I read 108 books in 2016, which surprised me because I was crazy busy at work last year, including moving our office, which added turmoil. Here is the list, in the order I read them.
Take the stars with a big grain of salt. Five stars go only to a very few all-time favorites. Four stars go to books I think are really good or would recommend to anyone. I rate a book a 3 if I liked it personally, but wouldn't think of recommending it. Most books get 3.5, which means that I liked it and would recommend it to people who like that genre or type of book. See this post for details.
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin (4/5)
More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself by Nick Hornby (3.5/5)
Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz (4/5)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (3/5)
Mike by P. G. Wodehouse (3/5)
A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell (3.5/5)
A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll (reviewed here; 3.5/5)
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (3.5/5)
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (3.5/5)
The Big Seven by Jim Harrison (3.5/5)
The Fur Person by Mary Sarton (3/5)
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (4/5)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson (4/5)
Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price (2.5/5)
Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo (3.5/5)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (3/5)
I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron (3.5/5)
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (4/5)
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark (4/5)
Here Kitty Kitty by Mallory McInnis (3/5)
Fallen into the Pit by Peter Ellis (3.5/5)
The Complete Short Stories, Vol. I, East and West by W. Somerset Maugham (5/5)
The Bell by Iris Murdoch (4/5)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (3.5/5)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Booker Prize winner; 3.5/5)
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (3.5/5)
Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson (3.5/5)
Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George (3.5/5)
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny (3.5/5)
Bech is Back by John Updike (4/5)
Wild Horses by Dick Francis (3.5/5)
Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols (4/5)
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (4.5/5)
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope (4.5/5)
Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers (National Book Award winner; 3.5/5)
Family Album by Penelope Lively (3.5/5)
The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge (3.5/5)
The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell (3.5/5)
Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley (3/5)
Miles Gone By by William F. Buckley, Jr. (4/5)
Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters (3.5/5)
In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (3/5)
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (3/5)
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (2/5)
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson (4/5)
Belgravia by Julian Fellowes (3.5/5)
The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan (3.5/5)
Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell (3.5/5)
Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk (4/5)
The River Swimmer by Jim Harrison (3.5/5)
Paris: A Love Story by Kati Marton (3/5)
A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read (3.5/5)
Devices and Desires by P. D. James (4/5)
Funny Girl by Nick Hornby (4/5)
The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina (3.5/5)
Orlando by Virginia Woolf (2.5/5)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bailey's Prize winner; 3/5)
Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara (National Book Award winner; 3.5/5)
The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson (Anthony Burgess' Top 99; 4.5/5)
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (4/5)
Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan, (Edgar Award winner; 3.5/5)
You & Me by Padgett Powell (James Tait Black Prize winner; 3.5/5)
Missing Justice by Alafair Burke (3/5)
Shaken and Stirred: Through the Martini Glass and Other Drinking Adventures by William L. Hamilton (3/5)
Think Like a Lawyer Don't Act Like One: The Essential Rules for the Smart Negotiator by Aernoud Bourdrez (3/5)
A Brief History of Seven Killings by James Marlon (Booker Prize winner; 2/5)
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (5/5)
The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Pulitzer Prize winner; National Book Critics Circle Award winner; 3/5)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (3.5/5)
One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant (3.5/5)
The King's English : A Guide to Modern Usage by Kingsley Amis (4/5)
Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark (Edgar Award winner; 3.5/5)
Missing Person by Patrick Modiano (Nobel laureate; 3/5)
Bettyville by George Hodgman (3/5)
Don't Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli (3.5/5)
Psmith in the City by P. G. Wodehouse (3/5)
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (3.5/5)
The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy (4/5)
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson (3/5)
A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone (BOMC's Well Stocked Bookcase; 2.5/5)
Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe (5/5)
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (3.5/5)
Laughter on the Stairs by Beverley Nichols (3.5/5)
Sunlight on the Lawn by Beverley Nichols (3.5/5)
After You with the Pistol by Kyril Bonfiglioli (3.5/5)
Something Nasty in the Woodshed by Kyril Bonfiglioli (3/5)
Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson (3.5/5)
The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton (4/5)
Be Cool by Elmore Leonard (3.5/5)
A Writer's People by V. S. Naipaul (3/5)
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice by Bill Browder (3.5/5)
All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner (3.5/5)
The Light and the Dark by C. P. Snow (3/5)
Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer (Edgar Award winner; 3.5/5)
Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh (3.5/5)
Nutshell by Ian McEwan (4/5)
Secondhand Smoke by M. Louis (3.5/5)
A Murder of Magpies by Judith Flanders (3/5)
Library of Luminaries: Coco Chanel by Zena Alkayat (3.5/5)
Lucia in London by E. F. Benson (3.5/5)
The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge (3/5)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (5/5)
Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch (3.5/5)
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (3.5/5)
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris (3/5)
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (4/5)
Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming (3.5/5)
Never Flirt with Puppy Killers: And Other Better Book Titles by Dan Wilbur (3.5/5)
