Sheryl K.'s Top Books of 2016

Happy New Year Readers!

This year I balanced work with tons of reading (56 books, 10 of them non-fiction), and even some yoga.  Webster enjoyed several adventures, like camping in New Hampshire with Sasha, and officiating a wedding in LA.  Sasha loves preschool and shines as a big sister.  Micah started walking and talking and just won't stop!  We all went to Montauk for my sister's wedding, to Block Island with Web's family, and back to Osterville on the Cape for some summer fun.  I caught Hamilton fever, and got to see it in NYC! The kids are really starting to enjoy books on their own, too. 

But onto the books.  I really enjoyed reading this year, and figured out how to get better at it during my commute.  Hands down, my favorite book this year was A Little Life.  It’s not for everyone, with its depictions of abuse and pain, but I found it just beautiful.

Rounding out my “Sweet Sixteen” of fiction are the following:

Two books I enjoyed for their ingenuity in plot and twists were Fingersmith, which could have been written by Charles Dickens (but wasn’t), and Fates and Furies.

My delight in science-fiction didn’t wane this year.  Station Eleven and Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last depicted vastly different (but equally awful) post-apocalyptic worlds.  Woman on the Edge of Time was a wonderful story about a woman’s experience in a mental institution, and her contact there with the future.  And Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore was a sharp commentary on the contrast between human intelligence and machine learning.

I enjoyed two Norwegian books, which is totally random.  But I’ll look for more this year, after liking these two so much.  Both were mysteries, The Indian Bride more traditional, and The Swimmer more of a thriller.

There’s not much of a theme to the other books I loved this year.  Kitchens of the Great Midwest was a charming set of connected stories about a woman’s coming of age as a chef.  In Tell the Wolves I’m Home, a young woman befriends her deceased uncle’s gay partner.  A social worker tries to help an isolationist family, as his own family falls apart, in Fourth of July Creek. Isabelle Allende's Island Beneath the Sea was a well-researched story of slavery.

I returned to some of my favorite authors this year as well.  Sibling disfunction and loyalty are at the center of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth, while Jonathan Safron Foer’s Here I Am tackles both the American Jewish experience and the conflict in Israel.  China Dolls is a rich immigrant story about young women in San Francisco in the 1930’s and ‘40’s.

Some of the non-fiction I enjoyed the most was by Anne Lamott, my new favorite author.  Her Operating Instructions is a must-read for parents, and Traveling Mercies might just help anyone’s heart these days.  Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior is a memoir, but also a soul-soother; she is the next generation of Lamott.  And Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memoir of baseball and of her happy childhood outside of NYC, Wait Till Next Year, was lovely.

If all this is too high-brow for you, I had a ball with Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians and its sequel, China Rich Girlfriend.  Great beach reads, vacation reads, or just downtime reads that follow a group of uber-rich friends and enemies across Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China.

Happy Reading to all, and to all a Good Year!