Year-End Lists

The San Francisco Chronicle: 100 Recommended Books of 2016

[see also Favorite Books of 2022 • 100 Recommended Books of 2018 • Top 10 Books of 2018 • Top 10 Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2015]

Fiction and Poetry

• Alice & Oliver
  Charles Bock
• All That Man Is
  David Szalay
• Another Brooklyn
  Jacqueline Woodson
• Behold the Dreamers
  Imbolo Mbue
• Carousel Court
  Joe McGinniss Jr.
• Commonwealth
  Ann Patchett
• Daredevils
  Shawn Vestal
• Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine
  Diane Williams
• For a Little While

  New and Selected Stories
  Rick Bass
• The Fortunes
  Peter Ho Davies
• A Gambler’s Anatomy
  Jonathan Lethem
• A Gentleman in Moscow
  Amor Towles
• Gesell Dome
  Guillermo Saccomanno
• The Girls
  Emma Cline
• Here Comes the Sun
  Nicole Dennis-Benn
• Here I Am
  Jonathan Safran Foer
• High Dive
  Jonathan Lee
• Homegoing
  Yaa Gyasi
• Hystopia
  David Means
• Innocents and Others
  Dana Spiotta
• The Jungle Around Us
  Anne Raeff
• The Kindness of Enemies
  Leila Aboulela
• LaRose
  Louise Erdrich
• The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
  Dominic Smith
• The Last Shift

  Poems
  Philip Levine
• The Little Red Chairs
  Edna O’Brien
• Look
  Solmaz Sharif
• Losing It
  Emma Rathbone
• Mister Monkey
  Francine Prose
• Monterey Bay
  Lindsay Hatton
• Moonglow
  Michael Chabon
• Mortal Trash
  Kim Addonizio
• My Name Is Lucy Barton
  Elizabeth Strout
• My Struggle

  Book Five
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Nest
  Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
• Night Sky With Exit Wounds
  Ocean Vuong
• Ninety-Nine Stories of God
  Joy Williams
• The Noise of Time
  Julian Barnes
• Nutshell
  Ian McEwan
• Pond
  Claire-Louise Bennett
• The Portable Veblen
  Elizabeth Mckenzie
• The Queen of the Night
  Alexander Chee
• The Red Car
  Marcy Dermansky
• Reputations
  Juan Gabriel Vásquez
• The Revolutionaries Try Again
  Mauro Javier Cardenas
• Serious Sweet
  A.L. Kennedy
• Shelter in Place
  Alexander Maksik
• Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty
  Ramona Ausubel
• Sudden Death
  Álvaro Enrigue. Translated by Natasha Wimmer
• Sweet Lamb of Heaven
  Lydia Millet
• Sweetbitter
  Stephanie Danler
• Swing Time
  Zadie Smith
• The Terranauts
  T.C. Boyle
• The Vegetarian
  Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith
• The Veins of the Ocean
  Patricia Engel
• Version Control
  Dexter Palmer
• What Belongs to You
  Garth Greenwell
• What Lies Between Us
  Nayomi Munaweera
• You Should Pity Us Instead
  Amy Gustine
• Zero K
  Don DeLillo

Nonfiction

• Against Everything

  Essays
  Mark Greif
• America’s Social Arsonist

  Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century
  Gabriel Thompson
• Am I Alone Here?

  Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live
  Peter Orner
• At the Existentialist Café

  Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
  Sarah Bakewell
• The Attention Merchants

  The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
  Tim Wu
• Born To Run
  Bruce Springsteen
• Children of Paradise

  The Struggle for the Soul of Iran
  Laura Secor
• Citizen Scientist

  Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction
  Mary Ellen Hannibal
• The Earth Is Weeping

  The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
  Peter Cozzens
• Eleanor Roosevelt

  The War Years And After, 1939-1962
  Blanche Wiesen Cook
• The Fire This Time

  A New Generation Speaks about Race
  Jesmyn Ward
• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice
  Patricia Bell-Scott
• The Gene

  An Intimate History
  Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Girls & Sex

  Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
  Peggy Orenstein
• The Gunning of America

