2016 was the first year I set a reading challenge on Goodreads, just for the fun of it. I set it for 100 books, and with the help of a few re-reads I made the goal (as always, counting plays, single short stories, and novellas). But I don’t think I’m going to do it again. For one thing, I’ve never really needed any additional encouragement to read for pleasure; and for another, I just don’t need the pressure of extra goals this year, even goals set for fun.

A smaller goal I had in 2016 was to read more classics than last year. My goal was six. I loved two by Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne (the latter, if you recall, made my top-ten list); and also liked Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd quite well. I must admit I struggled with The Song of Roland, though that may have been partly owing to a clunky translation. I attempted to re-read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov late this summer, and though what I got through was interesting, the book was just too much for me at that particular time. I’ll read it again one day. Re-reads of Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington carried me past my goal.

Fairytale retellings were rather a theme this year in one way and another—I thoroughly enjoyed the Five Magic Spindles anthology from Rooglewood Press, as well as several creative novel-length retellings: Glass Roses: A Victorian Fairytale by Britain Kalai Soderquist, Traitor’s Masque by Kenley Davidson, and A Branch of Silver, A Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.

At various times throughout the year I returned to a pair of lighter authors I’ve come to count on for entertainment, with mixed results. Though each had its moments, all the Angela Thirkell books I read—Pomfret Towers, The Brandons and Before Lunch—merely sputtered in comparison with earlier titles. I’m told the series picks up again with the wartime years, and I hope that’s true! Meanwhile, I enjoyed Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester and The Unknown Ajax, but found Cotillion merely okay.

I read quite a lot of mysteries over the course of the year. I inched forward in Josephine Tey’s Inspector Grant and Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter series—slowly, so as not to use them up so quickly!—and also tried out new-to-me authors whenever I found a likely bargain or freebie, always hoping to strike the gold of another good series. Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold, At the Villa Rose by A.E.W. Mason, The Middle of Things by J.S. Fletcher and Picture Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic were the few standouts (though the second Miss Seeton mystery didn’t quite live up to the first); Escape the Night by Mignon Eberhart and Death on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne were decent. The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, more of a suspense thriller than a mystery, was a welcome return to form after a few dissatisfying reads by White previously.

Not too many Westerns, I’m afraid. Conagher by Louis L’Amour was…well, I couldn’t really put my finger on anything wrong with it; it just seemed a little dull. The Blue Mustang by Will Henry, on the other hand, in spite of some content issues, was a sterling example of just how good a well-written Western with three-dimensional characters can be. And I did get around to re-reading B.M. Bower’s Rim O’ the World, which I think is really one of her best earlier novels, even if there are a few things about it that irk me.

Most of my nonfiction reading was on WWII history for research purposes. Besides the two titles that made my top-ten list, a few of the best were Condition Red: Destroyer Action in the South Pacific by Frederick J. Bell, Neptune’s Inferno: The US Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer, and I’ll Be Home For Christmas: The Spirit of Christmas During WWII. The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War by Samuel Eliot Morison was a good solid (in every sense of the word, clocking in at over 600 pages) overview that got me started.

Other nonfiction included a fine Western memoir, High, Wide and Lonesome by Hal Borland, and A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle, from which I did glean some good insights on writing, even if I didn’t agree with all of L’Engle’s philosophy.

Storming by K.M. Weiland was fun, even though it didn’t wholly satisfy me in some ways. My yearly Mary Stewart, The Ivy Tree, was a winner this year. For Elise by Hayden Wand, Seventeen by Booth Tarkington, Letters From Bath by Meredith Allady, and Back Home by Eugene Wood were all enjoyable lighter reads, and the composite novel The Whole Family an entertaining novelty. Other novels of miscellaneous genre that I enjoyed included Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp, Goodbye, My Lady by James H. Street, and Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute.  Finally, Hitch by Jeannette Ingold and Watch the Wall, My Darling by Jane Aiken Hodge were quite good historical fiction, and Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw even better historical fiction (considered as a runner-up to my top-ten list, in fact).

So that’s the overview! If you’d like to browse the full list of books I read in 2016—including the duds, which I didn’t particularly feel like re-hashing in this post—you can find it on Goodreads here. Tell me—did I read any of your favorite books this year, or anything you’re looking forward to reading?

Previous years’ reading roundups: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.