This year delivered touching memoirs, stunning novels, and heroic epics that delighted readers with ambitious storytelling. Ahead, see EW’s list of the 20 Best Books of 2016.
In saturated paragraphs and rich patois, Sun lays out the stark realities of an island whose entire economy relies on natural beauty, cheap labor, and limited resources — and explores what it means to live in a place where, as one character says, “Nobody love a black girl. Not even harself.” —Leah Greenblatt
Order Here Comes The Sun here.
This all-in-one-day narrative about a Seattle mom may not have the raffish, slapsticky charm of Semple’s best-seller Where’d You Go, Bernadette, but it’s every bit as quirky and blade-sharp. —Tina Jordan
Order Today Will Be Different here.
Warm, emotional, and messy, Straub’s delicious follow-up to 2014’s The Vacationers sees two sets of Brooklyn parents dealing with lost dreams, their teenage children, and some juicy, long-held secrets. —Isabella Biedenharn
In this riveting work of nonfiction about a network of ultra-rich billionaires that influenced the American political system, Jane Mayer alleges that the Koch family patriarch, Fred, helped build a Nazi oil refinery.
The latest from the author of Brokeback Mountain is a captivating multigenerational epic tracing the history of two families through 300 years.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning physician’s latest is a brilliant biological primer and a nuanced exploration of ethics, but it’s also just a great, endlessly engaging read. —Leah Greenblatt
Order The Gene: An Intimate History here.
In this riveting critical bio, Franklin digs into the Hangsaman author’s tumultuous, anxiety-filled personal life, analyzes the themes and origins of Jackson’s work, and compares her to legends like Edgar Allan Poe. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life here.
C.E. Morgan unravels a sprawling and distinctly Southern epic novel about a wealthy Kentucky horseracing dynasty set against a backdrop of prejudice and poverty. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order The Sport of Kings here.
The 26-year-old author’s lovely, sensitive debut, about a black teenager grappling with the loss of her mother and the uncertainty of her own future, is one of the best coming-of-age novels in years. —Leah Greenblatt
Through hard work and force of will, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps in this country. Or can you? It’s “only possible if you have a stable home,” writes Harvard sociologist Desmond in this stunning examination of eviction and exploitation in inner-city America. His narrative traces the lives of poor people — and their landlords — in urban Milwaukee, showing how evictions gut families and shape urban poverty. No one who reads this will be able to walk away unmoved: It’s a powerful, urgent call to action. —Tina Jordan
Order Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City here.
As a little girl, Jahren dreamed of beakers, not Barbie dolls. Science was her way out of rural Minnesota, and after earning a Ph.D. at Berkeley she went on to become one of the world’s foremost geobiologists: a Fulbright scholar with a coveted professorship at the University of Hawaii and a full mandate to explore her passion for the natural world. This lively, beguiling memoir doesn’t skimp on botanical fun facts (oh, the things you’ll learn about acorns!), but it’s her deeper humanity that telegraphs the pure joy of having a lab of one’s own. —Leah Greenblatt
For the first few pages, Yoon’s second novel — nominated for a National Book Award — reads like a standard-issue story about two teens falling in love. But it soon morphs into a much larger tale about the interconnectedness of the universe, examining the many ways people can affect one another — from simply saying “Thank you” to a stranger, to telling someone you love them. Yoon effortlessly weaves together themes of family, immigration, and sacrifice while also exploring what it means to follow your dreams. —Nivea Serrao
Order The Sun is Also a Star here.
The summer of love is over, but 14-year-old Evie Boyd’s summer of self-discovery has just begun. Lonely and awkward and desperate to connect, she tumbles into the swirling counterculture cauldron of late-’60s California headfirst, finding communion with a freewheeling crew of flower children and misfits on a remote Sonoma County ranch — unaware that their messianic leader, Russell, has his own less utopian goals. Though the clear Manson-family parallels are fascinating, it’s Cline’s hothouse evocation of girlhood that stays. —Leah Greenblatt
A young Korean housewife, “completely unremarkable in every way,” wakes up one night and quietly declares that she will no longer touch, prepare, or consume meat. Beholden to a new credo only she understands, Yeong-hye soon begins to withdraw into an impenetrable world of her own, turning refusal into a new kind of religion and whittling her already slim body to skin stretched over bone. Baffled and furious — yet not, for the most part, much concerned for her well-being — her family gathers the full weight of their disapproval: Her father rages; her husband sulks; and her brother-in-law, most disturbingly, preys on Yeong-hye’s altered state to feed his own furtive manias. Is her denial driven by spiritual rapture? Psychosomatic illness? Or is it a perfectly sane response to a lifetime of compulsory obedience and quiet desperation? Kang’s erotic, unnerving, and utterly mesmerizing novel is far too shrewd to tell. —Leah Greenblatt
It takes a gifted writer to conjure an addictive, fascinating read out of centuries of dense facts and census data, but that’s exactly what journalist Traister does in this illuminating history of unmarried women. Using wide-ranging research as well as interviews, she delves into the different ways singlehood affects women of varying races, socioeconomic brackets, and sexual orientations — and explains how surges in the numbers of single women throughout history have coincided with social change. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order All the Single Ladies here.
Erdrich has been draped in literary accolades over the years — but they never weigh her down in this stirring tale of two Native American families bound together by a heartbreaking tragedy. After recovering alcoholic Landreaux Iron accidentally shoots and kills his neighbor’s 5-year-old son, he and his wife — after consulting the tribal sweat lodge — gift the grieving family with their own 5-year-old, LaRose. It’s a brilliant examination of the impulses behind both revenge and forgiveness — and a primer on the ways a heart can heal. —Isabella Biedenharn
The diverging fates of two half sisters born villages apart in 18th-century Ghana echo down through generations in Gyasi’s stark, lyrical debut. From their twined bloodlines spring slaves and warriors, sharecroppers and coal miners, jazz singers and junkies and Ph.D. students—each one brought vividly to life in sequential chapters. The sweep of Homegoing’s narrative across eras and continents is indisputably epic, but the clean economy of Gyasi’s writing makes nearly every word in its 300 pages radiate, too vital and valuable to waste. —Leah Greenblatt
“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Diagnosed with terminal cancer at 36, Kalanithi recalled Samuel Beckett’s famous words — then began to write down his own. Breath is the gifted neurosurgeon’s extraordinary account of facing a suddenly altered future: What happens when the doctor becomes the patient, and a young man loses his chance to grow old? This slim volume answers those questions and more — not with tea-mug bromides on bravery or dry medical jargon, but with fierce, tender honesty and almost unimaginable grace. —Leah Greenblatt
Order When Breath Becomes Air here.
If any novel defied an elevator pitch in 2016, it was The Nix. Acid critique of millennial entitlement, videogame addiction, and clueless academia; tender meditation on childhood friendship, first loves, and maternal abandonment; handy tutorial on ’60s radicalism and Norwegian ghost mythology: Nathan Hill’s magnificently overstuffed debut contains multitudes, and then some. At the core of its wild narrative rumpus sits Samuel Andresen-Anderson. A listless adjunct at a middling Midwestern college, he spends most days raiding pixelated orcs in World of Elfscape and trying not to think too much about the shambles his life has become in the two decades since his mother walked out the door one bright fall morning and didn’t come back. When she suddenly reemerges — as the subject of a scandalous viral video, no less — the story surges, ricocheting from sleepy ’80s suburbia and the 1968 DNC riots to WWII-era Norway, post-9/11 Iraq, and beyond. It’s not just that Hill is a brilliantly surreal social satirist in the gonzo mode of Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon (a male news anchor’s face is “smooth as cake fondant”; one doomed union is “like a spoon married to a garbage disposal”), it’s that he does it all with so much wit and style and heart. —Leah Greenblatt
The 20 Best Books of 2016
This year delivered touching memoirs, stunning novels, and heroic epics that delighted readers with ambitious storytelling. Ahead, see EW’s list of the 20 Best Books of 2016.
20. Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
In saturated paragraphs and rich patois, Sun lays out the stark realities of an island whose entire economy relies on natural beauty, cheap labor, and limited resources — and explores what it means to live in a place where, as one character says, “Nobody love a black girl. Not even harself.” —Leah Greenblatt
Order Here Comes The Sun here.
19. Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
This all-in-one-day narrative about a Seattle mom may not have the raffish, slapsticky charm of Semple’s best-seller Where’d You Go, Bernadette, but it’s every bit as quirky and blade-sharp. —Tina Jordan
Order Today Will Be Different here.
17. Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Warm, emotional, and messy, Straub’s delicious follow-up to 2014’s The Vacationers sees two sets of Brooklyn parents dealing with lost dreams, their teenage children, and some juicy, long-held secrets. —Isabella Biedenharn
16. Dark Money by Jane Mayer
In this riveting work of nonfiction about a network of ultra-rich billionaires that influenced the American political system, Jane Mayer alleges that the Koch family patriarch, Fred, helped build a Nazi oil refinery.
15. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
The latest from the author of Brokeback Mountain is a captivating multigenerational epic tracing the history of two families through 300 years.
14. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Pulitzer Prize-winning physician’s latest is a brilliant biological primer and a nuanced exploration of ethics, but it’s also just a great, endlessly engaging read. —Leah Greenblatt
Order The Gene: An Intimate History here.
13. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
In this riveting critical bio, Franklin digs into the Hangsaman author’s tumultuous, anxiety-filled personal life, analyzes the themes and origins of Jackson’s work, and compares her to legends like Edgar Allan Poe. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life here.
12. The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
C.E. Morgan unravels a sprawling and distinctly Southern epic novel about a wealthy Kentucky horseracing dynasty set against a backdrop of prejudice and poverty. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order The Sport of Kings here.
11. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
The 26-year-old author’s lovely, sensitive debut, about a black teenager grappling with the loss of her mother and the uncertainty of her own future, is one of the best coming-of-age novels in years. —Leah Greenblatt
10. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Through hard work and force of will, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps in this country. Or can you? It’s “only possible if you have a stable home,” writes Harvard sociologist Desmond in this stunning examination of eviction and exploitation in inner-city America. His narrative traces the lives of poor people — and their landlords — in urban Milwaukee, showing how evictions gut families and shape urban poverty. No one who reads this will be able to walk away unmoved: It’s a powerful, urgent call to action. —Tina Jordan
Order Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City here.
9. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
As a little girl, Jahren dreamed of beakers, not Barbie dolls. Science was her way out of rural Minnesota, and after earning a Ph.D. at Berkeley she went on to become one of the world’s foremost geobiologists: a Fulbright scholar with a coveted professorship at the University of Hawaii and a full mandate to explore her passion for the natural world. This lively, beguiling memoir doesn’t skimp on botanical fun facts (oh, the things you’ll learn about acorns!), but it’s her deeper humanity that telegraphs the pure joy of having a lab of one’s own. —Leah Greenblatt
8. The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
For the first few pages, Yoon’s second novel — nominated for a National Book Award — reads like a standard-issue story about two teens falling in love. But it soon morphs into a much larger tale about the interconnectedness of the universe, examining the many ways people can affect one another — from simply saying “Thank you” to a stranger, to telling someone you love them. Yoon effortlessly weaves together themes of family, immigration, and sacrifice while also exploring what it means to follow your dreams. —Nivea Serrao
Order The Sun is Also a Star here.
