2016: The Year in Books

This past year I read 92 books, eight short of my goal of 100. I guess if I wanted to reach for the number I could also count the additional 15 books that I listened to on my phone while running or driving. But I won't. Let's leave it at 92. And seeing as the year ends in a few days I don't think I'll be adding any more notches to this bedpost for the year. Below I will breakdown what I read and do something very gimmicky: list my book of the year.

Fiction
Of that 92, they breakdown into genres as follows: 41 novels, 25 theology/philosophy, five dramas, nine that focus on cultural or sociological issues, five on literary criticism, three on athletics, two on education, and two epic poems. Of the novels, roughly half were rereads, eight exceeded 600 pages in length, 14 were written within the past five years, 19 would count as canonical/Important books, five would count as genre fiction (mystery or sci/fi), and the rest were the new ones for which it's too soon to tell or ones that I read for the hell of it. My favorites, only including new reads were:

Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and In Shadow
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord
David James Duncan, The River Why

I also read The Catcher in the Rye for the first time this year. I was mostly unimpressed, undoubtedly because I am too old and phony.

Theology/Philosophy
Of the theology/philosophy books, most were from the past 30 years, four would qualify as intellectual biographies, two were essay collections, and the rest more straightforward philosophical or theological treatises, usually on a particular point. My favorites were as follows:

Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head
Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought
Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Plato at the Googolplex

Sociology/Culture
The only other category I'll cover in any depth is the sociological/cultural books. Here my favorite was far and away Michael Lewis's The Big Short, which doubles as one of my favorite movies of the year. I was also greatly entertained by Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. 

Read this book NOW!

Best Book of the Year
My favorite overall book of the year was Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head. I wrote about it extensively on this blog, though not nearly as much as it deserved. Since reading it, anytime that I have spoken with someone who is lamenting anything about the state of our world I recommend Crawford's book. And thus I do for you as well. Read it. I'll post in a day or two some reading reflections and ambitions for 2017.