65 new books I've read and enjoyed in 2016
I suppose sixty-five seems like a lot of books to most people, but it’s far from all the books I’ve read in 2016. Listed here are only those that I rated @@@@ or @@@@@ (4 or 5 out of 5). Keep in mind that I’m very selective in choosing books (emphasis on very), and I review only those that I read from start to finish.I’ve grouped these 65 books (a little arbitrarily) into five sections: new entries in mystery and espionage series; politics and current affairs; trade fiction; history; and science. The titles below are listed in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names within each section.
You won’t find any poetry here, or books about sports, the arts, or cooking. As you can see, a disproportionate share of these books are nonfiction. The explanation is simple: in 2016, I began reading from the beginning of my favorite mystery and thriller series; that accounts for a large share of the books I’ve read this year, yet none of those early titles are included in this list. All those listed here were published in 2016 or during the last half of 2015 at the earliest. In any case, I hope you’ll find at least one or two that reflect your own interests.
New entries in mystery and espionage series
The nine titles listed here represent a broad range of style, subject matter, and locale. Tana French writes thrillers set in Ireland, Lene Kaaberb?l and Agnete Friis in Denmark, Stella Rimington and Edward Wilson in England. Michael Connolly’s novels are set in Los Angeles, John Sandford’s in Minnesota, Karin Slaughter’s in Georgia, and Joseph Finder’s in Boston or Washington, DC. Rimington and Wilson explore the realm of intelligence. The rest focus on crime. Of these nine books, my favorite is The Considerate Killer by Lene Kaaberb?l and Agnete Friis.
The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch #19), by Michael Connelly
Guilty Minds (Nick Heller #3), by Joseph Finder
The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad #6), by Tana French
The Considerate Killer (Nina Borg #4), by Lene Kaaberb?l and Agnete Friis
Breaking Cover (Liz Carlyle #9), by Stella Rimington
Extreme Prey (Lucas Davenport #26), by John Sandford
Escape Clause (Virgil Flowers #9), by John Sandford
The Whitehall Mandarin (William Catesby #4), by Edward Wilson
A Very British Ending (William Catesby #5), by Edward Wilson
Biography and autobiography
The only thing these twelve books have in common is that their subjects lived in the 19th or 20th century. Some of the subjects are familiar to nearly all Americans: Jonas Salk, Allen Dulles, George Armstrong Custer, Patricia Hearst, and Bobby Kennedy. The others are less well known. In the case of the three autobiographies—those by Antonio Garcia Martinez, William J. Perry, and J.D. Vance—all the subjects are still alive. (So, for that matter, are those of two of the others: Paul English (Tracy Kidder’s subject) and Patricia Hearst (Jeffrey Toobin’s). David Talbot’s biography of Allen Dulles is the best of this lot, in my opinion; it’s certainly the most important.
The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, by Timothy Egan
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley, by Antonio Garcia Martinez
Jonas Salk: A Life, by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
A Truck Full of Money: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success, by Tracy Kidder
My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, by William J. Perry
Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T. J. Stiles
David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement, by Tom Turner
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, by Larry Tye
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J. D. Vance
Trade fiction
The twenty-one novels listed represent a very wide range of styles and subject matter. Eleven are works of historical fiction: Matthew Carr, Helen Dunmore, Louise Erdrich, Alan Furst, Yaa Gyasi, Kristin Hannah, Robert Harris, Thomas Mallon, Simon Mawer, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Stewart O’Nan. However, the topics of these eleven books could hardly be more different from one another. The other books range from science fiction, religion, and humor to crime and politics. It’s extremely difficult for me to pick a favorite from among these twenty novels. If I’m forced to do so, however, I have to name The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
The Devils of Cardona, by Matthew Carr
Dark Matter: A Novel, by Blake Crouch
The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich
A Hero of France, by Alan Furst
The Death of Rex Nhongo: A Novel, by C. B. George
The Whistler: A Novel, by John Grisham
Homegoing: A Novel, by Yaa Gyasi
The Nightingale: A Novel, by Kristin Hannah
Dictator (Ancient Rome Trilogy #3), by Robert Harris
Conclave: A Novel, by Robert Harris
Before the Fall: A Novel, by Noah Hawley
Razor Girl: A Novel, by Carl Hiassen
Single & Single: A Novel, by John le Carre
High Dive: A Novel, by Jonathan Lee
Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years, by Thomas Mallon
The Glass Room: A Novel, by Simon Mawer
Midnight Sun: A Novel, by Jo Nesbo
The Sympathizer: A Novel, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
City of Secrets: A Novel, by Stewart O’Nan
Politics and current affairs
The ten titles in this section cover a lot of territory. They explore the Great Recession, urban poverty, liberal politics, Right-Wing politics, drug cartels, and federal whistleblowers, as well as developments in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Jane Mayer’s Dark Money struck me as the most powerful of these ten books.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio, by Misha Glenny
Bravehearts: Whistle-Blowing in the Age of Snowden, by Mark Hertsgaard
Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, by Robert D. Kaplan
A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS, by Robert F. Worth
History
In the ten books listed below, you can learn how Earth’s geological history has shaped the course of human affairs . . . how an Egyptian spy saved Israel from destruction in the Yom Kippur War . . . how the world’s largest construction company has acted as a law unto itself . . . how espionage failed to achieve much of anything of note in World War II . . . how Americans fought and died in the Spanish Civil War . . . how the United States Postal Service became the crippled giant it is today . . . how Britain’s Special Air Service in World War II became the model for special forces the world over . . . how today’s Right-Wing politics grew out of resistance to labor organizing in California’s fruit and cotton fields in the 1930s . . . how American advertising evolved from Snake Oil promotions to pop-up ads . . . and how FDR’s decision to take the US off the gold standard played a far more significant role in ending the Depression than anything else in the New Deal. The Secret War by Max Hastings strikes me as the most significant of these ten books.
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves, by Walter Alvarez
The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel, by Uri Bar-Joseph
The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World, by Sally Denton
The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945, by Max Hastings
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Adam Hochschild
Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service, by Devin Leonard
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, by Tim Wu
Science
These three titles have nothing in common other than that they’re all grounded in science. Mary Roach is a humorist who finds a way to laugh about the absurdities that abound in military science. Sonia Shah examines the history of epidemic disease—and the existential threat it poses to the world’s people. Steve Silberman writes about the slow and painful development of psychiatrists’ understanding of the autism spectrum. Though it seems pointless to pick a favorite from among just three books, I’ll do it anyway. I choose Steve Silberman’s NeuroTribes.
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, by Sonia Shah
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, by Steve Silberman
Author of the 3rd all-time best baseball novel (Goodreads). 5 stars on Amazon. “At The Bat: The Strikeout That Shamed America,” by author of “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Former USA Today reporter. Freelance journalist.
5 年Strange things were done in the midnight sun. The Arctic trails had their secret tales. Read the best poem ever written, now turned into a novel getting five stars on Amazon and Goodreads. https://caseystrikesout.wixsite.com/website/blog/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee