My Year in Numbers + 20 Favorites

In 2016 I read 106 books. These were:

69% by female authors, 31% male
54% by American authors, 16% English, 12% Filipino
89% fiction, 11% nonfiction
53% e-books, 47% physical copies
49% of physical copies were secondhand, 45% brand new, 6% from the library
76% were published between 1995 and 2015

My favorite books I read were:
Fiction
1. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
2. Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
4. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
5. Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
6. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
7. The Martian by Andy Weir
8. I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
9. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
10. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Short Stories
11. Dear Distance by Luis Joaquin Katigbak
Series
12-15. The Queen's Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Filipino Fiction
16. Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis
Nonfiction
17. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
18. Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now by Maya Angelou
19. Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
20. It was snowing butterflies by Charles Darwin

WWW Wednesday 16

This meme/link-up is hosted by Taking on a World of Words
What are you currently reading?
Returning to this link-up after two months feels like telling the priest it has been n days since my last confession. Haha. I seem to have misplaced Macarthur by Bob Ong, and I'm pretty sure The Passion of Mademoiselle S. is at the bottom of a tote bag somewhere.

What did you recently finish reading?

Since my last confession update I've read three more of the best books I've read this year. The first one is Dear Distance by Luis Joaquin Katigbak, a collection of 20 short stories filled with nostalgia and a little regret. I also loved The Elements of Style by Strunk, White, and Kalman, though I'm not sure if the guide would have had the same levity without those gorgeous illustrations. Now to apply those lessons in my writing. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman was a short, beautiful book on different scenarios involving time.One of the blurbs called it "meditations on time," but to me it felt more like visualizing human nature or human responses to time. Nine Stories was my second try at J.D. Salinger, and I have to say, I still don't get it. 

What do you think you'll read next?

I've stopped setting goals for myself with regards to reading, at least until the end of 2016. I've already set aside a 2017 TBR, a very reasonable 8 books.