December 6, 2016

New to Me Authors 2016

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is New to Me Authors 2016. These are the best books by authors I hadn't read before this year whether or not I had heard of them before or not.

Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen - To no one's surprise this one comes first. This is the author of Black Rabbit Literature Society which I read back in February and it's still on my top favorites of the year.

Steve Sheinkin - He writes mostly YA non-fiction. This year, I read The Port Chicago 50 about the explosion on the dock that killed a bunch of black men and the strike that ensued when the bosses wanted the others to go back to work without changing the safety measures. He has written two more that are on my radar. One called Lincoln's Grave Robbers and Bomb about the atomic bomb.

Paul Theroux - I know he's been an acclaimed travel writer for decades, but I was only semi-interested until he wrote Deep South about his travels in rural Southern towns.

Helen Ellis - She wrote American Housewife which is my favorite collection of short stories from this year.

Amie Kaufman - She cowrote Illuminae with Jay Kristoff. That book is huge, but I was captivated. It was so creatively told with memos and web chats. I loved it. I can't wait to read the next one.

Kevin Kwan - I really enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians. It isn't brilliant literature, but it was exactly the kind of fluff I needed at the time I read it.

Ryan Graudin - She wrote Wolf by Wolf which I really liked. I'm super glad it made the Sequoyah list this year. It was an amazing alternate history for teen readers.

Jesmyn Ward - She has been on my radar for a few years. I wanted to read Salvage the Bones but I was too chicken. So when she published Men We Reaped, I decided that was safer. It was still hard to read, but so worth it. Next I want to read The Fire This Time which is a collection of essays about race that she edited.

Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night was just a fantastic historical fiction novel. I loved his main character the opera singer.

Rene Denfield - I got a copy of The Enchanted for Christmas last year. It was so weird and good. I read it in one day. Why do I love prison novels? I don't know.

So there are my top 10 New-To-Me authors for 2016.

What did you discover this year?