7. The Girls by Emma Cline
The summer of love is over, but 14-year-old Evie Boyd’s summer of self-discovery has just begun. Lonely and awkward and desperate to connect, she tumbles into the swirling counterculture cauldron of late-’60s California headfirst, finding communion with a freewheeling crew of flower children and misfits on a remote Sonoma County ranch — unaware that their messianic leader, Russell, has his own less utopian goals. Though the clear Manson-family parallels are fascinating, it’s Cline’s hothouse evocation of girlhood that stays. —Leah Greenblatt
6. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
A young Korean housewife, “completely unremarkable in every way,” wakes up one night and quietly declares that she will no longer touch, prepare, or consume meat. Beholden to a new credo only she understands, Yeong-hye soon begins to withdraw into an impenetrable world of her own, turning refusal into a new kind of religion and whittling her already slim body to skin stretched over bone. Baffled and furious — yet not, for the most part, much concerned for her well-being — her family gathers the full weight of their disapproval: Her father rages; her husband sulks; and her brother-in-law, most disturbingly, preys on Yeong-hye’s altered state to feed his own furtive manias. Is her denial driven by spiritual rapture? Psychosomatic illness? Or is it a perfectly sane response to a lifetime of compulsory obedience and quiet desperation? Kang’s erotic, unnerving, and utterly mesmerizing novel is far too shrewd to tell. —Leah Greenblatt
5. All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister
It takes a gifted writer to conjure an addictive, fascinating read out of centuries of dense facts and census data, but that’s exactly what journalist Traister does in this illuminating history of unmarried women. Using wide-ranging research as well as interviews, she delves into the different ways singlehood affects women of varying races, socioeconomic brackets, and sexual orientations — and explains how surges in the numbers of single women throughout history have coincided with social change. —Isabella Biedenharn
Order All the Single Ladies here.
4. LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Erdrich has been draped in literary accolades over the years — but they never weigh her down in this stirring tale of two Native American families bound together by a heartbreaking tragedy. After recovering alcoholic Landreaux Iron accidentally shoots and kills his neighbor’s 5-year-old son, he and his wife — after consulting the tribal sweat lodge — gift the grieving family with their own 5-year-old, LaRose. It’s a brilliant examination of the impulses behind both revenge and forgiveness — and a primer on the ways a heart can heal. —Isabella Biedenharn
3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The diverging fates of two half sisters born villages apart in 18th-century Ghana echo down through generations in Gyasi’s stark, lyrical debut. From their twined bloodlines spring slaves and warriors, sharecroppers and coal miners, jazz singers and junkies and Ph.D. students—each one brought vividly to life in sequential chapters. The sweep of Homegoing’s narrative across eras and continents is indisputably epic, but the clean economy of Gyasi’s writing makes nearly every word in its 300 pages radiate, too vital and valuable to waste. —Leah Greenblatt
2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Diagnosed with terminal cancer at 36, Kalanithi recalled Samuel Beckett’s famous words — then began to write down his own. Breath is the gifted neurosurgeon’s extraordinary account of facing a suddenly altered future: What happens when the doctor becomes the patient, and a young man loses his chance to grow old? This slim volume answers those questions and more — not with tea-mug bromides on bravery or dry medical jargon, but with fierce, tender honesty and almost unimaginable grace. —Leah Greenblatt
Order When Breath Becomes Air here.
1. The Nix by Nathan Hill
If any novel defied an elevator pitch in 2016, it was The Nix. Acid critique of millennial entitlement, videogame addiction, and clueless academia; tender meditation on childhood friendship, first loves, and maternal abandonment; handy tutorial on ’60s radicalism and Norwegian ghost mythology: Nathan Hill’s magnificently overstuffed debut contains multitudes, and then some. At the core of its wild narrative rumpus sits Samuel Andresen-Anderson. A listless adjunct at a middling Midwestern college, he spends most days raiding pixelated orcs in World of Elfscape and trying not to think too much about the shambles his life has become in the two decades since his mother walked out the door one bright fall morning and didn’t come back. When she suddenly reemerges — as the subject of a scandalous viral video, no less — the story surges, ricocheting from sleepy ’80s suburbia and the 1968 DNC riots to WWII-era Norway, post-9/11 Iraq, and beyond. It’s not just that Hill is a brilliantly surreal social satirist in the gonzo mode of Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon (a male news anchor’s face is “smooth as cake fondant”; one doomed union is “like a spoon married to a garbage disposal”), it’s that he does it all with so much wit and style and heart. —Leah Greenblatt
