Mea culpa.

I didn't fulfill my 2016 vow, to finish those two doorstops, War and Peace and The Power Broker by year's end, but I didn't make it. 

I managed War and Peace (thank you very much), which made me proud, and made seeing the wonderful Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet so much more enjoyable (and comprehensible). 

But the 1200 densely-packed pages (really, that book has to break a record for words-per-page) of The Power Broker are taking longer than any book I've ever read. In my life. Ever. Since it is so complicated--the deal-making and all the many characters and the complexity of New York's politics and finances--I can't read at my usual rapid pace. It's necessary to go slowly and really concentrate--two things I'm not all that good at. 

Not that it isn't interesting. I enjoy New York history, and this book is packed full of it. It's also interesting reading about this complex man, so brilliant and so arrogant. His life, so far (I'm on page 724) was an arc from powerless, idealistic failure to incredibly powerful, arrogant, tyrant. And his influence on New York was assuredly greater than anyone else's, ever. 

So I will finish it, probably not today or tomorrow, but in the next few days. 

In the meantime, below is my list for 2016. There were a few I loved (Brooklyn, Americanah, The Night Watch) and plenty I liked but, it seems, more disappointments than usual. 

Doesn't matter...on to next year...and to finishing the story of the modern Moses and a year of great reading!

1.     A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

2.     To Dwell in Darkness by Deborah Crombie

3.     The Apartment by Greg Baxter  

4.     War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

5.     Brooklyn by Colm Toibin 

6.     Plays: The Crucible by Arthur Miller, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

7.     The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh

8.     The Vacationers by Emma Straub

9.     Between You and Me: Memoirs of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

10.  Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

11.  The Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

12.  The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig  

13.  Purity by Jonathan Franzen

14.  Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim

15.  Speedboat by Renata Adler  

16.  Hamilton, the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

17.  Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

18.  Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs

19.  Cocaine Blues (A Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery) by Kerry Greenwood

20.  Flying Too High (A Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery) by Kerry Greenwood

21.  Murder on the Ballarat Train (A Phryne Fisher Murder Mysery) by Kerry Greenwood

22.  Act One by Moss Hart

23.  The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith

24.  Emma by Alexander McCall Smith

25.  The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

26.  Siracusa by Delia Ephron

27.  Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

28.  The Girls by Emma Cline

29.  Drinking: A Love Story by Carolyn Knapp

30.  The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale

31.  In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

32.  The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

33.  Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffen

34.  Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

35.  Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

36.  A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean 

37.  Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

38.  On Writing by Stephen King

39.  Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story by George Eliot

40.  Shipwreck by Louis Begley  

41.  In the Woods by Tana French

42.  The first 700 pages of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro