All the Books I Bought in 2016
Because my Best Self spends more money on books.
I’m going to do a longer Best Self review tomorrow, but today I want to look at just one aspect of my 2016 Best Self goals:
So how’d I do? Let’s look at all the books I bought in 2016 and find out.
(I’m only including books I bought for myself, because I don’t want to spoil anyone’s holiday surprises.)
Everything I bought at Phinney Books, my neighborhood independent bookstore:
- Shonda Rhimes: A Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person
- Louis de Bernières: The Dust That Falls From Dreams
- Molly Wizenberg: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table
- Samantha Ellis: How to Be a Heroine: Or, What I’ve Learned From Reading Too Much
- Maggie Shipstead: Astonish Me
- Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton
- Jeremy Carter and Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton: The Revolution
- Alison Bechdel: Fun Home
- Alison Bechdel: Are You My Mother?
- Tom Nissley: A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales From the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year
- Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend
- Elena Ferrante: The Story of a New Name
- Elena Ferrante: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
- Elena Ferrante: The Story of the Lost Child
- Brit Bennett: The Mothers
- Ann Patchett: Commonwealth
Total cost: $233.88
Everything I bought on Amazon Kindle, including purchases specifically for the “What Children’s Literature Teaches Us About Money” series:
- Keith DeCandido: The Zoo Job (A Leverage Novel)
- Greg Cox: The Bookseller Job (A Leverage Novel) (and in case you’re wondering, I already own Matt Forbeck’s The Con Job)
- Gavin de Becker: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence
- E.B. White: Charlotte’s Web
- George Ella Lyon: Borrowed Children
- Gertrude Chandler Warner: The Boxcar Children
- Elizabeth George Speare: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- Amy Spalding: Love and Music (and Missing Ted Callahan)
- Louise Fitzhugh: Harriet the Spy
- Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Patricia MacLachlan: Sarah, Plain and Tall
- Amy Spalding: The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions)
- Beth Jusino: The Author’s Guide to Marketing: Make a Plan That Attracts More Readers and Sells More Books (You May Even Enjoy It)
Total cost: $90.50
Plus two physical books purchased through Amazon:
- Kayla Cagan: Piper Perish
- John D. Fitzgerald: The Return of the Great Brain
Total cost: $28.96
GRAND TOTAL: $353.34
I’m not going to tally up every book I checked out of the library, but I will tell you that I’ve read 85 books this year (so far), including books I bought, books I borrowed, and books I already owned but wanted to re-read.
So, in terms of my Best Self, I’d say I more than accomplished the Book Goal.
This article is an update to The Billfold’s 2015 end-of-year series, “Our Best Selves in the Coming Year.”