  Business and the Making of American Gun Culture
  Pamela Haag
• Hillbilly Elegy

  A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
  J.D. Vance
• How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything

  Tales from the Pentagon
  Rosa Brooks
• Joe Gould’s Teeth
  Jill Lepore
• Kill ‘Em and Leave

  Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
  James McBride
• Known and Strange Things

  Essays
  Teju Cole
• The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict
  Austin Reed
• Louisa

  The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams
  Louisa Thomas
• “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”

  Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination
  Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf
• Nonstop Metropolis

  A New York City Atlas
  Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
• The Other Slavery

  The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
  Andrés Reséndez
• Pit Bull

  The Battle over an American Icon
  Bronwen Dickey
• The Red Parts

  Autobiography of a Trial
  Maggie Nelson
• Shame and Wonder

  Essays
  David Searcy
• Shirley Jackson

  A Rather Haunted Life
  Ruth Franklin
• Soul at the White Heat

  Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing Life
  Joyce Carol Oates
• Spain in Our Hearts

  Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
  Adam Hochschild
• Spiral

  Trapped in the Forever War
  Mark Danner
• Strangers in Their Own Land

  Anger and Mourning on the American Right
  Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Time Travel

  A History
  James Gleick
• The Way to the Spring

  Life and Death in Palestine
  Ben Ehrenreich
• We Have the Technology

  How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time
  Kara Platoni
• When We Are No More

  How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future
  Abby Smith Rumsey
• White Sands

  Experiences from the Outside World
  Geoff Dyer
• White Trash

  The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
  Nancy Isenberg
• Writing to Save a Life

  The Louis Till File
  John Edgar Wideman

The San Francisco Chronicle: Top 10 Books of 2016

[see also Favorite Books of 2022 • 100 Recommended Books of 2018 • Top 10 Books of 2018 • 100 Recommended Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2015]

Fiction

• Barkskins
  Annie Proulx
• Imagine Me Gone
  Adam Haslett
• The Past
  Tessa Hadley
• The Sport of Kings
  C.E. Morgan
• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction

• Dark Money

  The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
  Jane Mayer
• Evicted

  Poverty and Profit in the American City
  Matthew Desmond
• How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
  David France
• Secondhand Time

  The Last of the Soviets
  Svetlana Alexievich
• Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South
  Beth Macy

Kate Tuttle: 20 Best Nonfiction Books of 2016, as published by The Boston Globe

[see also 2017]

• All the Single Ladies

  Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation
  Rebecca Traister
• At the Existentialist Café

  Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
  Sarah Bakewell
• Black Elk

  The Life of an American Visionary
  Joe Jackson
• Blood at the Root

  A Racial Cleansing in America
  Patrick Phillips
• Blood in the Water

  The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
  Heather Ann Thompson
• Evicted

  Poverty and Profit in the American City
  Matthew Desmond
• Imbeciles

  The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck
  Adam Cohen
• Kill ‘Em and Leave

  Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
  James McBride
• Mad Enchantment

  Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
  Ross King
• Moscow Nights

  The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War
  Nigel Cliff
• On Trails

  An Exploration
  Robert Moor
• One of These Things First
  Steven Gaines
• Pit Bull

  The Battle over an American Icon
  Bronwen Dickey
• Shirley Jackson

  A Rather Haunted Life
  Ruth Franklin
• The Song Poet

  A Memoir of My Father
  Kao Kalia Yang
• Stamped from the Beginning

  The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
  Ibram X. Kendi
• Time Travel

  A History
  James Gleick
• Weapons of Math Destruction

  How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
  Cathy O’Neil
• White Rage

  The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
  Carol Anderson
• Writing to Save a Life

  The Louis Till File
  John Edgar Wideman

John Freeman: 15 Best Fiction Books of 2016, as published by The Boston Globe

[see also 2017]

• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead
• Ema the Captive
  César Aira
• LaRose
  Louise Erdrich
• In the Café of Lost Youth
  Patrick Modiano
• Barkskins
  Annie Proulx
• The Queen of the Night
  Alexander Chee
• The Fox Was Ever the Hunter
  Herta Müller
• The Year of the Runaways
  Sunjeev Sahota
• My Name Is Lucy Barton
  Elizabeth Strout
• The Good Lieutenant
  Whitney Terrell
• Thus Bad Begins
  Javier Marias
• Zero K
  Don DeLillo
• Our Young Man
  Edmund White
• The Story of a Brief Marriage
  Anuk Arudpragasam
• Secondhand Time

  The Last of the Soviets
  Svetlana Alexievich

Dennis Cooper: 52 Favorite Books of 2016 (“in no order”)

[see also 2019 • 2018 • 2012]

Fiction

• Suite for Barbara Loden
  Nathalie Leger
• Dodge Rose
  Jack Cox
• Ninety-Nine Stories of God
  Joy Williams
• Transitory
  Tobias Carroll
• Patricide
  D. Foy
• Experimental Animals (A Reality Fiction)
  Thalia Field
• The Orchid Stories
  Kenward Elmslie
• A Bestiary
  Lily Hoang
• The Knack of Doing
  Jeremy M. Davies
• Flamingos
  Grant Maierhofer
• Dreamlives of Debris
  Lance Olsen
• In Their Arms
  Thomas Moore
• The Map of the System of Human Knowledge
  James Tadd Adcox
• Novi Sad
  Jeff Jackson
• Thank You
  Zachary German
• A Collapse of Horses
  Brian Evenson
• I Hate the Internet
  Jarett Kobek
• Soft Split
  Szilvia Molnar
• Falter Kingdom
  Michael J. Seidlinger
• Tiny Fish that Only Want to Kiss
  Gary Indiana
• Margaret the First
  Danielle Dutton
• Weed Monks
  Chris Dankland
• Black Lavender Milk
  Black Lavender Milk
• The Sleep Garden
  Jim Krusoe
• You With Your Memory Are Dead
  Gary J Shipley
• Marigold
  Troy James Weaver
• Abahn Sabana David
  Marguerite Duras
• The In-Betweens
  Matthew Simmons
• Sex and Death
  Ben Tanzer
• Don’t Leave Me
  Stig Sæterbakken
• WAVES
  Lucy K Shaw
• A Tree or a Person or a Wall
  Matt Bell

Nonfiction

• Communal Nude

  Collected Essays
  Robert Glück
• Bresson on Bresson

  Interviews, 1943-1983
  Robert Bresson
• I/O

  A Memoir
  Brian Oliu
• AUTOMANIAS
  Sara Tuss Erick
• So Sad Today

  Personal Essays
  Melissa Broder
• Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories
  Robert Walser
• Bandit

  A Daughter’s Memoir
  Molly Brodak
• The Sky Isn’t Blue
  Janice Lee
• Super Mario Bros. 3
  Alyse Knorr
• The Narco-Imaginary

  Essays Under the Influence
  Ramsey Scott
• The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories
  Lynne Tillman
• Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970
  David Toop
• My Damage

  The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor
  Keith Morris and Jim Ruland
• hatefuck the reader
  Penny Goring
• WASTELAND
  New Juche
• Say Bye to Reason and Hi to Everything
  Andrew Durbin, Dodie Bellamy, Cecilia Corrigan, Amy De’Ath, Lynne Tillman, and Jackie Wang
• A Barbarian in Asia
  Henri Michaux
• Loud Idiots
  Sarah Jean Alexander
• An Individual Note Of Music, Sound And Electronics
  Daphne Oram
• Shock and Awe

  Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-first Century
  Simon Reynolds

Publishers Weekly: 10 Best Books of 2016

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Barkskins
   Annie Proulx
2. What Belongs to You
   Garth Greenwell
3. Blood in the Water

   The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
   Heather Ann Thompson
4. Evicted

   Poverty and Profit in the American City
   Matthew Desmond
5. Guilty Thing

   A Life of Thomas De Quincey
   Frances Wilson
6. A Kingdom of Their Own

   The Family Karzai and the Afghan Disaster
   Joshua Partlow
7. Ninety-Nine Stories of God
   Joy Williams
8. Secondhand Time

