Can I ask for the best book you've read in 2016?

[EverySongbirdSays]

It doesn't matter what genre, whether it's YA or adult or what year it was originally written in or whether it's fiction or non-fiction. Tell me what made it "best"

I used to read a lot and I just burned out of it, I realise I really miss it and want to get back into it so I'm building an Amazon wishlist to work through

All Suggestions Welcome

I absolutely loved H is for Hawk, Helen MaccDonald, although I have no interest in hawks whatsoever. Beautiful book about grieving and coming to terms with loss.

I keep thinking I should keep a spreadsheet of the books I read, but it seems so over the top.. until I AGAIN buy the same book because I forgot I already read it. I do subscribe to Amazon Unlimited, and find it really easy to get my 10 or so books a month that way.

I've just read Lost in Static by Christina Philippou - first book I've finished this year I think! I really enjoyed reliving university memories :)

What is part one KateInKorea ?

I will take note Penguin and Granny

I didn't like the recent one about the crows, which put me off another book about birds

Cool, I've put the first one on, see how I go.

The Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith. First one is The Sunday Philosophy Club.

The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian.

Placemarking. Thanks OP

Americanah. Really enjoyed it. The author is a very wise and insightful woman. Look forward to what she writes next.

I Loved: The Gargoyle, The Light Between Oceans and The Snow Child were all great. Easy of Eden and The Thorn Birds are my favs! Also anything by Paulina Simonds (read The Bronze Horseman first...very good!!)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas author) is just astonishing. It is set in Nagasaki in the 18th century and is a fantastic insight into Japan before contact with the west, so a great historical novel, but also a gripping adventure and a love story full of virtuoso writing, it just really stays with you, I didn't want it to end and closed the book with an astonished and satisfied 'oooh'.

I loved Elizabeth is Missing.
And Ruby by Cynthia Boyd. Quite disturbing but also strangely beautiful.
I want a good thriller to read; I've read some right crap ones.

I also second 'When Breath Becomes Air' which is a moving read. If you read that, you may also want to read 'Do No Harm' by Henry Marsh, a brain surgeon who is brutally honest about his job and the limits of human knowledge in operating on our brains.

I also loved the Bone Collectors Daughter by Amy Tan. Set in present day San Francisco and historical China.

Also Ben Elton Time and Time Again. Fascinating premise about what would you do if you could go back in time to one event that totally changed the course of history and stop it? Don't want to give much more away but it was really worth reading and very well done.

I've been re-reading a few things recently. I'd forgotten how good The Road is, so stark and simple but moving.

Providence by Anita Brookner.

The Humans by Matt Haig.

Also, Of Mice and Men.

Lots of gaps here. I'm inspired by all the reader upthread,

Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train
The Swimming Pool
Em Bailey - Shift

OK

Destiny I have Americanah haven't started it

september Light Between Oceans is BRILLIANT, I'm looking forward to film, also love Thorn Birds, I've read Girl In Times Square by Paulina Simons, reminded me of Binchy

Charley got it

Needles thanks

whattheseith Is it hard work? Cloud Atlas was quite hard work

Scottish felt like Detective Agency got repetitive. Similar?

semi read The Humans, read Mice & Men - noted the other.

Cocktail I couldn't get into girl on the train, will try again
Who is Swimming Pool by?

The Door by Magda Szabo (translated from Czech). I'd never heard of her and picked it up randomly in Foyles'. It's incredibly good from the first sentence.

Also good is Eimear McBride's The Lesser Bohemians which is more accessible in style than A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, and about a drama student's affair with an older actor in London in the 90s.

If you're compiling a list of anti-recommendations, the worst book I think I've read this year is Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, which is the kind of misery porn that likes getting the reader intrigued as to what further horrors it can heap on its main character. If you enjoy a relentless parade of child sex abuse, neglect, a disability involving continual pain, self-harm, domestic abuse, rape, bereavement etc etc - and this is all the same character -- then this is the novel for you.

What, just one?!

If I'm that restrictes, I'll plump for Robin Hobb's books about the Fitz, I think.

Have a look through MN's general adult book forum (it's called What We're Reading) if people stop posting on this thread.

Shatner I have The Road somewhere, I think I've misplaced it. I was going to read it and then I heard about the baby.

Destiny I like the idea, but not really his style of writing

Sorry, Songbird, I realised you wanted more than straight-up titles.

Providence for its heroine who drives on past her wedding, and its careful evaluation of women.

The Humans, because it is just brilliant - on a par with Curious Incident. DS (12 at the time) loved it too. Imperfection & embodiment vs. rationality and infinity. Much loved.

Of Mice and Men because it is so short and so subtle.