2016 Books

Here are my ratings for the books I read in 2016.  In case you've forgotten, the scale goes like this: 1 - pass, 2 - some good some bad, 3 - recommended, 4 - can't stop raving about it, 5 - fundamentally
changed my life.

1.      The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln: and 44 Other Forgotten Figures in History (Donald) 2

2.      Bossypants (Fey) 2

3.      The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot) 4

4.      The Granite Garden: Urban Nature And Human Design (Spirn) 2

5.      41: A Portrait of My Father (Bush) 4

6.      History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Meltzer) 2

7.      A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design (Wilczek) 2

8.      Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness (Brady) 3

9.      A History of Pi (Beckmann) 2

10.  Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (Nye) 3

11.  Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (Saval) 3

12.  This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection (Burnett) 2

13.  Twelve Years a Slave (Northup) 3

14.  Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Obama) 2

15.  The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Pollan) 4

16.  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou) 3

17.  Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel (Limbaugh) 2

18.  Invisible Man (Ellison) 3

19.  First Family: Abigail and John Adams (Ellis) 4

20.  Minnie’s Sacrifice (Harper) 3

21.  Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry) 3

22.  A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Carson) 3

23.  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Covey) 4

24.  Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't (Collins) 4

25.  Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society (Bryson) 3

26.  Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry (Barry) 2

27.  Things Fall Apart (Achebe) 3

28.  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (Cain) 4

29.  The Evolution of God (Wright) 4

30.  Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars (Billings) 4

31.  Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence (Ellis) 3

32.  Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance (Roubini) 3

33.  Exceptionally Human: Successful Communication in a Distracted World (Shapiro) 3

34.  The Case for God (Armstrong) 2

35.  Bill Bryson's African Diary (Bryson) 2

36.  The Name of God Is Mercy (Francis) 3

37.  The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Mukherjee) 3

38.  SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Beard) 4

39.  Gratitude (Sacks) 3

40.  The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Isaacson) 4

41.  How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World (Johnson) 3

42.  Haunted Philadelphia: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites, and Lingering Legends (Oordt) 3

43.  No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (Rice) 3

44.  1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Mann) 4

45.  Nature Writings (Muir) 3

46.  Mom & Me & Mom (Angelou) 3

47.  Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania (Bruni) 4

48.  In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Pollan) 3

49.  Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Marable) 3

50.  African-American Poetry: An Anthology 1773-1927 (Sherman) 4

51.  Yes, Please (Poehler) 2

52.  Beloved (Morrison) 3

53.  Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor  (Everitt) 4

54.  Why Not Me (Kaling) 2

55.  Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Vance) 3