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With its heady mix of books that both spoke to our time and ripped us right out of the present and down the rabbit hole, 2016 was a good year to be a bibliophile.

Here’s what we loved from 2016, but don’t dawdle: Use your holiday time wisely and get caught up on your reading now. With a George Saunders novel out early next year, 2017 is already shaping up to be a great year to bury your nose in a novel.

"News of the World" book cover
“News of the World” book cover

News of the World
By Paulette Jiles (William Morrow)

It’s post-Civil War Texas, and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels alone, doing live readings of the news for small-town residents — that is, until he agrees to return a young girl kidnapped by the Kiowa to her relatives near San Antonio. Paulette Jiles is a poet at heart, and in this National Book Award finalist, she crafts a beautiful story that’s short in words but long in feeling.
— Emilie Rusch

The Underground Railroad
By Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Cora undertakes an Odyssean journey when she escapes the violence of the Randall plantation to ride the Underground Railroad, which Whitehead cleverly envisions as a physical railroad with secret stations. By twists and turns, Cora flees from one insidious new form of racism only to land in another, all while being chased by the notorious slave catcher (and well wrought arch-villain) Ridgeway. Poignant, beautifully written and paced for all-at-once reading, Whitehead’s latest tome was the unsurprising winner of the National Book Award for 2016 fiction.
— Jenn Fields

The Woman in Cabin 10
By Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout)

This Hitchcockian thriller about a travel writer on the maiden voyage of a small 10-cabin cruise ship who thinks she witnessed a murder is dark and twisty and will keep you guessing. That’s largely because the narrator is not reliable. She’s had a too much to drink, and the 10th cabin is officially empty for this trip, so no one has seen the woman she’s convinced has been thrown overboard. Be warned: Although this story starts strong, the book wraps up quickly with a rather unexpected (and depending on your perspective, undeserved) happy ending. But it’s worth your time to try to unravel the initial mystery.
— Sara B. Hansen

Here I Am
By Jonathan Safran Foer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Is it possible to fulfill your duties as a parent, lover and child at the same? Safran Foer’s long-awaited third novel explores the dissolution of a Washington D.C. family in gritty (and often beautiful) detail while picking at the densely knotted relationship between Jewish America and Israel. The author searches for meaning in this 21st century married couple’s minutiae like a literary historian: Every text exchange begets paragraphs of context, each silence deafening after analysis. When it doesn’t get dizzy with its self-aware dot connecting, “Here I Am” is an odd comfort in an unprecedentedly complicated time.
— Dylan Owens

"The Trespasser" book cover
“The Trespasser” book cover

The Trespasser
By Tana French (Viking)

Tana French is a master crime novelist, and you can’t go wrong with any of her gorgeously written, expertly plotted Dublin Murder Squad books, each of which is narrated by a different detective. The latest installment follows the tough, prickly Antoinette Conway, assigned to investigate what seems like a routine domestic case and on the outs with her entire squad.
— E.R.

Homegoing
By Yaa Gyasi (Knopf)

In separate villages in Western Africa, two half-sisters come of age in different worlds: Effia is married to a white slaver; Esi is taken, sent to America and sold into slavery. Gyasi’s debut follows their descendants, through wars on both continents, through the antebellum South, into jazz-age Harlem, up to the present day. Trauma travels through generations on both sides of the family tree, but there’s still hope amid the struggle in this powerful tapestry of a family whose history is still feeling the effects of slavery.
— J.F.

Nicotine
By Nell Zink (Ecco)

Why shouldn’t a journey of self discovery start in a sweat lodge and conclude in an intentional community (a squat, really) where residents are united by their advocacy for people marginalized by tobacco use? Nell Zink’s poppy satire tracks Penny, a super bright but emotionally stunted young woman who is recovering from the death of her beloved shaman father, as she unearths the truth of her past and steps into her very bright future.
— Dana Coffield

The Wonder
By Emma Donoghue (Little Brown)

Anna is an 11-year-old with strong religious convictions who goes on a months-long fast in 19th century Ireland in this second novel by the author of the smash hit “Room.” Is it a miracle or a fraud? A British nurse trained by Florence Nightingale is called in to investigate and, in time, gets to the bottom of the case — which is more sordid than mystical. Look past the book’s flaws (go ahead: suspend that disbelief) and you will get carried away in this page-turner.
— Barbara Ellis

"The Muse" book cover
“The Muse” book cover

The Muse
By Jessie Burton (Ecco)

It starts a bit slow, but “The Muse” blossoms into a compelling tale about how two women express their creative talents. One is a painter and the other a writer; both have to cope with racism and sexism in their respective times. Burton’s book is beautifully written, and the central mystery will keep readers guessing. If you haven’t read Burton’s “The Miniaturist,” put it on your must-read list, too.
— S.B.H.

Commonwealth
By Ann Patchett (Harper Collins)

A single kiss seals the fate of two families: The adults are split by the divorce, but for the children, it’s more complicated, more nuanced. Patchett is a master storyteller — you can taste the oranges, feel the humidity, pick up undertone in a quip of dialogue — and “Commonwealth” is a tome by a writer at the top of her craft. Pick it up and just try to put it back down.
— J.F.

Miller’s Valley
By Anna Quindlen (Random House)

Anna Quindlen’s lovely, lyrical writing and ability to tell a meaningful story never fail to impress. A family is faced with losing its flood-prone ancestral land in the fictional Miller’s Valley when the government targets it for a reservoir. You will fall in love with heroine Mimi Miller, and see your own upbringing and hometown — or maybe yourself — in her story. Quindlen’s skill at depicting the circle of life results in a satisfying, elegant novel.
— B.E.

Today Will Be Different
By Maria Semple (Little Brown)

Semple — author of the popular 2012 comedic novel “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” (which is being made into a film directed by Richard Linklater) — returns with this breezy read about Seattle mom Eleanor Flood, an animation artist who has an acerbic wit and little patience for fools. Semple, who wrote for the television shows “Arrested Development,” “Ellen” and “Mad About You,” has created a depressed, mean-spirited, forgetful, self-centered, scatterbrained and sometimes unlikable main character that you can’t help but fall in love with. “Today will be different,” the book begins. And it is — sort of.
— B.E.

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