In 2016, I had set a goal of reading 25 books and ended up reading 30. This post comes a little late as I had a lot of stuff to deal with during the year but I would like to put down some words reviewing the books I read in the past year.

I record all my reading on my GoodReads account. Follow me if you can! I have been using it for 5 years now.

What I Read

Here are some numbers of the 30 books that I read throughout the year of 2016.

• 11 non fiction books
• 15 fiction books
• 3 memoirs
• 1 reference book

The longest book was 1,167 pages - which also took me the longest to read. The second longest was 911. The shortest was about 200 pages.

Here is how I broke down the nonfiction books:

• 5 history
• 4 contemporary issues
• 2 Biographies

And then the breakdown on the fiction books:

• 9 literary
• 2 pop culture
• 3 sci-fi
• 1 YA

Most Memorable of 2016

Master of the Senate by Robert Caro

I already wrote a review of this one but I wanted to expand on those words now being about a month away from finishing this one.

This epic book took 2 and a half months for me to finish - spanning my long drives through the California farming middlelands and forests as well as my move to Taiwan. I associate certain moments in the book with these external events of my life - which gives this book added weight for me.

It has been 30 days since yet this book has not been able to leave my thoughts. I come back to it time and time again whenever I read about events that occur in our world today. I am inspired by its feeling of historical intimacy, its remarkable rhetoric, and its amazing, central character - Lyndon Johnson.

There has never been a book that better lays out the structure of American politics. News today has never felt so empty, so short of the task that Robert Caro took himself upon. The intense, deep research that he has put into this book imbues his writing, putting me into every perspective, every possible thought by every participant of a historical event 50 years ago.

How does someone make something that happened 50 years ago (of which we already know the ending, by the way) so thrilling and exciting? Watch how Robert Caro does it.

Master of the Senate covers some of LBJ’s most remarkable years, his time in the Senate as he rises from the junior ranks to one of the most powerful men in the United States. And unlike bad Hollywood movies and TV shows, Caro actually tells you how he did it. How he ruthlessly brown-nosed, butt-kissed, and outmaneuvered to the Majority leader position.

And then he turns to the now-forgotten Civil Rights Act of 1957 like the fine master writer he is - setting it up, diving into it, and closing the deal. I have never hung so tightly to every word.

I still am not able to get over this book. It starts slow, I admit, but I still cannot highly recommend it enough.

Honorable Mentions

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

My views on society has been shaped and molded by each of the books I have read this year but four in particular. Master of the Senate (and Passage of Power, its sequel) make up the first two. This one is the third.

I read this throughout my trip in Asia but it still has had a huge impact on me. Months later, I am still thinking about what it means for my own life and existence still to come.

There is some bleakness in this book - especially how it details what happens to us when we get old and die, but few books like this one have made me consider not only my own mortality but that of my parents.

The anecdotes of the relationships between aging parents and their children still stay with me. I recommend this highly.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Finally, something fun right? I enjoyed this super fun, super satisfying book about a flu apocalypse that masterfully jumps between two different time periods.

The less I say about what this book is about the better but I will tell you that no word better describes how I felt about this than the word, “satisfying”. From the super-fun-to-think-about first sequence to the touching but conclusive ending, this book made me feel immensely satisfied with how it went.

Painful Reading of 2016

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Recommended to me as part of our now-dormant book club, this book is the fourth book of the year that has changed my opinions and views and the most painful reading of 2016. Not because it is a bad read but because it has struck hard at my previously complacent feelings about how our American society has been working up until now.

I am deeply unsettled by what I read in this book, especially the plight of black Americans who must live through it unbeknownst to ordinary American citizens who live on in society thinking that the laws that they on the surface support are causing immense, needless pain to others.

I count myself a moderate on social issues, but I don’t think you need to be a bleeding heart liberal to find that the justice issues brought up in this book are wasteful, racist, and patently ridiculous. This book hits all spectrums.

Disappointing Read of 2016

City on Fire by Garth Risk Halleberg

This 936-page book came up on my radar because I had heard it received a $2M advance, the biggest ever. So I had to know what it was about. When you read the blurb it seems kinda interesting:

New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them;

Lots of semicolons, okay but whatever. It seemed interesting.

But really, this book was a ridiculous panoply of nothingness and New York City navel-gazing. It indulges in useless 1970s, rock-and-roll nostalgia - that stupid supposedly-special feeling that Baby Boomers say they felt when they heard “rock music” for the first time. Yeah okay, that’s great. Good for you. I like Michael Bolton too.

I don’t know why I stuck with it for so long but I can tell you that I forgot the whole thing the second the last words of the audiobook hit my eardrums.

WTF Reading of 2016

Death’s End by Liu Cixin

This 604 page piece is long winded, but not as bad as Dark Forest which REALLY needed some editing. A lot more happens here but it still suffers from the plot lines that go unexplained and are never resolved.

This book comes at the end of a sci-fi trilogy which chronicles the story of the Earth and Trisolaris, a solar system of aliens. That is all I will say about the story. Don’t read the Amazon description of any of the books. For dear God, there are hella spoilers in those.

This book is so original that it hints at brain disease. My friend and I read this together and when we finished, we really only had one thing to say, “I don’t know what Liu Cixin was smoking when he wrote this, but I want it.”

I highly recommend it.

Planned Reads for 2017

Currently, I am working through Emperor of All Maladies, which is a depressing history of cancer, as well as Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs.

Here are a few other books that I have on my to-read list that I am quite excited about:

• The Complacent Class
• American War
• Six Four