Favorite Books I Read in 2016

After a fun trip to Mexico City, I am ushering out 2016 reading Roberto Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer and partially set in the Ciudad de México. A wild ride of a book, for sure! I started studying Spanish again, too, this year.

Here are some of the favorite books that I read in 2016, some published this year, others not.

Barefoot Dogs, by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship, by Paul Lisicky

Peas and Carrots, by Tanita S. Davis

Leaving the Atocha Station, by Ben Lerner

The Dark Back of Time, by Javier Marías, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen

Seeing Red, by Lina Meruane, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

The House by the Lake: A Story of Germany, by Thomas Harding

I Love Cake! Starring Rabbit, Porcupine, and Moose, written by Tammi Sauer and illustrated by Angie Rozelaar

The Vanishing Velásquez: A 19th-Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece, by Laura Cumming

How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, by Edward Hirsch

The Outrun, by Amy Liptrot

One of the best bookish things I did was taking the free online course "Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing," offered through the UK's Warwick University on the FutureLearn platform.  The six-week course repeats on January 30, 2017; I recommend it highly, as well as FutureLearn's class on Much Ado about Nothing, presented by the University of Birmingham and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Photograph: Calle Madero, Mexico City. Photo by Norman Trepner.