Books I Read in 2016 (and My Top 11)

To me, reading is as essential as breathing, eating, and sleeping. If I didn’t do it, I’d be miserable.

What disturbs me is that I spent years reading what I was required to read, and hardly any time reading what I wanted to read.

I read for pleasure from age five to eighteen, but after I started college, my pleasure reading dropped like an anvil from a cliff. From about age 18 until my early 30s, I read mostly textbooks, books, newspapers, case studies, and articles related to my studies and work, but hardly any marvelous novels or great works of non-fiction. I’m extremely bummed that I will never get that time back to read. And I have no one to blame but myself.

To make up for lost time, this first year of being a full-time writer has also been my year of being a full-time reader. Here are the 67 books I read in 2016. They are listed in the order in which I read them.

I decided to challenge myself and pick the Top 11 Books (I tried to pick ten but it was too hard) that I really enjoyed and/or changed me for the better. These books are in bold. While I enjoyed many of the books I read this year, these eleven hold a special place in my heart, and I highly recommend them.

1. Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin
2. Cracked Pomegranate by Fae Bidgoli
3. Swimming in the American: A Memoir and Selected Writings by Hiroshi Kashiwagi
4. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
6. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
7. Writing the Heart of Your Story: The Secret to Crafting an Unforgettable Novel by C.S. Lakin
8. 30-Day Author: Develop a Daily Writing Habit and Write Your Book in 30 Days by Kevin Tumlinson
9. Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown
10. Kaline Klattermaster’s Tree House by Haven Kimmel
11. Secret Coders by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes
12. Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell
13. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
14. I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman
15. Rules by Cynthia Lord
16. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
17. The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Icelanders by Richard Sale
18. Humans of New York Stories by Brandon Stanton
19. Post-Dated: The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk by Michael Hagedorn
20. Little Kunoichi: The Ninja Girl by Sanae Ishida
21. Sewing Happiness: A Year of Simple Projects for Living Well by Sanae Ishida
22. Figgs & Phantoms by Ellen Raskin *
23. As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling by Anne Serling
24. Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald *
25. The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity by Louise DeSalvo
26. Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
27. Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma
28. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
29. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
30. The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry
31. The Face: A Time Code by Ruth Ozeki
32. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me: A Graphic Memoir by Ellen Forney
33. Cruddy by Lynda Barry
34. At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place by Kate T. Williamson
35. My Town by David Lee
36. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew
37. Porcelain by Moby
38. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
39. I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
40. Involuntary Turnover by Cheri Baker
41. Monstress by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda
42. Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann
43. Matthew Looney’s Voyage to the Earth by Jerome Beatty *
44. Art & Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland
45. Writer’s Doubt: The #1 Enemy of Writing (and What You Can Do About It) by Bryan Hutchinson
46. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary *
47. Clementine by Sara Pennypacker *
48. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
49. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
50. Amulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi
51. Amulet, Book Two: The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kibuishi
52. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
53. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
54. Wool by Hugh Howey
55. This is Not a Werewolf Story by Sandra Evans
56. A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley
57. Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China by Eddie Huang
58. The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
59. Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Raczka
60. Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo
61. Planet Middle School by Nikki Grimes
62. Zek: An American Prison Story by Arthur Longworth
63. The INFJ Writer by Lauren Sapala
64. Robot Dreams by Sara Varon
65. Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
66. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain
67. The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood by Kevin Powell

* indicates that I read this book in a previous year and read it again this year

Hope this list gives you good ideas for books to read in 2017. And if you’ve read any of these already, please let me know what you thought of them in the comments box. Happy New Year and happy reading!

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle.