Monday, January 2, 2017

2016 in Review

I read 48 books in 2016—17 more than I did in 2015! I feel like I'm back on track with my reading. This was a terrific year in books. I probably have way more than 10 favorites, but I'll try to narrow the list down:

Top 10 Books Read in 2016

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
Inside the O'Briens (Lisa Genova)*****
Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (Rachel Joyce)
Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)
Nightingale, The (Kristen Hannah)
Ordinary Grace (William Kent Krueger)
Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)
Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce)
Burgess Boys (Elizabeth Strout)
Commonwealth (Ann Patchett)

I'm having a lot of trouble picking my favorite book of the year, but I think I'm going to have to go with All the Light We Cannot See. But really, all the books in my Top 10 were incredible!

Book Club Review

One of the books on my Top 10 list was a book club book (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry), and four of them were books that didn't make this year's book club list! Other book club reads this year were:
Day the World Came to Town (Jim DeFede)***
Death at Wentwater Court (Carola Dunn)*
Geography of Genius (Eric Weiner)****
Lake House (Kate Morton)****
Learning to Swim (Sarah Henry)***
Me Before You (JoJo Moyes)****
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Alan Bradley)**
War That Saved My Life (Kimberly Bradley(***)
Wild (Cheryl Strayed)****
World War Z (Max Brooks)**


TBR List 
I apparently only crossed off 11 books on my TBR list… although I probably didn't add very many this year. I've been adding more in Goodreads and forgetting to add to my blog's TBR. I also pin a lot of new titles on my "I Cannot Live Without Books" board on Pinterest. I have a huge stack of books that I bought over Christmas break at used book stores/thrift stores, but I've mostly been reading on my Kindle whatever TBR books are available on the E-Reads program from our library.


Goals
I liked how I reviewed books each month in 2016 rather than reviewing each book. I felt less stressed about getting reviews done. I set a goal of reading 50 books this year, and I'd like to add a few more nonfiction titles in this year. I think I only read a couple of nonfiction last year.

The Whole List
Below are all the books I read this year. My star-ranking system is as follows: 5 stars--absolutely must read; 4 stars--highly recommended; 3 stars--enjoyable; 2 stars--ick; 1 star--no, no, no.

5 comments:

Sheila said...

We read and enjoyed many of the same books!
Light Between Oceans was one of my favourites for my 2015 reading.

My list is here:
http://seattlemomoftwo.blogspot.com/2016/12/books-read-in-2016.html

Christine said...

I love looking at your book reviews/list... we have very similar tastes in books! Still need to read All the Light We Cannot See, though. Too many books, too little time...

Have you heard of Litsy? It's an app that is a sort of a cross between Instagram and Goodreads. I'm not at all into most social media, but I found that there are lots of fun bookish people there to chat about books with. :)

Sarah at SmallWorld said...

I will have to check into Litsy, thanks!

Vagabond Recon777 said...

I need to review books I read and start a blog. I've never heard of most of these authors. I plan on increasing the number of books I read in 2017. For some reason I've been reading a lot of navy books. I just love CS Forester, and game already read the African queen in 2017. One goal is to finish all the Hornblower series. I lean much stronger to non-fiction myself. Sarah didn't you read that book on smell last year?

Vagabond Recon777 said...

I need to review books I read and start a blog. I've never heard of most of these authors. I plan on increasing the number of books I read in 2017. For some reason I've been reading a lot of navy books. I just love CS Forester, and have already read the African queen in 2017. One goal is to finish all the Hornblower series. I lean much stronger to non-fiction myself. Sarah didn't you read that book on smell last year?