   The Last of the Soviets
   Svetlana Alexievich
9. The Underground Railroad
   Colson Whitehead
10. The Vegetarian
    Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith

Library Journal: 10 Best Books of 2016

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Evicted

   Poverty and Profit in the American City
   Matthew Desmond
2. In the Darkroom
   Susan Faludi
3. The Nix
   Nathan Hill
4. To the Bright Edge of the World

   A Novel
   Eowyn Ivey
5. The Gene

   An Intimate History
   Siddhartha Mukherjee
6. Blood at the Root

   A Racial Cleansing in America
   Patrick Phillips
7. While the City Slept

   A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man’s Descent into Madness
   Eli Sanders
8. American Heiress

   The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
   Jeffrey Toobin
9. All the Single Ladies

   Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation
   Rebecca Traister
10. The Underground Railroad
    Colson Whitehead

Sarah Begley: Top 20 Books of 2016, as published by Time Magazine

Fiction

1. The Underground Railroad
   Colson Whitehead
2. Another Brooklyn
   Jacqueline Woodson
3. Commonwealth
   Ann Patchett
4. Homegoing
   Yaa Gyasi
5. All the Birds in the Sky
   Charlie Jane Anders
6. Imagine Me Gone
   Adam Haslett
7. Swing Time
   Zadie Smith
8. The Trespasser
   Tana French
9. My Name Is Lucy Barton
   Elizabeth Strout
10. Here I Am
    Jonathan Safran Foer

Nonfiction

1. March

   Book Three
   John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
2. Hillbilly Elegy

   A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
   J.D. Vance
3. You’ll Grow Out of It
   Jessi Klein
4. Known and Strange Things

   Essays
   Teju Cole
5. Hidden Figures

   The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
   Margot Lee Shetterly
6. Shirley Jackson

   A Rather Haunted Life
   Ruth Franklin
7. Lab Girl
   Hope Jahren
8. Kill ‘Em and Leave

   Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
   James McBride
9. The Constitution Today

   Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era
   Akhil Reed Amar
10. Girls & Sex

    Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
    Peggy Orenstein

Maria Popova: 16 Favorite Books of 2016

[see also 2018 • 2015]

1. The Lonely City

   Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
   Olivia Laing
2. Hope in the Dark

   Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
   Rebecca Solnit
3. Upstream

   Selected Essays
   Mary Oliver
4. Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
   Janna Levin
5. Time Travel

   A History
   James Gleick
6. The View from the Cheap Seats

   Selected Nonfiction
   Neil Gaiman
7. Hold Still

   A Memoir with Photographs
   Sally Mann
8. Anger and Forgiveness

   Resentment, Generosity, Justice
   Martha C. Nussbaum
9. Unforbidden Pleasures

   Rethinking Authority, Power, and Vitality
   Adam Phillips
10. The Course of Love

    A Novel
    Alain de Botton
11. The Gutsy Girl

    Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure
    Caroline Paul
12. Hidden Figures

    The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
    Margot Lee Shetterly
13. Becoming Wise

    An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
    Krista Tippett
14. The Abundance

    Narrative Essays Old and New
    Annie Dillard
15. When Breath Becomes Air
    Paul Kalanithi
16. Pinocchio

    The Origin Story
    Alessandro Sanna

Maureen Corrigan: 10 Best Books of 2016 (as aired on NPR’s Fresh Air)

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2015 • 2011]

1. The Underground Railroad
   Colson Whitehead
2. Homegoing
   Yaa Gyasi
3. Underground Airlines
   Ben H. Winters
4. Here I Am
   Jonathan Safran Foer
5. The Wonder
   Emma Donoghue
6. The Lonely City

   Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
   Olivia Laing
7. Eleanor Roosevelt

   The War Years And After, 1939-1962
   Blanche Wiesen Cook
8. Eyes On The Street

   The Life Of Jane Jacobs
   Robert Kanigel
9. Born To Run
   Bruce Springsteen
10. When Breath Becomes Air
    Paul Kalanithi