Best Books – 2016
Best Books of 2016
Other Years: 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019
The following are the best books of 2016, as determined by book review trade magazines, national newspapers, and popular arts and culture publications. The Top 20 listed below was compiled by tallying the number of Best Books of the Year lists from major outlets. The parentheses following each book indicate the total number of lists on which the book was included.
Top 20
1. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (95)
2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (64)
3. Swing Time by Zadie Smith (61)
4. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (52)
5. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in an American City by Matthew Desmond (50)
6. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (49)
7. The Girls by Emma Cline (45)
8. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (40)
9. Hillbilly Elegy: Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (34)
9. The Vegetarian by Han Kang (34)
11. What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (32)
12. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (31)
12. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (31)
14. The Nix by Nathan Hill (28)
15. LaRose by Louise Erdrich (27)
15. The Mothers by Brit Bennett (27)
17. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (26)
18. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing (25)
18. Moonglow by Michael Chabon (25)
20. The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar (25)
Other Books on 14 or more lists:
Barkskins by Annie Proulx (24), Grief is the Thing with Feathers by max Porter (24), Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (23), Shirley Jackson: A Father Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin (22), News of the World by Paulette Jiles (21), Nutshell by Ian McEwan (21), Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (21), What is Not Yours is not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi (21), White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (21), The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee (20), The Trespasser by Tana French (20), All That Man Is by David Szalay (19), The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan (19), The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (19), A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (18), Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett (18), The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (18), Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich (18), Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters (18), Zero K by Don DeLillo (18), I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (17), The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood (17), The North Water by Ian McGuire (17), Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler (17), Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (16), Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (16), In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi (16), Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole (16), March: Book Three by John Lewis (16), All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister (15), Dark Matter by Black Crouch (15), His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae (15), Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue (14), John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr (14), The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien (14), Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett (14), Private Citizens by Tony Tulathimutte (14), The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan (14), The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang (14)
