2016 was equal parts wonderful and hard, full and lonely. I finished grad school, we decided to stick around Fay town, and I started my first "real" job (!!). Through it all, lots of reading.
Books of the year originally started in 2013 as a way to read more and keep myself accountable to something I loved doing. The idea was to read the number of books that correlated with how old I was that year. 21 books for my year of being 21, etc. You can read about previous years here and here.
I've always been passionate about books and reading. Now more than ever, I see the importance in it. Reading teaches us to take on another's perspective, to agree or disagree. To engage in a story that's different than our own. Reading helps with that connection and I think it helps us build bridges in ways that most other things can't. And in a life that's so saturated with technology and ads and quick fixes, a physical book slows me down. For that, I'm grateful.
I've kept up my annual reading challenge but decided to bump up my goal to 40 books this year.
I read several classics and finally worked my way through a few books that had been sitting on the shelf FOREVER. I'm slowly purging books and only keeping ones that I love! I still love thrifting books but I find the books I'm most excited to read most often come from the library.
All of that said, my 2016 list! In order they were read..
1. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
2. French Women Don't Get Fat
3. The Interestings
4. The Alchemist
5. The Secret Garden
6. Scary Close
7. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
8. When Breath Becomes Air
9. The Things We Keep
10. The Kitchen House
11. Still Alice
12. For the Love
13. The Color Purple
14. Me Before You
15. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
16. The Nightingale
17. The Shootist
18. Two Across
19. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
20. Carry On, Warrior
21. The Language of Flowers
22. Olive Kitteridge
23. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
24. My Berlin Kitchen
25. The Dinner
26. The Westing Game
27. Number the Stars
28. But You Did Not Come Back
29. The Nest
30. The Dirty Life
31. The Boston Girl
32. A Man Called Ove
33. Calling Me Home
34. The Bell Jar
35. A Little Life
36. The Other Wes Moore
37. The Girls
38. The Astronaut Wives Club
39. Homegoing
40. Daring Greatly
41. Present Over Perfect
42. The Underground Railroad
43. Into Thin Air
44. News of the World
Favorites: Homegoing, The Nightingale, Calling Me Home. GIMME ALL THE HISTORICAL FICTION.
Honorable Mention: A Little Life (still reeling from this book), The Underground Railroad, The Kitchen House
2016 was a solid year for reading and I'm already eager to get rolling on my 2017 booklist. Did you read any really great books this year? Will you set a reading goal for next year? Find me on goodreads and let's be friends!
Happy reading!