My reading goals were assertive in 2016 and despite falling short, I’m happy with what I accomplished. Originally, I intended to finish two books per month and stayed on track until the weather began to improve – so about the first half of the year in the Midwest. A few books slowed me down, but I was happy with the portion of the list I’d made it through by June.

Then my birthday arrived, we began planning our vacation in New Orleans, and my focus on getting through my reading list went up in smoke. I did swap a few of my original books for NOLA books, which I don’t regret in the least.

Here’s a glimpse of my standout books from 2016:

Two of the books shown here are on my future To Be Read. They’re in the 2016 recap because one was a birthday gift and the other summed up my New Orleans trip.

Favorite of the year was probably A Hundred Summers, though The Girl on the Train was a close second.

My least favorite of this bunch was The Truth of All Things. I didn’t hate it, but it was slow going and took five weeks to finish instead of two.

I wouldn’t usually include a cook book/food health guide on my annual reading list, but Whole 30 was a big deal for me this past spring, and I wanted my list to sum up my year.

For that same reason I’m happy New Orleans is so well represented, even though I haven’t read all of Where Writers Write in New Orleans.  Same goes for Judgement in Paris – I haven’t read it yet, but it was a birthday gift, so I decided to include it. It’s on my To Be Read this year, in preparation for a (hopefully) trip to Northern California in the fall.

So there it is: my 2016 in books. Moderately accomplished and a great jumping off point for 2017. I’ll have that list up next week, but you can check it out on Good Reads for now.