Although I’ve attempted to categorize my reading, many books could fall into multiple categories. In no particular order, these are the books I read in 2016:

Business & Personal Development

• Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling (Michael Port)
• Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Formula to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy…Create a Mass of Raving Fans…and Take Any Business to the Next Level (Ryan Levesque)
• How to Become a Corporate or Business Coach (Lyn Kelley)
  #GIRLBOSS (Sophia Amoruso)
• The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea (Bob Burg, John David Mann)
• Rich Bitch: A Simple 12-Step Plan for Getting Your Financial Life Together…Finally (Nicole Lapin)
• Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (Jocko Willink, Leif Babin)
• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace (Al Ries, Jack Trout)
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Simon Sinek)
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (Nir Eyal)
• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers (Ben Horowitz)

Personal Development

• Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill)
• The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life — Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process (Thomas Sterner)
• As a Man Thinketh (James Allen)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie)
• The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success (Darren Hardy)
• You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life (Jen Sincero)
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) (Seth Godin)
• The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy (Lewis Howes)
• The Desire Map (Danielle LaPorte)
• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (Austin Kleon)
• The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time (Arianna Huffington)

Productivity

• Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible (Brian Tracy)
• Life Leverage: How to Get More Done in Less Time, Outsource Everything & Create Your Ideal Mobile Lifestyle (Rob Moore)
• Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive (Charles Duhigg)
• The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) (Hal Elrod)
• The 12 Week Year (Brian P. Moran, Michael Kennington)

Entrepreneurship

• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy World (Gary Vaynerchuk)
• Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money (Pat Flynn)
• Million Dollar Women: The Essential Guide for Female Entrepreneurs Who Want to Go Big (Julia Pimsleur)
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Eric Ries)

Real Estate

• Multiple Streams of Property Income (Rob Moore)
• Investing in Real Estate (Gary W. Eldred)
• Commercial Real Estate Investing: The Essentials to Buying and Managing Commercial Properties  (Clayton Geoffreys)

Psychology

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol S. Dweck)
• Grit: The Power of Passion & Perseverance (Angela Duckworth)
• The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks)
• Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges (Amy Cuddy)
• The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It (Kelly McGonigal)
• The New Psycho-Cybernetics (Maxwell Maltz)

Fiction

• No Country For Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
• Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
• The Chimes (Charles Dickens)
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote)
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Maria Semple)
• The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead)
• Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White)

History

• All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Stephen Kinzer)
• The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor (Susan Wise Bauer)
• A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind (Michael Axworthy)

Biography

• Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
• Elon Musk: Inventing the Future (Ashlee Vance)

Memoir

• Seven Years in Tibet (Heinrich Harrer)
• Istanbul: Memories and the City (Orhan Pamuk)
• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (J. D. Vance)
• Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer (Heather Lende)
• As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride (Cary Elwes, Joe Layden, Rob Reiner)
• When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)
• Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance (Atul Gawande)
• The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country (Helen Russell)
• Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife: My Story of Finding Hope after Domestic Abuse (Ruth A. Tucker)
• Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World (Lynne Martin)
• How We Die: Reflections of Life’s Final Chapter (Sherwin B. Nuland)

Race

• Roots: The Saga of an American Family (Alex Haley)
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Bryan Stevenson)
• Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Family Relationships and Child Development

• Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakeable Peace (Sarah Mackenzie)
• More than Happy: The Wisdom of Amish Parenting (Serena B. Miller)
• Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: And How You Can Make Yours Last (John Gottman)
• What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage (Paul David Tripp)
• It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (Hillary Rodham Clinton)
• UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World (Michele Borba)
• Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts (Susan Cain, Gregory Mone, Erica Moroz)

Theology & Christian Living

• The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms (Timothy Keller)
• Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ (Andrew David Naselli, J.D. Crowley)
• Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing (Andy Crouch)
• Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time (Jeremy Courtney)
• Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity (Tim Challies)

Various Non-Fiction

• Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life (Emily Nagoski)
• Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (Marie Kondo)
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel (Rolf Potts)
• Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living (Shauna Niequist)
• Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (Darrel Ray)
• Breaking Busy: How to Find Peace and Purpose in a World of Crazy (Alli Worthington)

At the end of the Booklist Countdown, I’ll share my Top 10 Reads of 2016.  I’ll post with 10 Books on Race That Every American Should Read (i.e., 10 books that personally shaped my understanding of race.)

I’d love suggestions for my 2017 reading! And if you’re on Goodreads, I’d love to connect there.

(Note: all books are linked to Amazon, using my affiliate link.)

A note on my philosophy of reading:

I try to read broadly. I read broadly to expand my knowledge of the scope of the world. Without this, I am not able to cross-pollinate ideas, connect dots, or keep the big picture in mind. I try to read deeply. “Should you read broadly? Or should you read deeply?” That is a question that many ask, but the answer can be “both,” on some level. Without reading broadly, you cannot connect your depth to other areas of life and information. I try to read bestsellers. I watch very little TV/movies and sports, but still feel it is important to understand what is shaping and influencing contemporary societal thinking. (Not to mention, it’s an awesome way to connect with people!) There’s also usually a reason a book is a bestseller. 🙂 I try to read books that challenge my beliefs, not just merely confirm my bias. This is how we grow and change and strengthen our understanding, scary as it may seem. I try to read books that strengthen my faith. But I also try to read books that challenge my current perception of my faith. It should also go without saying, just because a book appears on my reading list, does not mean I endorse or condone the contents, microscopically (every detail) or macroscopically (the major premise(s) of the book).