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:

My Best Self Spends More Money on Books

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.”

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