Hi everyone, today I'm here to do quite
possibly the most exciting video of the
year, and that is to tell you my favorite
reads from 2016. As always these aren't
necessarily books that were published in
2016, though some of them were. They are
books that I read this year that I
enjoyed the most.
And if you follow me at all, you'll
probably know what half of these are
already, but I don't care. I'm a creature
of habit, and I love to talk about the
books I love, so I've been very vocal
about some of these throughout the year.
In fact I just looked back and realized
that each one of these has its own video
review, which I think is really cool.
It speaks to it that these books have
something worth talking about in their
own videos. And I will link all of those
down below if you want to hear even more
thoughts on these books, but let's get started.
I really struggled with how to order
these books because I don't love to rank
books. I think I enjoy them each for
different reasons.
Some of them are 4-star books, some of
them are 5-star books, but all of them
are ones that stuck with me and made me
think about them long after I finished
reading them. So these are not in any
particular order. There are 10 of them,
but I will save the best for last.
The first one is actually one of the
first ones I read this year and that's
"In Order to Live" by Yeonmi Park.
This is an incredible memoir about Yeonmi Park's
escape from North Korea, and
basically everything she had to go
through in order to live. It has stuck
with me through all of 2016.
It's one that I think you'd be
hard-pressed to read and not be moved by,
not only because all of the
circumstances she goes through are
incredibly difficult and hard to read
about and terrible, but also because
she's so resilient and the strength that
she has in facing these challenges is
remarkable and inspiring. It's just
amazing, and obviously i can't recommend
it enough, so it has to be in my top 10
of the year. The next one is "Under the Udala Trees" by
Chinelo Okparanta. This
one was definitely a surprise;
it's a beautiful but also hard to read
story about a girl growing up in Nigeria
during the Civil War and her struggle
with her sexuality, especially in the
cultural context that does not approve
of her. And I just loved this book: it was
beautifully written.
It's a debut novel and it is so
impressive. There are few debuts in here this year
and they're all remarkable, but this
one in particular stood out because it's
just such an important story to tell.
I feel like it's severely underrated, so
"Under the Udala Trees" is definitely in
my top ten. The next one is "Unaccustomed Earth"
by Jhumpa Lahiri, and this has
taken position as my favorite collection
of short stories that I've ever read.
I've read a few Jhumpa Lahiri books: one
collection of short stories and one novel,
and I definitely think she thrives in
the short story realm.
She's just the master at succinct but
powerful moments and being able to give
you so much context for the characters
in such a short amount of time. This
mainly follows Indian immigrants or
children of Indian immigrants in the
United States, but it jumps around into a
few different places. And the final three
stories in this 8-story collection are
tied together, so it's a sort of cycle of
stories and you get to follow these
characters over a span of a few decades,
and it's just lovely.
I can't wait to read this one again in
the future because I just know that
there will be more that I pick up on
than my first reading, and I absolutely
love this.
I think it's better than "Interpreter of Maladies"
which actually won her the Pulitzer.
Another one that wasn't
necessarily a favorite right away but
that I can't stop thinking about and
I've been recommending a lot this year
is "Through Black Spruce" by Joseph Boyden.
Like Jhumpa Lahiri, I've read one novel
and one collection of short stories by
Boyden, and then this novel. And this is
definitely my favorite thing he's written.
It is the story about a man who
is in a coma in the hospital, and his
niece who's visiting him. And it's about
their alternating stories, and it's just
absolutely beautifully written.
The contrast between the descriptions of the
Canadian wilderness and the city of
Manhattan and their alternating
storylines is just so well done. It had
me turning the page to find out what
happened. It has a great sort of suspense
element, but also it's just very
introspective. And the ways we get inside
the character's head is just-- it was just
so expertly written. He really has a
grasp on characters, and that's what I
love reading about in books, more than a
good plot, which this one still has--
I love reading about real and vivid and
realized characters, and these definitely
are some of the best I read this year.
Another one I read earlier
and that has stuck with me and I
absolutely adored was "So You've Been
Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. I listened
to the audiobook of this which i would
highly recommend because it's narrated
by the author himself, but I had to get
a copy because I just loved this one.
It's, again, one that i've been recommending
to a lot of people. It's a social
psychology book about the phenomenon of
public shaming, especially in the age of
the internet. And it is scary because as
someone who talks about things on the
internet it makes me guard every word I
say, but it's also just a really great
book for us to realize empathy. I think
last year "The Empathy Exams" by Leslie
Jameson was on my list, which was a non
fiction collection of essays about
empathy. This, in a different vein, kind of
gave me the same feeling. I really
empathized with the people in this even
if they were bad people or made a
mistake that is totally their fault--
I still felt empathy for them and I think
that was the biggest takeaway from this
fascinating read. I would definitely
recommend the audiobook, but if you don't
listen to at least to pick it up and
read this one because it's a great and
important read for pretty much anyone.
Next I have "All the Birds, Singing" by
Evie Wyld. This one is short but powerful,
and one of the most uniquely structured
books I've ever read. It has two
timelines following a woman, and in the
first time line she's in the present day
and it's moving chronologically forward
and she's in Wales. And then in the
second time line, it's her in the past,
and it's moving chronologically
backwards and she's in Australia. And the
two storylines go back and forth, and
you're moving forward in one storyline
and backwards in another, until you
finally get the big reveal.
