists ‘08,  Book Lists ’09, Book Lists ’10,  Book Lists’ 11,  Book Lists ’12,  Book Lists 2013, Book Lists 2014, Book List 2015 pages.  Visit Library Thing to see every book I’ve ever read as well as my 100 favorite books of all time.

Books to Read in 2016

Comics/Graphic Novels to Read in 2016

Around the World for a Good Book

My Around the World For A Good Book project continues.  This year I’m cribbing a few titles off the Read Around the World list published by the blogger of Magic In Every Book.  I’m going to read a book from one country on every continent (except Antarctica) and one audio book for a total of seven.

  • Ghana: Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi  (audiobook)
  • Indonesia: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
  • Fiji: The Anniversary Present by Larry Thomas
  • Jamaica: The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
  • Kenya: Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
  • Paraguay: I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos
  • Ukraine: Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko

Audiobooks

  • 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
  • 1493 : Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (BPL, MLN)
  • American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan
  • An American Childhood by Annie Dillard (BPL, MLN, Hoopla)
  • Amsterdam : a history of the world’s most liberal city by Russell Shorto
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (BPL, MLN, Hoopla)
  • Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume (BPL, MLN)
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (BPL, MLN, Hoopla)
  • As You Wish by Cary Elwes (BPL, MLN)
  • Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (BPL, MLN)
  • The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (BPL)
  • Bel Canto by Anne Patchet
  • Boom! by Mark Haddon (MLN)
  • Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (BPL, MLN)
  • Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Undermines America by Barbara Ehrenreich (MLN)
  • The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (BPL, MLN)
  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee  Brown (BPL, MLN, Hoopla)
  • Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told through Baseball Cards by Josh Wilker (Hoopla)
  • Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser (BPL)
  • Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (BPL, MLN)
  • Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (BPL, MLN)
  • Dept. of speculation By Jenny Offill
  • The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice by Chad Millman (BPL, Hoopla)
  • The Diviners by Libba Bray
  • 11/22/63 by Stephen King (BPL)
  • The Essential Lewis and Clark (BPL)
  • Evicted (MLN) by Matthew Desmond
  • The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King (Hoopla)
  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (BPL)
  • Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  • The Gay Revolution by Lillian Faderman (BPL)
  • A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (BPL, MLN)
  • The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
  • The Great Bridge by David McCullough
  • The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer by John Dominic Crossan (Hoopla)
  • Gretel and the dark by Eliza Granville
  • The Guts by Roddy Doyle (Hoopla)
  • Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (BPL)
  • The  Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed (Hoopla)
  • H Is for Hawk by Helen McDonald
  • His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (BPL, MLN)
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
  • The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (Hoopla)
  • The Inventor’s Secret by Andrea Cremer
  • The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W. P. Kinsella
  • Ireland by Frank Delaney (BPL)
  • Jackaby by William Ritter
  • The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough (MLN)
  • The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs 
  • Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
  • Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (BPL, MLN)
  • Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk (Hoopla)
  • Light in August by William Faulkner (BPL)
  • The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (BPL, MLN)
  • The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman (BPL, Hoopla)
  • Matida by Roald Dahl (BPL, MLN)
  • Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt
  • The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox (BPL)
  • My American Revolution: Crossing the Delaware and I-78 by Robert Sullivan
  • My Misspent Youth by Megan Daum
  • The Nix by Nathan Hill (BPL)
  • The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life by Anu Partanen (BPL)
  • Nothing Like it In the World by Stephen Ambrose (BPL)
  • Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (BPL)
  • The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman 
  • Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil Degrasse Tyson (BPL)
  • Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent by E.J. Dionne (Hoopla)
  • The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough (BPL)
  • Peacemaking: How to Be It, How to Do It by Thich Nhat Hanh (BPL)
  • A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  • The pier falls : and other stories by Mark Haddon (MLN)
  • The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon (Hoopla)
  • The Pope and Mussolini by David I. Kertzer (MLN)
  • The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
  • The Power Broker by Robert Caro (BPL)
  • The Princess Bride by William Goldman (BPL)
  • The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood (Hoopla)
  • The regional office is under attack! by Manuel Gonzales (BPL)
  • Revolutionary Summer by Joseph Ellis (MLN)
  • River of Doubt by Candice Millard (BPL, MLN)
  • The Road to Little Dribbling (BPL, MLN)
  • The Round House by Louise Erdrich
  • Sabriel by Garth Nix (BPL, MLN)
  • Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore (BPL)
  • The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
  • Secret Life of Pronouns by James W. Pennebaker (Hoopla)
  • Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants by Jane Goodall (MLN)
  • The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
  • Slade House by David Mitchell
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (BPL, MLN)
  • The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mohandas Ghandi (Hoopla)
  • Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann
  • Time and Again by Jack Finney (BPL)
  • To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild (Hoopla)
  • To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (BPL, MLN)
  • A Triumph of Genius by Ronald K. Fierstien (Hoopla)
  • Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
  • Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (BPL)
  • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  • Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell (MLN)
  • Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
  • The Witches by Stacy Schiff
  • Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle (BPL)
  • The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna Finland (BPL, MLN, Hoopla)

Library Thing Early Reviewers

These are books I’ve received from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program that I haven’t reviewed.  Even if I don’t complete each book, I’d like to give them enough consideration to review them this year.

The 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge

If that’s not enough books to read, I also want to try Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge. I may be able to fill some of these in with the books I’ve already selected, but I’m open to suggestions whether they’re from the NYPL or from you in the comments below!

Read a horror book: Slade House by David Mitchell
Read a nonfiction book about science: Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery by Stephen J. Pyne
Read a collection of essays: My Misspent Youth by Megan Daum
Read a book out loud to someone else: Civil War on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne
Read a middle grade novel: Ben and Me by Robert Lawson
Read a biography (not memoir or autobiography): Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel: The Inventor’s Secret by Andrea Cremer
Read a book originally published in the decade you were born: The Great Bridge by David McCullough
Listen to an audiobook that has won an Audie Award: The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Read a book over 500 pages long: SPQR : A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
Read a book under 100 pages: Bambino by Tom Bruno
Read a book by or about a person that identifies as transgender: George by Alex Gino
Read a book that is set in the Middle East:  I Think of You by Ahdaf Soueif
Read a book that is by an author from Southeast Asia: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Read a book of historical fiction set before 1900: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Read the first book in a series by a person of color: The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland by Chiang Yee
Read a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years: Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis
Read a book that was adapted into a movie, then watch the movie.Debate which is better:
Read a nonfiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes: Feminism is for everybody : passionate politics by bell hooks
Read a book about religion (fiction or nonfiction): The Witches by Stacy Schiff
Read a book about politics, in your country or another (fiction or nonfiction): The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Read a food memoir: The Devil’s Picnic by Taras Grescoe
Read a play: The Anniversary Present by Larry Thomas
Read a book with a main character that has a mental illness: Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

Books Read in 2016

And here are the books I’ve actually read.  The books are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 stars with links to summary reviews.

Here’s a thumbnail of what the ratings mean:

  • 5 stars – all-time classic (I’m very stingy with these)
  • 4 stars – a particularly interesting, well-written, or important book
  • 3 stars – a good book from start to finish
  • 2 stars – not a good book on the whole but has some good parts
  • 1 star or less – basically a bad book with no redeeming values

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December