13 Most Shelved Books on Off the Shelf in 2016

December 13 2016
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Many of our longtime Off the Shelf subscribers have already discovered “Your Shelf” on our website. If you’re new here, you can create your own reading list from books you find on OfftheShelf.com with our “Your Shelf” feature.

To start building “Your Shelf,” simply sign up for an Off the Shelf account. Then, when you see a book you want to add to your reading list, click “Add to Your Shelf” next to the book cover, and we’ll save your favorites for you.

These 13 books were the “most shelved” books on Off the Shelf in 2016—starting with the number one favorite! They’re a great way to start building “Your Shelf” today!

The Light Between Oceans
by M. L. Stedman

When a dead man and a living baby wash up on the shores of a remote island off the coast of Australia, the lighthouse keeper and his wife decide to claim the baby as their own. When they later return to the mainland, though, they learn their choice has had devastating effects.

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The Light Between Oceans
M. L. Stedman

“The world is full of decent people making disastrous decisions. I love a book that can find the beauty in that.”

Read Susan Crandall’s review here.

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Gone to Soldiers
by Marge Piercy

Sweeping from North Africa to New Zealand and from Palestine to Japan, this epic captures images of deprivation, terror, and excitement during World War II, from the front lines to the home front, through the eyes of ten distinct characters. Each fights their own private and public battles, while their lives intertwine and diverge and the world burns around them.

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Gone to Soldiers
Marge Piercy

“More than 750 pages long, GONE TO SOLDIERS can definitely be intimidating, and I knew when I picked up this novel that it would need to be extraordinary in order to hold my attention for a few weeks. Thankfully, I was not disappointed.”

Read Erin Flaaen’s review here.

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Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel

A finalist for the 2014 National Book Award, STATION ELEVEN isn’t your average dystopian fiction. In this spellbinding novel, when a devastating flu pandemic brings civilization as we know it to an end, a small troupe of actors and musicians travel between the remaining settlements, dedicated to keeping the remnants of art, music, literature, and humanity alive.

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Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel

For fans of “The Walking Dead”

While “The Walking Dead” hero Rick Grimes and his gang are keeping hope alive but losing their grip fast after a zombie apocalypse, STATION ELEVEN’s Kirsten Raymonde and her band, the Symphony, have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive after a mysterious pandemic has ravaged civilization.

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Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent

There’s more than one side to every story, as this compassionate historical retelling attests. Set in the isolated Icelandic countryside in 1829, BURIAL RITES follows the emotional last days of a young maid accused of the murder of her former employer.

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Burial Rites
Hannah Kent

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In a Dark, Dark Wood
by Ruth Ware

When reclusive writer Leonora is invited to the English countryside for a weekend away, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But as the first night falls, revelations unfold among friends old and new, an unnerving memory shatters Leonora’s reserve, and a haunting realization creeps in: the party is not alone in the woods.

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In a Dark, Dark Wood
Ruth Ware

During a weekend away with a friend in an eerie glass house, crime writer Leonora wakes up in a hospital bed injured wondering not “What happened?” but “What have I done?” This one is for fans of GONE GIRL and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.

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My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her eccentric grandmother is Elsa’s best—and only—friend. When she dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa discovers that her greatest adventure is just beginning. This is the heartfelt and humorous second novel from the author of A MAN CALLED OVE.

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My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Fredrik Backman

This warmhearted love letter between a granddaughter and her grandmother explores big emotions with wisdom and charm.

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The Kitchen House
by Kathleen Grissom

When a white indentured servant violates the delicate order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate. Sweeping from 1790–1810, this is a heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful, story of class, race, and familial bonds.

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The Kitchen House
Kathleen Grissom

When a white indentured servant violates the delicate order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate. Sweeping from 1790–1810, this is a heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful, story of class, race, and familial bonds.

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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
by Karen Joy Fowler

The Cookes—Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sisters Fern and Rosemary—are an ordinary middle-class American family, in all ways but one: Fern is a chimpanzee. Beautifully written, this is the tale of an unconventional family and the heartbreaking consequences of their good intentions.

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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Karen Joy Fowler

“WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES is one of those completely absorbing books that makes the rest of the world disappear, while at the same time reminding us all too clearly of the world we come from and its occasional cruelty.”

Read the full review by Midge Raymond here.

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All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

This masterful and mesmerizing Pulitzer Prize–winning novel set during World War II follows a blind French girl and a young German boy attending a brutal academy for Hitler Youth. At its heart, this is a story about what it means to be human, to have empathy, and to be brave in the face of the most difficult choices.

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All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr

Already beloved by millions of readers, this novel follows a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as they both try to survive the devastation of World War II. The breakout hit of 2014, this beautiful novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and it just won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. If you haven't read it yet, this one should be at the top of your spring reading list.

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Glaciers
by Alexis Smith

Isabel is a single, twentysomething thrift-store shopper and collector of remnants, things cast off or left behind by others. GLACIERS follows Isabel through a day in her life and unfolds internally, the action shaped by her sense of history, memory, place, and the imminent loss of the glaciers she knew as a young woman in Alaska.

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Glaciers
Alexis Smith

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Euphoria
by Lily King

Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead in New Guinea during the 1930s, EUPHORIA is an enthralling story of passion, possession, exploration, and sacrifice from accomplished author Lily King.

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Euphoria
Lily King

The engine that propels this juicy, smart novel is desire—sexual and intellectual, essential and existential.

Read Molly Prentiss’s review here.

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A Man Called Ove
by Fredrik Backman

A lighthearted yet deeply moving novel about a grumpy but loveable curmudgeon who finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. This quirky debut is a thoughtful and charming exploration of the impact one life has on countless others—and it’s an absolute delight.

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A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman

“If you like to laugh AND feel moved AND have your heart applaud wildly for fictional characters, you will certainly fall for the grumpy but lovable Ove (it’s pronounced “Oo-vuh,” if you were wondering).”

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The Age of Miracles
by Karen Thompson Walker

The unforgettable 11-year-old girl at the heart of this debut is coming of age against the backdrop of an utterly altered world. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker has crafted a story about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty.

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The Age of Miracles
Karen Thompson Walker

“THE AGE OF MIRACLES was so frightening because the apocalypse begins as an annoyance, like a lipstick that has melted. Walker’s greatest device is that the end of the world comes incrementally, almost casually, and each turned page winds the reader just a little more tightly.”

Read the full review by Richard Fifield here.

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