Year-End Lists

Shelf Awareness: 2016 Best Books of the Year

[see also 2023 • 2018 • 2017 • 2015]

Fiction

• The Angel of History
  Rabih Alameddine
• The Chimes
  Anna Smaill
• Dodgers
  Bill Beverly
• Eligible

  A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
  Curtis Sittenfeld
• Four Reincarnations
  Max Ritvo
• A Gentleman in Moscow
  Amor Towles
• Good Morning, Midnight
  Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Homegoing
  Yaa Gyasi
• Imagine Me Gone
  Adam Haslett
• The Kindness of Enemies
  Leila Aboulela
• Lily and the Octopus
  Steven Rowley
• Smoke
  Dan Vyleta
• Underground Airlines
  Ben H. Winters
• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead
• The Vegetarian
  Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith

Nonfiction

• American Ulysses

  A Life of Ulysses S. Grant
  Ronald C. White Jr.
• Another Day in the Death of America

  A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives
  Gary Younge
• Balls

  It Takes Some To Get Some
  Chris Edwards
• Being a Beast

  Adventures Across the Species Divide
  Charles Foster
• Boy Erased

  A Memoir
  Garrard Conley
• Evicted

  Poverty and Profit in the American City
  Matthew Desmond
• Ghostland

  An American History in Haunted Places
  Colin Dickey
• Lab Girl
  Hope Jahren
• Mincemeat

  The Education of an Italian Chef
  Leonardo Lucarelli
• The Narrow Door

  A Memoir of Friendship
  Paul Lisicky
• The Selfishness of Others

  An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism
  Kristin Dombek
• The Singing Bones
  Shaun Tan
• Tetris

  The Games People Play
  Box Brown
• The Universe in Your Hand

  A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond
  Christophe Galfard
• When Breath Becomes Air
  Paul Kalanithi