Favorite Books of 2016

I'm not really good at introducing lists.

So here are some favorite books I read during 2016. Let me know what you think! What should I read in 2017? What were some of your favorites of the year?


Biggest surprise: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

Favorite book every white person should read: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Favorite book by an author I read for the first time: Austerlitz by W. G. Seabald

Most beautiful prose on fly fishing I’ve ever read (and some of the most beautiful prose period): A River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean

Favorite canonical novel I should have read a long time ago: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Favorite graphic novel: Saga: Volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Favorite novel I should have finished by now: The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

Favorite oral history: Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich

Favorite essay collection: The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson

Favorite short story collection: The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley


Favorite poetry collection: Requiem for Used Ignition Cap by J. Scott Brownlee