{"id":12295,"date":"2016-12-02T15:16:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T21:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lib.luc.edu\/locl\/?p=12295"},"modified":"2026-01-12T15:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:36:23","slug":"the-best-books-i-read-in-2016-in-no-particular-order-most-of-these-books-are-downers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/2016\/12\/02\/the-best-books-i-read-in-2016-in-no-particular-order-most-of-these-books-are-downers\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks – The Best Books I Read in 2016 in No Particular Order (most of these books are downers)"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

The Best Books I Read in 2016 in No Particular Order (most of these books are downers*)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teaching My Mot\"jubilee\"<\/a>her How to Give Birth<\/em> by Warsan Shire \u2013 If this collection of poems doesn\u2019t touch your soul, I don\u2019t know what to tell you.*<\/p>\n

Jubilee <\/em>by Margaret Walker \u2013 A story of a young woman living through the antebellum years, the civil war, and the reconstruction.*<\/p>\n

Assata <\/em>by Assata Shakur \u2013Remember in the title when I said a lot of these books were downers? This one is probably the most upsetting of all, and also the most worthy of a read.*<\/p>\n

The Narrow Road to the Deep North<\/em> by Richard Flanagan\u2013 This book won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, smarter people than I am have already commented on it.*<\/p>\n

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories<\/em> by Flannery O\u2019Connor \u2013 Funny and disturbing, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m only getting to Flannery O\u2019Connor in 2016. *<\/p>\n

The New Jim Crow<\/em> by Michelle Alexander \u2013 I think this book should be required reading for all humans.*\"the-narrow-road-to-the-deep-north\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eleanor & Park<\/em> by Rainbow Rowell \u2013 This is just a plain, old-fashioned, good book that will give you a lot of feelings, and possibly make you reexamine what you were like in high school.<\/p>\n

Nightwood<\/em> by Djuna Barnes \u2013 This book was dense and confusing, but I felt like a better person when I was done with it. I highly recommend it if you\u2019re looking for something on the surrealist side of the spectrum.<\/p>\n

The Kill<\/em> by Emile Zola \u2013 I read at least \"nightwood\"<\/a>one Zola novel every year. He can do no wrong in my eyes.<\/p>\n

My Brilliant Friend<\/em> by Elena Ferrante \u2013 This is another plain, old-fashioned, good book. Lives up to the hype.<\/p>\n

Ready Player One<\/em> by Ernest Cline – I don\u2019t know that I really liked this book, but I had a lot of dreams about it. That has to mean something, right?<\/p>\n

The Things They Carried<\/em> by Tim O\u2019Brian \u2013 I actually listened to this one as an audiobook read by Bryan Cranston. Highly recommend. I don\u2019t know why I didn\u2019t read this one years ago.*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Downers are marked with an asterisk, some of them have happy endings but I was worried marking them differently would be a spoiler.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Sarah Meisch \u2013 Library Staff Member, Dog Admirer, Francophile, Coffee Drinker, Amateur Art Critic, Rightful King of the North<\/p>\n

\"sarah-driftwood\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is me with a piece of driftwood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Best Books I Read in 2016 in No Particular Order (most of these books are downers*) Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire \u2013 If this collection of poems doesn\u2019t touch your soul, I don\u2019t know what to tell you.* Jubilee by Margaret Walker \u2013 A story of a young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[5016],"tags":[123,10310,5032,5019],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12306,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12295\/revisions\/12306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}