The nonprofit Washington Independent Review of Books has revealed its 25 favorite books of 2016.
“There are so many great books out there that we didn’t want to declare any ‘the best,'” said Holly Smith, the site’s managing editor in a statement. “But these 25 — a mix of novels and nonfiction — are our favorites. They each stuck with us long after we turned the final page.”
We have the whole list for you after the jump.
Washington Independent Review of Books’ 25 Favorite Books of 2016
- At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell (Other Press)
- Thomas Murphy: A Novel by Roger Rosenblatt (Ecco)
- A Meal in Winter: A Novel of World War II by Hubert Mingarelli; translated by Sam Taylor (The New Press)
- Chicago: A Novel by Brian Doyle (Thomas Dunne Books)
- A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age by Daniel J. Levitin (Dutton)
- Septimania: A Novel by Jonathan Levi (The Overlook Press)
- Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story by Matti Friedman (Algonquin Books)
- Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Harford (Riverhead Books)
- Indelible Ink: The Trials of John Peter Zenger and the Birth of America’s Free Press by Richard Kluger (W.W. Norton & Company)
- Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman (Ecco)
- Welcome Thieves: Stories by Sean Beaudoin (Algonquin Books)
- The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston (W.W. Norton & Company)
- Homegoing: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf)
- The Moon in the Palace: A Novel of Empress Wu by Weina Dai Randel (Sourcebooks Landmark)
- We Love You, Charlie Freeman: A Novel by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin)
- We’re All Damaged: A Novel by Matthew Norman (Little A)
- Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service by Devin Leonard (Grove Press)
- Valiant Gentlemen: A Novel by Sabina Murray (Grove Press)
- The Fortunes: A Novel by Peter Ho Davies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction by Benjamin Percy (Graywolf Press)
- The Angel of History: A Novel by Rabih Alameddine (Atlantic Monthly Press)
- Heat & Light: A Novel by Jennifer Haigh (Ecco)
- Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking)
- The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster)
- The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family by Tom Shroder (Blue Rider Press)