This horrendously long image shows all of the books I read in 2016. I love many things about Goodreads: It helps me share books I love with friends and get recommendations from the books they loved, it alerts me to new books I might like based on past books read and, most importantly to me, it keeps track of the books I consume so I can refer back to them later.

In 2016 I read 86 books, a total of 27,993 pages ranging in book length of 186 pages to 766 pages and averaging out at 341 pages per book. My average rating to the books I read was 3.2 stars, giving some validity to Outside’s theory that I rate books a little too critically. Goodreads isn’t perfect, at all, and was quick to point out what I read turned out to be most and least popular with it’s members, I had to work to see what got my highest and lowest ratings.

My favorite books of 2016 were:

  •  The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
  • The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
  • My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Frederik Backman

I tried to locate my least favorite book for the year and all I will say is that it was the longest book I read. That earned only one star. I was pretty liberal with two star ratings, handing out 11 of those.

My 2016 reading list

At the beginning of 2016 I started to do a reading challenge that would put me on course to read books by more diverse authors. I hated the challenge through. I found myself selecting books based not on if they interested me but on the color of the author’s skin. I felt guilty about it but I quickly dropped the challenge. I needn’t have worried!

This past year I read more books by people of color and people from different countries that I ever have before. My embracing audio books, I was able to consume more and persist through some more difficult books that, in truth, if that had been in print, I might have stopped. I feel better, smarter and like my world is bigger for heaving had so much diversity in my literary life.

Some common themes across this past year are four authors: Matthew Quick, Kathy Reichs, Alan Bradley and Kerry Greenwood. It’s such a wonderful thing when you find an author or a series you really like!

All of the books I read in 2016, listed in chronological order by date read:

  • The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
  • Ghosts of Bergen County by Dana Cann
  • What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
  • The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (Flavia de Luce, #2) by Alan Bradley
  • Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
  • At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen
  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1) by Alan Bradley
  • Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
  • A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce, #3) by Alan Bradley
  • The Considerate Killer (Nina Borg, #4) by Lene Kaaberbøl
  • A Good Doctor’s Son by Steven Schwartz
  • In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson
  • When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  • I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia de Luce, #4) by Alan Bradley
  • Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce, #5) by Alan Bradley
  • Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
  • The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
  • My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Novels #1) by Elena Ferrante
  • Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
  • Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
  • No Shred of Evidence (Inspector Ian Rutledge, #18) by Charles Todd
  • The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
  • The Girl in the Well Is Me by Karen Rivers
  • The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce, #6) by Alan Bradley
  • The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
  • Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
  • What the Waves Know by Tamara Valentine
  • The Doomsday Key (Sigma Force, #6) by James Rollins
  • Boy 21 by Matthew Quick
  • The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor
  • The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
  • Summerland by Michael Chabon
  • The Passage (The Passage, #1) by Justin Cronin
  • The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen,
  • The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
  • Me Before You (Me Before You, #1) by Jojo Moyes
  • Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
  • The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
  • Nor The Moon by Night by Joy Packer
  • And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard
  • Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick
  • How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
  • No Direction Home: A Novel by Maria Silver
  • A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray by James Renner
  • Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengiste
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
  • Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb
  • Girl at War by Sara Nović
  • Virals (Virals, #1) by Kathy Reichs
  • Zac and Mia by A.J. Betts
  • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  • The Rocks by Peter Nichols
  • Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  • What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins
  • Seizure (Virals, #2) by Kathy Reichs
  • Code (Virals, #3) by Kathy Reichs
  • The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
  • Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher, #1) by Kerry Greenwood
  • Flying Too High (Phryne Fisher, #2) by Kerry Greenwood
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  • Murder on the Ballarat Train (Phryne Fisher, #3) by Kerry Greenwood
  • The Yard (Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, #1) by Alex Grecian
  • Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman
  • Death at Victoria Dock (Phryne Fisher, #4) by Kerry Greenwood
  • The Guineveres by Sarah Domet
  • The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
  • The Green Mill Murder (Phryne Fisher, #5) by Kerry Greenwood
  • Blood and Circuses (Phryne Fisher, #6) by Kerry Greenwood
  • The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
  • Ruddy Gore (Phryne Fisher, #7) by Kerry Greenwood
  • Exposure (Virals, #4) by Kathy Reichs
  • Terminal (Virals, #5) by Kathy Reichs
  • The Black Country (Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, #2) by Alex Grecian
  • We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas
  • Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
  • Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles, #3) by Jeffrey Archer
  • Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2) by Leigh Bardugo
  • Trace Evidence: A Virals Short Story Collection by Kathy Reichs
  • Smoke by Catherine McKenzie
  • My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Frederik Backman
  • Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
  • Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule by Jennifer Chiaverini
  • Urn Burial (Phryne Fisher, #8) by Kerry Greenwood
  • Raisins and Almonds (Phryne Fisher, #9) by Kerry Greenwood