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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

2016 Bookish Time Capsule with Catherine Gilmore | Ep. 223

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Arts, Books

4.7 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Going back ten years to 2016, Sarah and Catherine Gilmore (@GilmoreGuide) dive into the annual Bookish Time Capsule episode and revisit the book world from that year. They cover big bookish highlights — from the buzziest books of the year to the award winners — along with what was happening in the wider world at the time. They also look back at their own reading from 2016, including their favorite releases, and share a quick round-up of listener-submitted favorites. This episode is overflowing with great backlist titles to add to your TBR!  

This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.

Highlights

  • The big news that was going on outside the book world
  • Book stories and trends that dominated 2016
  • The 2016 books that have had staying power
  • Big books and award winners for the year
  • Reading in the blog years before the Rock Your Reading Tracker
  • Sarah's and Catherine's personal 2016 reading stats
  • Listener-submitted favorites from 2016

2016 Bookish Time Capsule [1:45]

The World Beyond Books

Book Industry Sales and Trends

Big Books of 2016

Award Winners of 2016

Catherine's Top Books

Sarah's Top Books

Listeners' Top Books

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. Let's get rolling. Welcome to our annual time capsule

0:22.5

episode. This episode was inspired by a time capsule style episode that Knox and Jamie of the

0:28.3

pop cast did a couple years ago to celebrate their 10-year anniversary. In that episode, Knox and Jamie

0:33.9

covered all kinds of pop culture and briefly touched on the books that stood out in the year that they were covering, which happened to be 2013.

0:42.4

And that got me thinking, we need an entire episode that goes deep into what was going on in the book world in a given year.

0:50.6

So this is our third year doing the bookish time capsule and we are covering the year 2016,

0:55.5

which was 10 years ago. And Catherine is with me as usual for these time capsule episodes.

0:59.9

Hi, Catherine. Hi. 10, a decade. Wait, what? I know, right? Oh my goodness. Crazy. It is.

1:09.1

So here's how today is going to work.

1:13.8

We are going to be covering 2016 in six categories.

1:16.9

What was going on in the world beyond books in 2016?

1:21.1

2016 book industry sales, trends, and major stories.

1:27.1

The big books of 2016, some big award winners, which are not necessarily the same as the big books, are personal

1:29.3

best books of 2016, and listener favorites, y'all's favorite books from 2016. So starting out

1:36.8

with what was going on in the world in 2016, this is just kind of to set the broader context

1:42.2

for the book conversation.

1:54.3

2016 is a year on the four-year cycle that is both my least favorite and most favorite for different reasons.

1:56.5

I wonder why.

1:57.9

I wonder why, right?

2:06.6

So if you all haven't put this together yet, U.S. presidential elections and the Summer Olympics always fall in the same year.

2:13.9

What makes this year my favorite? The Summer Olympics, obviously, what makes it my least favorite? An election year. I hate election years.

2:20.2

So in 2016, as everybody knows, Trump was elected president and the Summer Olympics were in Rio, featuring Simone Biles' Olympic debut and Michael Phelps' retirement

...

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