In 2014, I started a Facebook Book Group called 14 Books in 2014. You can read the original post here if you are so inclined. The idea was for a group of book lovers to share which books they read that year as well as how many. At the end of 2014, I shared all my titles and handed out a few awards (post on that here). Last year I shared what I had read in 2015 (post here). And that's what today's post is for...the books I read in 2016. Feel free to join in the fun here if you're interested. If you're already a member of my group, you've seen all the titles as I've read them throughout the year, but here they all are without further ado, in one nice, neat list for you.
My 2016 reads were:
#1 The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
#2 The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
#3 Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
#4 The Blondes by Emily Schultz
#5 Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
#6 Me Before You by JoJo Meyes
#7 Calvin by Martine Leavitt
#8 Walden on Wheels by Ken Ilgunas
#9 The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
#10 The Passage by Justin Cronin
#11 The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
#12 Matilda by Roald Dahl
#13 The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon
#14 The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
#15 The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
#16 The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey
#17 Veronica Mars The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
#18 Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams
#19 Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts by Susan Cain
#20 The Good Girl by Mary Kubica
#21 The Girls by Emma Cline
#22 Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It by Various Authors
#23 Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica
#24 The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
#25 Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam
#26 Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
#27 Love That Boy by Ron Fournier
#28 The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
#29 Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
#30 The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
#31 The Power of Play by David Elkind
#32 All The Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
#33 We Are Unprepared by Meg Little Reilly
#34 Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica
#35 The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood
#36 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#37 Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
#38 Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
My total went up 3 books this year. 38 books for 2016...break it down:
30 were fiction. 8 were nonfiction. Actually, I feel like that's a bit misleading. The three books I read by Melanie Benjamin were based on real people and events. Benjamin does a fictional imagining of what these real people were thinking and feeling. Let's count them as fiction with a twist of nonfiction, mmmkay?
Two recurring authors this year: Melanie Benjamin and Mary Kubica
27 Never Before Read Authors (actually more than that if you count all the authors from Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It, but I'm not going to): Kathleen Grissom, Kristin Hannah, Emily Schultz, JoJo Meyes, Martine Leavitt, Ken Ilgunas, Justin Cronin, Mary Karr, Alena Graedon, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, Karan Mahajan, M.R. Carey, Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham, Beatriz Williams, Mary Kubica, Melanie Benjamin, Rumaan Alam, Ron Fournier, Daphne Du Maurier, David Elkind, Bryn Greenwood, Meg Little Reilly, Monica Wood, Maggie Shipstead, J.D. Vance, and a bunch of essay writers in Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It
Books with movie or television series tie-ins: Me Before You (haven't seen it), Matilda, (only seen small snippets), The Girl With All The Gifts, (forthcoming), and Veronica Mars The Thousand Dollar Tan Line (haven't seen it and don't want to), The Handmaid's Tale (forthcoming on Hulu)
And now for the awards...let's start with some new ones.
The "Mammoth Award" goes to...The Passage
This one was a monster of a book. It was well worth the time invested.
The "Resonating Book on Writing" goes to...Big Magic
It's a rare book on writing...or creating anything for that matter.
The "Let's All Pay Homage to the Road This Woman Paved" Award goes to...Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
People talk all the time about the likes of female writers who tell creepy, eerie, murderous tales like Gillian Flynn, Mary Kubica, and Paula Hawkins. Du Maurier precedes them all in a stellar manner. This is the one to read.
The "Most Intriguing Premise" Award goes to...Calvin by Martine Leavitt
Ever wonder what became of Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes... this is an interesting take on that.
The "I Read Everything This Writer Has Written This Year" Award goes to..
Melanie Benjamin and Mary Kubica
And for some repeat awards...
Best Author Find... Melanie Benjamin, hands down
I love the way she fictionalizes real people and events.
The "Stayed With Me The Longest in an Unsettling but Fascinating Way" Award goes to...
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Atwood has won this award from me before with Oryx and Crake. I suspect she will win it again someday.)
The "Page Turner" Award...Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Seriously, I had to find out what happened at that barbeque.
"Made Me Cry" Award...The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood
I won't tell you why. No spoilers here!
It's 2017, and I'll be changing the name of the group today. If you'd like to join, you can do so right here. Here's to more books in the New Year!
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