You’ll note that I didn’t say best books, turns out I am continuing my literary decline. I even cheated by including a couple of items started but not finished in 2015. But still a couple gems to be found, here’s what I read.

• Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon – I’d note this as the best book that I read last year, a journey into the small world in the summer of 2004, I fell for this pair of music lovers and their extended family of far from perfect people, he never fails to create unique characters and balance great language with readable page turning stories.
• The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever – I’ve been reading this book for a couple years now, a few stories between novels and although I might have appreciated a less 700 page ‘best of’ I was impressed by the breadth of pivots of stories within his clearly defined style.
• Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – This kept me engaged while we followed a personal family mystery, though maybe not as compelling as Sharp Objects or Gone Girl, also soon to be a major motion picture.
• Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen – Another irregular Florida crime drama, though these still keep me entertained they’re not exactly ground breaking fiction.
• A Circle of Wives by Alice LaPlante – How can the wives not be suspects when it turns out there is more than one current, the close stories of each wife and the young detective looking into them is more revealing than the actual mystery.
• How It Ended by Jay McInerney – Another collection of short stories in a clearly defined style and subject matter I’m always a fan of his vibe though also best for me with some time between them.
• Saturday by by Ian McEwan – I picked this book up years ago and just couldn’t get into it, but with a little more time I was able to let the small and large moments sweep me in as we spend a day with our main protagonist where things take some odd turns.
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – A poignant tale of a family revealing itself as we learn about the death of their daughter that starts the book, their own personal struggles looking at aspects of race and identity are both personal and universal.
• Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill – I can barely remember this apparent tale of marriage as the disjointed sections failed to capture me with its language and story.

A good start to this year so we’ll see what happens. Always looking forward to best book recommendations, please let us know your picks in the comments.

Well the critics have chimed in and another year of many books I haven’t read, and though I’m reading fewer each year this will still help with my Christmas list for next year. Last year’s list added a couple to my shelf. And of course stay tuned for what I did read this last year.

• The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende – PW
• In the Country by Mia Alvar – HP, PW
• A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson – Ti
• Trashed by Derf Backderf – EW
• A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball – HP
• The State We’re In by Ann Beattie – PW
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty – HP, NYT, PW
• A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin – FW, NYT, PW, EW
• The Dust that Falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernieres – Ti
• Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg – Am
• Memory Theater by Simon Critchley – PW
• Outline by Rachel Cusk – FW, NYT
• The Meursault by Kamel Daoud – PW, Ti
• Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick Dewitt – Ti
• The Green Road by Anne Enright – PW
• Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum – HP
• The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante – FW, Am, HP, NYT, PW, Ti
• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy – PW, EW
• Purity by Jonathan Franzen – Am
• Binary Star by Sarah Gerard – FW
• Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff – Am, HP, Ti
• City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg – Am
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – Am
• The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro – HP
• Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson – HP, Ti
• Counternarratives by John Keene – FW
• Get in Trouble by Kelly Link – Ti
• You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman – HP
• Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas by Christian Kracht – HP
• The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch by Daniel Kraus – EW
• Beauty Is a Wound/Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan – FW
• Get In Trouble by Kelly Link – FW
• The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli – HP
• The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra – HP
• Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann – Am
• Circling the Sun by Paula McLain – Am
• Against the Country by Ben Metcalf – FW
• The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray – Ti
• The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North – FW
• Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich – Am
• Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont – HP
• The Door by Magda Szabo – NYT
• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard – HP
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson – Ti
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal – Am
• The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson – EW
• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler – Am
• Dietland by Sarai Walker – EW
• Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins – HP
• The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams – HP
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara – Am, HP
• The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch – HP
• Mislaid by Nell Zink – FW

Am – Amazon, FW – Jonathon Sturgeon and Sarah Seltzer for Flavorwire, HP – Huffington Post, NYT – New York Times, Ti – Time Magazine, WP – Washington Post