ICPL Staff Top Picks for 2016: Best of the Best


It's here! Iowa City Public Library's Top Picks for 2016!

Staff members nominated more than 100 books released in 2016 as their favorite reads of the year. Those that made this list were nominated by more than one person, which truly makes them the Best of the Best.

Adulthood Is a Myth book cover
American Cake book cover
The Dream Lover book cover
Eligible book cover
A Few of the Girls book cover
The Fireman book cover
Girl Who Drank the Moon book cover
Greetings From Utopia Park book cover
Heartless book cover
Hidden Figures book cover
Morning Star book cover
The Night Gardener book cover
book cover
Raymie Nightingale book cover
Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend book cover
Scrappy Little Nobody book cover
Underground Railroad book cover
When Breath Becomes Air book cover
  • The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg (Fiction) blue-ribbon
  • A Few of the Girls by Maeve Binchy (Fiction)
  • The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald (Fiction)
  • The Fireman by Joe Hill (Fiction)
  • Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (Fiction)
  • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fiction)
  • Heartless by Marissa Meyer (Young Adult)
  • The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Children’s)
  • Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo (Children’s)
  • The Night Gardener by Terry and Eric Fan (Children’s)
  • Morning Star: Book III of The Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown (Science Fiction/Fantasy)
  • Greetings From Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood by Claire Hoffman (Biography/Memoir)
  • Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick (Biography/Memoir)
  • American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and Recipes Behind More Than 125 of Our Best-Loved Cakes by Anne Byrn (Nonfiction)
  • When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Nonfiction)
  • Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (Nonfiction)
  • Adulthood is a Myth: A Sarah's Scribbles Collection by Sarah Andersen (Graphic Novel)
  • Snow White: A Graphic Novel by Matt Phelan (Graphic Novel)
  • Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier (Graphic Novel)
  • Paper Girls Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chang (Graphic Novel)
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    Two graphic novels tied for the title of Most Recommended Book in 2016:

    Snow White book cover
    Ghosts book cover
  • Snow White: A Graphic Novel by Matt Phelan
  • Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
  • -->
    Forget everything you know about Snow White, as Matt Phelan's illustrated take on this classic tale takes place in New Your City in the 1920s. Samantha White is back after being sent away by her cruel stepmother, the Queen of Follies. Her father, the King of Wall Street, survived the stock market crash only to die from a strange and sudden death. However, that's not the only mystery Samantha and her "protectors" -- seven street urchins -- face in what critics have called "a stunning, genre-bending graphic novel."

    In Raina Telgemeier's Ghost, Catrina and her family have moved to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends, but as she and Maya explore their new home,  a neighbor shares a secret: there are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Called a  "can't miss addition to middle school graphic novel shelves," Telgemeier's latest has been praised for "bold colors, superior visual storytelling" by Kirkus Reviews.

    Did your favorite read of 2016 make our list?

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