2016 Favorites: Book

One of my goals of 2016 was to read 24 books over the course of the year. According to Goodreads, I ended up reading 33 books. This makes me happy.

Here are (in no particular order) some of my favorite books that I read last year:

• The Nightingale
• The Complete Maus (favorite graphic novel I read in 2016)
• Ghostwritten
• Contact
• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
• Slaughterhouse-Five
• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
• The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (favorite collection of short stories I read in 2016)

It’s quite hard for me to pick one book as “Karan’s Book of the Year” for 2016. Each the books above had great stories, were well written, made me experience a smorgasbord of emotions, and had something that stuck to my soul long after the book was over. If I was forced to pick one, I would have to say that book would be The Nightingale. I felt that this book was pure literary perfection. As I said about the book in September —

I LOVED this book! It’s beautifully written, with an engaging story, a haunting backdrop, and well developed characters. It made me cry quite a bit. This is one of my favorite books of all time

(why yes, I did just quote myself)

This simplistic review doesn’t even come close to describing how breathtakingly sublime The Nightingale is. Please read this book.