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Buffer’s Favorite Books of 2016

4 min read Self-Improvement
Nicole Miller
Nicole Miller Director of People @ Buffer
Buffer’s Favorite Books of 2016

Here at Buffer, we love to read.

A lot.

In fact, we gifted 1,366 Kindle books to our team members and their family members this year alone!

This is 27% more than our 2015 total of 1074 and 108% more than our 2014 total of 656!

One of our most avid readers, Amy, is in four book clubs currently, and she cites this Kindle perk as enabling her to do so and also set new expectations for her reading habit.

“I also challenged myself to read at least 25 books by female authors this year,” Amy said. “Which has been a great way to find diverse voices and viewpoints. I was able to exceed my goal, while also enjoying some books outside of that group of books.”

We asked our team about their favorite book of 2016 and compiled some of the most-requested books from the past year. Are any of your favorites in here? Any that stand out to you? Get your to-read list ready for more additions!

Our team’s favorite books of 2016:

fiction-collage

Fiction

nonfiction-collage

Nonfiction:

The 10 most-requested books from the entire team in 2016:

In 2016, we had a bigger showing of non-fiction than we saw in 2015 (the only fiction book in the top 10 was the latest Harry Potter release). We had some repeats from our 2015 list as well, with classics like Essentialism and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Our most-requested book, Sprint, was a huge influence in our Buffercelerator program with the product, Rocket.

Here are the most-requested books of 2016:

top-5-requested-collage
  1. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp (19 requested)
  2. Essentialism by Greg McKeown (15)
  3. Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (13)
  4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (13)
  5. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (13)
  6. High Output Management by Andrew S Grove (12)
  7. Inspired: How to Create Products People Love by Marty Cagan (11)
  8. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins (11)
  9. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (11)
  10. Tie: Creating a Data-Driven Organization by Carl Anderson, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, Small Giants by Bo Burlingham, Clean Code by Robert C Martin (8)
six-to-ten-requested-book-collage

Our team book club selections:

Our amazing teammate, Amy, led the effort to start a team-wide book club in 2016 (among many other remote team-building efforts) and here were our selections with the most requested, When Breath Becomes Air, as our first pick.

book-club-collage
  1. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (29 requested)
  2. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (15)
  3. Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (15)
  4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (12)
  5. The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang (8)
  6. Rising Strong by Brene Brown (8)
  7. Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art by Virginia Heffernan (8)

Over to you

Follow our Pinterest board here to keep up on our latest readings!

What were your favorite books that you read in 2016? What are you looking forward to reading in 2107? Any of these books make it onto your to-read list? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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