First of all, the writing is some of the
best writing. It's so descriptive and she
captures the settings of Wales and
Australia so well, but also the way that
she plays with narrative structure and
form and keeps you guessing is just so
delightful and fun. And it creates a
really powerful story that I felt was
very satisfying.
I think sometimes those kind of unique
structures can be just a gimmick to hang
loose plot on, but this one was very
satisfying, and I loved the ending. And I
would definitely revisit this one
because knowing how it ends now would
really influence how you read it again
in the future,
and I can't wait to do that someday.
One I don't have a copy of that I read
recently and loved, loved, loved is
"The Unseen World" by Liz Moore. I just think
this is a book that you could recommend
to almost anybody, which is rare to find.
But it's one of those books I think I
could give to anyone, and they'd find
something they like about it.
This is about a girl who grows up in the
eighties with her single father, who she
doesn't know a lot about actually.
He's a very smart and intelligent man
who runs a lab, and she's homeschooled at
this lab with him. So she has an
unconventional upbringin, but as she
starts to get older, he starts to lose
his memory. And she starts to learn a lot
about him that she didn't know. It's
just a beautiful look at coming of age,
but also grappling with the inconvenient
truths of life and how you decide to
deal with those. Liz Moore just captures
human interactions and relationships between
characters better than almost anyone
I've ever read.
I felt like Ada, our main character, was
so fully realized through her
relationships with other people, and that
really helped her come to terms with
herself. And to see her go through that
was just remarkable. So I loved this book
and it definitely, once I finished it,
made it on to my top 10 list. Another one
that this author, who is one that I love and
read all of his books this year and so I
had to include him, is Fredrick Backman.
And his novel "Britt-Marie Was Here."
Of his books that I read this year, this is
probably my favorite. He writes sort of
similar in all of his books about
outcasts; they're kind of quirky and sweet
but very heartfelt, and he gets to a lot
of those truths of life and in a fun way
that is very accessible. This is another
author that I think you could recommend
to almost anyone and they would enjoy it.
This is about a woman named Britt-Marie
who's life changes when she's in her
sixties. She has to go and get a job
for the first time in years, and she meets
some people that she doesn't get along
with. But it's about how we all are in
this together, and how we can work
together to make a better life. And I
thought it was very sweet. He's just
an author that has stood out to me this
year that I have to include. All right, two more.
The second to last one is one that
you're probably not surprised by at all
and that's "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi. This
has been on everybody's big buzz books
of the year lists, and it is, in my opinion,
so deserving of that. It is an ambitious
but impressive debut novel. It follows two
half-sisters in Ghana in the
late sixteen hundreds. One is married off
to an Englishman and one is taken as a
slave. Both reside in the Cape Coast
Castle in Ghana, which was a slaving
outpost in the 17th century. And so one
is aboveground living with her colonial
husband, and the other is underground as
a slave. We follow the timelines,
essentially, of these two women and
alternating chapters between their
descendants as we move through the
centuries. It's beautifully written. I think the
structure can turn some people off
because you just basically get a glimpse
in each chapter into one character, and
then the next one we move on to a
different character. So it's almost like
interwoven short stories, but so
impressive and so well-written. Some
beautiful sentences, but I don't feel
like it's overwrought with too much fancy
writing. She really gets at the cultural
moment of each section and does it in a
succinct and expert way, so I can't recommend
this one enough. I'm sure you've heard
tons about it and I'm excited to see
what she does next because this was one
amazing debut. And last but certainly not
least, and is probably no surprise to anyone,
my favorite book, but also favorite
author of the year, is Elena Ferrante and
her Neapolitan Novels which starts with
"My Brilliant Friend".
Technically the author sees the four
novels in this series as one novel, so
I'm gonna count it as one. This story
follows two young women, and it starts
when they're about five or six years old
in Naples, Italy in the 1950's.
And the four books basically follow them
over the course of 60 or so years.
It sounds dull, but it is the farthest thing
from boring. It's translated from Italian,
and it's so well translated. The writing
is sharp and simple, but not dull. She can
speak truth in such a way that I've not
read before. I really have no words to
convey how well she writes, and I think
the best way is to just give it a chance.
But the story follows these young women
who have a beautiful friendship, but also
a sort of
innate rivalry. And it looks at female
relationships, also relationships to the
men in their neighborhoods and their
families.
It's very claustrophobic. These girls
grow up in a very tight-knit Neapolitan
community, and it expands outward and
looks sort of at the Italian cultural
movement. History plays an important role
but it doesn't take front and center
stage of the story. At the heart
of the story, and most importantly,
is the two girls' relationship and what
that means to each of them across the 60
or so years that we follow. I won't stop
speaking about this one.
I'm actually going to read it again very
soon because I just love it so much, and
I've loved everything that she's written.
I've actually read all of her stuff this
year; she has seven novels and a non-fiction
book and I've read it all. And I'm sad
that I'm out of material to read but so
happy that I discovered her in 2016
because she's amazing.
So these are my favorite books that I
read this year, plus the two I don't have
copies of. Please let me know if you've
read any of these this year and/or at
all and what you thought of them. And let
me know your favorite book of the year
in the comments below.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video, and
that you find something new to read. And
I hope you've had a great 2016, and I
will see you in my next video. Bye!
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