One of the strangest parts of this extremely strange year for me was that for roughly six weeks, between the end of September and the aftermath of the election, I was completely unable to read a book for pleasure. Instead of losing myself in another world, or in someone else’s brain, which is the reason I usually read, I kept groping for my phone to check the news. There was too much happening and too much to be anxious about. It felt irresponsible to abandon the real world even for an hour or two. I could miss something important. (Individual at-bats during the World Series qualified.)
But we won’t get to read that for quite a while. In the meantime, here’s a list of books that surprised and enlightened and delighted Reader reviewers in 2016:
Art/ArchitectureObsolescence: An Architectural History by Daniel M. Abramson (Chicago)
Memoir/BiographyDirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago’s Last Harbor Boss by R.J. Nelson (Chicago)Hold Still by Sally Mann (Back Bay Books)Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know About Life I Learned From Watching 80s Movies by Jason Diamond (William Morrow)Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout by Laura Jane Grace with Dan Ozzi (Hachette)Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman (Ecco)
TV/FilmTV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time by Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz (Grand Central)Two Weeks in the Midday Sun: A Cannes Notebook by Roger Ebert (Chicago)
