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

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Amy)
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (Hannah)
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (Courtney)
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Arielle)
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (Kelly)
• The Martian by Andy Weir (Roy, Harrison)
• Dear Mr Knightley by Katherine Reay (Nicole)
• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Mick, Juliet)
• The Nine Billion Names of God by Authur C Clarke (David G)
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (Julian)
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Philippe)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (Tom R)
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Bonnie)

Nonfiction:

• Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (Brian P)
• Choose Yourself by James Altucher (Tom D)
• Deep Work by Cal Newport (Super)
• Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday (Spencer, Tyler)
• Essentialism by Greg McKeown (Darcy)
• Rising Strong by Brene Brown (Hamish)
• In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy (Boris)
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A Stinger (Asa)
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Courtney)
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed (Daniel)
• But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking about the Present as if it were the Past by Chuck Klosterman (Dan)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Mike E)
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (Deborah)
• The Confidence Code: The Science of Self-Assurance by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (Karinna)
• Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems by Betsy Beyer, Chris Jones, Jennifer Petoff, Niall Richard Murphy (Katie)
• Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders (Philippe)
• How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie (Steve)
• Setting The Table by Danny Meyer (Joel)
• Quiet by Susan Cain (Caryn)
• Give & Take by Adam Grant (Julia)

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:

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)

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.

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!