Wisdom of Lists: Best Nonfiction 2016

I love when the “Best Books of the Year” lists come out. I’ve discovered I get maximum reading satisfaction when I read books that were on the most lists. I collected 34 lists this year and tabulated the crossover. I know this is going with the common denominator, but it’s also the wisdom of crowds. By using a diversity of sources I get a selection of books that cover a variety of topics. A method that gets me to read outside my reading ruts. During the year I play a game where I try to discover these books on my own before I create the list. This year I had already read four, listening to a fifth, and bought four others.

ARS – ARS Technica AVC – A.V. Club BBC – BBC BITCH – Bitch Media BRAIN – Brain Pickings BRIOT – Book Riot BUZZ – Buzzfeed CT – Chicago Tribune DEN – The Denver Post ECO – The Economist ELLE – Elle ESQ – Esquire EW – Entertainment Weekly FA – Foreign Affairs FLW – Flavorwire GLOBE – Globe and Mail HARP – Harpers Bazaar

HUFF – The Huffington Post MIT – MIT Technology Review MOJ – Mother Jones MPR – MPR News NEWS – Newsweek NPR – NPR NYT – New York Times PWK – Publisher’s Weekly REAL – Real Simple ROOT – The Root SEA – Seattle Times SLATE – Slate TIME – Time VOGUE – Vogue VWK – Value Walk WP – Washington Post WEEK – The Week

 

• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond 13 – BUZZ, CT, DEN, ESQ, EW, FLW, MOJ, MPR, NYT, PWK, WP, VWK, WEEK
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 10 – BRAIN, ECO, ELLE, EW, GLOBE, HARP, NPR, NYT, REAL, WEEK
• Lab Girl by Hope Jahren 9 – ARS, BRIOT, ELLE, EW, MIT, NYT, SEA, NYT, TIME
• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin 9 – BITCH, BUZZ, EW, MPR, NYT, SEA, TIME, WEEK, VOGUE
• I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong 8 – ARS, AVC, BUZZ, ECO, MIT, MOJ, MPR, NYT
• The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee 8 – DEN, ECO, EW, GLOBE, MIT, NYT, SEA, WP
• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar 8 – DEN, ECO, ESQ, MPR, NYT, VOGUE, VWK, WP
• Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen 7 – AVC, BUZZ, ECO, GLOBE, HARP, NRP, NYT
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly 7 – ARS, BITCH, BRAIN, BUZZ, FLW, ROOT, TIME
• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance 7 – ECO, FA, MOJ, SEA, SLATE, TIME, WEEK
• Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West 7 – BITCH, BRIOT, ESQ, GLOBE, MPR, NEWS, REAL
• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race ed. by Jesmyn War 6 – BUZZ, ELLE, FLW, HARP, MPR, ROOT
• March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell 6 – BRIOT, BUZZ, CT, MOJ, ROOT, TIME
• Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich 6 – BUZZ, DEN, NYT, PWK, WEEK, WP
• In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi 5 – ELLE, HARP, NYT, SLATE, VWK
• The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing 5 – BRAIN, ELLE, GLOBE, NEWS, NPR
• Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil 5 – ARS, BUZZ, MIT, MPR, NYT
• The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood by Belle Boggs 4 – BUZZ, FLW, GLOBE, HARP
• Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer 4 – EW, NEWS, NYT, VWK
• How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France 4- BUZZ, FLW, NEWS, NYT
• Known and Strange Thingss by Teju Cole 4 – BBC, HARP, ROOT, TIME
• All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister 3 – BITCH, MPR, NYT
• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacyy by Heather Ann Thompson 3 – NEWS, NYT, PWK
• The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War by Robert J. Gordon 3 – ECO, FA, NYT
• Time Travel: A History by James Gleick 3 – BRAIN, BUZZ, MPR
• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson 3 – FLW, GLOBE, NYT
• White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg 3 – GLOBE, MRP, NYT
• You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson 3 – BRIOT, BITCH, MPR