This is a list of the books, I read in 2016 that I found to be okay to fabulous. However after participating in writing critique groups for the last 25 years or so and book clubs for the past 45 years, I appreciate an author’s effort and recognize that different people have different tastes. Therefore the books I found entirely dull or horrible are simply excluded from the list and there is no ranking system among titles. If you choose to read books off my list you will have to make your own decision about what you like.
You will see I like to read in series and a body of work by a singular author. I often do this to try to have a better understanding of the writer and their form of storytelling to figure out what I can learn from their efforts. As you will see from the assembled lis, I don’t just read “fine literature.” I read children’s books, non-fiction, fantasy, science fiction, novels, memoir self help books, romance and history. I read for escape, enjoyment, sometimes for a world where magic or good people can set the world to rights within a few hundred pages. This feels especially important when the real world around me becomes harsh and people act in ways that are unrecognizable to me.
I share this list because I am so often asked for recommendations. I hope you discover something new that delights you among these many authors and their efforts. If you are seeking to purchase some of these titles may I suggest supporting your local independent bookseller as my family owned my hometown bookstore for years. If you don’t have one nearby, I’d like to recommend a few favorites of mine: Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, NH; Belmont Books in Belmont, MA; The Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY; An Unlikely Story in Plainview, MA; Books and Books in Key West, FL; Oblong Books in Rheinbeck, NY; Still North Books and Bar in Hannover, NH; Longfellow Books in Portland, ME; Print, A Bookstore in Portland, ME and Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN. I’ve found the booksellers in each shop knowledgable and they all seem to have good fulfillment when ordering from them on line.
The 2016 List
Title | Author |
Boys in the Trees | Carly simon |
Goodnight Nobody | Jennifer Weiner |
The White Queen | Phillippa Gregory |
Accused | Lisa Scottoline |
One Plus One | Jojo Moyes |
Body Movers | Stephanie Bond |
Working for Bigfoot | Jim Butcher |
Skin Game | Jim Butcher |
Hawaii | James A Michener |
The Ship of Brides | Jojo Moyes |
Furiously Happy | Jenny Lawson |
Please Ignore V | A. S. King |
And We Stay | Jenny Hubbard |
Cold Days | Jim Butcher |
I Was Told There ,,, Cake | Sloane Crosley |
The Aeronaut’s … | Jim Butcher |
False Impression | Jeffery Archer |
Ghost Story | Jim Butcher |
Not a Penny More | Jeffery Archer |
Everbody’s Fool | Richard Russo |
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto | Mitch Albom |
A Prisoner of Birth | Jeffery Archer |
The Calling | Kelley Armstrong |
My Sunshine… | M/ O/ Walsh |
The New Rules of Marriage | Terrence Real |
The Raven King | Maggie Stiefvater |
Small Favor | Jim Butcher |
The Gathering q | Kelly Armstrong |
Fool Moon | Jim Butcher |
Barchester Towers | Anthony Trollope |
Summer Knight | Jim Butcher |
Prodigal Summer | Barbara Kingsolver |
Death Masks | Jim Butcher |
The Litigators | John Grisham |
The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Woo | Junot Diaz |
Mistress of the ?? | Ariana Franklin |
Did you Ever Have … | Bill Clegg |
The Art of Baking … | Sarah Vaughn |
The Night Circus | Erin Morgenstern |
Storm Front | Jim Butcher |
Etta Otto Russell and James | Emma Hooper |
Glory Road | Robert A Heinlein |
The Bees | Laline Paul |
River Road | Carol Goodman |
Crave Peril | Jim Butcher |
One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
Fallen | Lauren Kate |
The Sweet Spot | Stephanie Bond |
Lamb | Christopher Moore |
H is for Hawk | Helen Mcdonald |
Behind the Bea… | Katherine Boo |
We Were Liars | E. Lockhart |
Rising Strong | Brené Brown |
A Dance With Dragons | George R. R. Martin |
TAlon | Julie Kagawa |
A Feast of Crows | George R. R. Martin |
Storm of Swords | George R. R. Martin |
In Montmartre | Sue Roe |
Billy Collins Live | Billy Collins |
Clash of Kings | George R. R. Martin |
Ruby Red | Kerstin Gier |
A Game of Thrones | George R. R. Martin |
The Selection | Kierra Cass |
The Lost Hero | Rick Riordan |
Revolution | Russell Brand |
Don’t Get Too… | David Rake-off |
Good Omens | Neil Gaiman |
Big Magic | Elizabeth Gilbert |
What Comes Next and How to Like It | Abigail Thomas |
Court of Fives | Kate Elliot |
If I Stay | Gayle Foreman |
A Walk in the Woods | Bill Bryson |
Let’s Pretend The… | Jenny Lawson |
Make Me | Lee Child |
The Sweet Spot | Stephanie Evanovitch |
White Night | Jim Butcher |
Proven Guilty | Jim Butcher |
Dead Beat | Jim Butcher |
Blood Rites | Jim Butcher |
Wonder | R. J. Palacio |
Virgins: An Outlander Short | Diana Gabaldon |
The Only Street In Paris | Elaine Sciolino |
Lady Susan | Jane Austen |
Autobiography of A Yogi | Paramashansa Yogananda |
The Art of Raising a Puppy | Monks of New Skete |
Land of Love and Drowning | TIphanie Yanique |
Americanah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
It’s Always Something | Gilda Radner |
My Brilliant Friend | Elena Ferrante |
The Virgin Way: Everything I Know about Leadership | Richard Branson |
Go Set a Watchman | Harper Lee |
Daring Greatly | Brené Brown |
Chosen at NightFall | C.C. Hunter |
The Wright Brothers | David McCullough |
Whispers at Moonrise | C.C. Hunter |
Blue Lily, Lily Blue | Maggie Stiefvater |
The Dream of Thieves | Maggie Stiefvater |
The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins |
Into the Wilderness | Sara Donati |
The Reluctant Psychic | Suzan Victoria Saxman |
Taken at Dusk | C.C. Hunter |
Orphan Train | Christina Baker Kline |
Einstein: His Life and Universe | Walter Isaacson |
Awake at Dawn | C.C. Hunter |
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation | Micheal Pollan |
The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love | Michelle Maisto |
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker | Jennifer Chiaverini |
Rules of Civility | Amor Towles |
Paint the Wind | Pam Muñoz Ryan |
Bloomability | Sharon Creech |
Heartbeat | Sharon Creech |
Walk Two Moons | Sharon Creech |
The Book of Life | Deborah Harkness |
The Space Between | Diana Gabaldon |
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood | Diana Gabaldon |
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know | Alexandra Horowitz |
The Secret History | Donna Tart |
Watcher in the Woods | Robert Liparulo |
Born at Midnight | C.C. Hunter |
HIs Majesty’s Dragon | Naomi Novik |
Tigers in Red Weather | Liza Klaussmann |
The Language of Flowers | Vanessa Diffenbaugh |
The Goldfinch | Donna Tart |
Sycamore Row | John Grisham |
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism | Doris Kearns Goodwin |
Road to Burgundy: The Unlikely Story of American Making Wine and New Life in France | Ray Walker |
The Fault in Our Stars | John Green |
The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food | Ben Hewitt |
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | Jonathan Safran Foer |
Let It Bleed | Ian Rankin |
The Black Book | Ian Rankin |
The Rosie Project | Graeme Simsion |
Strip Jack | Ian Rankin |
Back to Work Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy | Bill Clinton |
Hide and Seek | Ian Rankin |
Standing in Another Man’s Grave | Ian Rankin |