Best of 2016

A summary of books, films, TV, performances, and other things produced, consumed and enjoyed this year by me:

Best Non-Fiction Read for the First Time

• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Domingos Alvares: African Healing and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World by James Sweet

Best Fiction/Poetry Read for the First Time:

• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• Ayiti by Roxane Gay

Best TV Watched for the First Time: 

• Stranger Things (2016-)
• The Newsroom (2012-2014)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)
• The Get Down (2016-)
• Beyonce’s Lemonade (2016) – I’m not even sure which category it should go in, but it belongs on this list.

Best Movies Watched for the First Time:

• World of Tomorrow (2015): infinitely creepier/more fascinating when your name is Emily
• Amelie (2001)
• Ghostbusters (2016)
• Room (2015)

Best Performances:

• Hamilton: An American Musical @ Richard Rodgers Theatre
• Welcome to Night Vale’s “Ghost Stories” @ Northampton Academy of Music
• Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage @ Trinity Repertory Company
• 1606 by Youth in Trust @ Grahamstown National Arts Festival
• Cynthia Erivo singing “Still Hurting” (granted, I didn’t see this one in person, but it’s still amazing.)

Best Posts/Articles By Other People Published This Year:

• The Last Unknown Man by Matt Wolfe (New Republic)
• The Infinity Diaries by Tavi Gevinson (Rookie)
• Kim Drew on being accountable to yourself and to others as told to Brandon Stosuy  (The Creative Independent)
• Liberatory Archives: Towards Belonging and Believing (Parts 1&2) by Jarrett M. Drake (Medium)
• Whiteout: Life as a black student at UMass Amherst by Ellanjé Ferguson (Amherst Wire)
• digitization: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should by tara robertson
• Your Hitler analogy is wrong, and other complaints from a history professor by Linford D. Fisher (Vox)
• Shirley Chisholm Made the Democratic Party of Today Possible  by John Nichols (The Nation)

Best Posts by Me: 

• At Past @ Present: Lessons from the Applied Humanities Learning Lab 2016
• On this blog: Notes on #ITMUMA
• At UMass CHC: Ben Brody Tells His War Stories
• At Honors Student Blog: A Guidebook in Reverse