2016 has been a difficult year in general. I think everyone can agree. 
 However, it appears that it has also been a relatively active year, too, at least when it comes to my reading. 
 Even I have to boggle at the amount of books I've read. What is it? 623? Sheesh. Granted, a great deal of those are volumes of comics and manga, but certainly not enough to average only 2000 pages a month versus my 13,000 to 16,000 pages that came from regular books, per month. 
 Enough about that. :) This was an anomoly. I pushed myself to see what I could do for how long I could do it. I did it. Now I'll probably cut my reading time down by a quarter. Maybe even a half! :) 
 Alas, with so many books, I stressed for a few minutes trying to think of a way to break it down and tell ya'll which ones were best, perhaps by genre or other types of personal organizational technique, but in the end I made it easy on myself. 
 I'm going by which titles remain super strong in my memory even after being flooded with sooooo many other stories afterwards. Staying power, in other words. 
 The top one is Ninefox Gambit, and following close behind that happens to be The Broken Earth books: The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, one of which was a re-read. 
 I was blown away by Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others and Wonder Boys. I was challenged and thrilled and ultimately bowled over by Death's End. 
 I re-read some old favorites that remain favorites: Anathem and The Foundation Trilogy. 
 Some hit me from out of nowhere and still shock me: Too Like the Lightning, The Broken Sword. 
 No list would be complete without giving a huge nod to the writers who made fantastic tales (who also seem to have hit it really big) that I also happen to love: the Pierce Brown trilogy (Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star and V. E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows). 
 And then there's the pure literary delight I got out of Cat Valente's Fairyland series. I can't recommend these YA's enough. :) Nor can I get over re-reading Gaiman's Sandman (Including Oveture which ROCKED). Or finally getting into Michael Moorcock's Elric! 
 There's a ton of really great books out there, but in the end I only made a very tiny dent in them even so. Even in this list. 
 I'm leaving out the studied and impressive tomes that I appreciated heavily and the delightful and strange tales that come very very close to making it here but were crowded out just by the sheer magnitude of how much I loved the ones I listed. Alas. I remember them and some of them extremely well, but in the end, the cream always rises and gives me that giddy feeling that I just can't ignore. :) 
 Great reading, everyone! 
 2016 may have sucked, but books always makes things better.