This is — count it! — the tenth year in a row that I’m writing a January post to review the books I read and the movies I watched in the previous year.

In 2016, I read 61 books and saw 14 movies; those numbers are close to the year before, though I read quite a few more books.  Again, I read almost twice as much fiction as non-fiction, 40 to 21. Fiction genres ranged from short story collections to historical and contemporary novels to sci-fi/fantasy to mystery/thriller.  The non-fiction books included history, biography/memoir, and social and environmental science.  Because they are rather idiosyncratic, I won’t submit my counts by category.

As happened last year, the number of movies I watched was way below a previously calculated seven-year average of 49, but that was again because I spent a lot of time watching downloaded TV shows (I’m repeating myself here).  The few movies I did watch included varied genres: biopic, comedy, adventure, animated, and domestic drama.

As in the past few years, I could not pick a top five or six titles as Best of, even though that’s what these posts are supposed to be about, so this year I’m again doing something a bit different for both books and movies.

For movies, because there were so few, I picked my all-around favorite, which was American director Cary Fukunaga’s feature film debut Sin Nombre.  As runners-up in the film category, I’ve chosen the Walt Disney animated movie Zootopia and Spike Jonze’s Her.

For books, I decided I would simply highlight the books that I felt were well worth reading but that might not necessarily be that well-known.  So even if this post is supposed to be “Best of,” the books list, alphabetically by title below, is not that.

• Different take on American history focusing on trees – American Canopy
• War novel about a war we weren’t supposed to fight – Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk
• Gut-wrenching fantasy slash historical romance – The Incarnations
• Real biography of a mythical figure – Lawrence in Arabia
• Second World War memoir without too much blood – Shantung Compound
• Contemporary political novel that probably isn’t fiction – The Orphan Master’s Son

Click here for the complete lists.  Enjoy, and I welcome your non-snarky comments.