Top 20 Books Read for 2016

I should make two clarifications.  First, this is not a list of books written in 2016.  This will be obvious to most.  Second, the title of this post is greatly misleading because I have excluded all books written by C. S. Lewis and all books about C. S. Lewis that I read this year.  Just click on the links to see those posts.  OK, I should also admit that my number one book for this year is connected with C. S. Lewis.
Also, there is one particular and unique book that I do not include in a list such as this, and that is because it belongs on a plane of its own--the Bible.  If you read nothing else, read the Bible.  Read the Bible before you read anything else.  This year (as is my habit of some years now) I read through the Bible.  I chose the English Standard Version.  I try to select a different English translation to read through each year.
One other thing of note.  The final count of books read this year is 143.  This is the most I've read in a single year, and this list comes from those 143 books.
Without further ado, here is my list.

1. A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
2. The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien
3. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
4. Tremendous Trifles - G. K. Chesterton
5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
6. Reading Between the Lines - Gene Edward Veith, Jr.
7. The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
8. The Princess and Curdie - George MacDonald
9. The Warden - Anthony Trollope
10. Dracula - Bram Stoker
11. The Quotable Chesterton - Kevin Belmonte
12. Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues - Mark Eddy Smith
13. At Home in Mitford - Jan Karon
14. Murder in the Cathedral - T. S. Eliot
15. Pymalion - George Bernard Shaw
16. Bunnicula - Deborah and James Howe
17. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
18. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Jessie L. Weston
19. The Book of the Duchess - Geoffrey Chaucer
20. Electra - Sophocles

Top Twenty Books by C. S. Lewis Read This Year

A good portion of the 132 books I've read this year have been by C. S. Lewis, so I decided to do a list dedicated just to those.  Of course, who can really rank Lewis' books?  But everyone has his or her favorites.  Here is how I decided to do this one: I will rank each book according to how much I enjoyed reading it.  Certainly, I would recommend all of them.

1. Mere Christianity
2. The Great Divorce
3. Surprised by Joy
4. Out of the Silent Planet
5. Of Other Worlds: Essays & Stories
6. Miracles
7. Letters to an American Lady
8. An Experiment in Criticism
9. The Abolition of Man
10. Perelandra
11. Reflections on the Psalms
12. A Preface to Paradise Lost
13. That Hideous Strength
14. The Screwtape Letters
15. Till We Have Faces
16. Narrative Poems
17. The Problem of Pain
18. Christian Reflections
19. Letters to Children
20. A Grief Observed

Top 20 Books Read for 2015

1. Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus - J. Mack Stiles
2. The Pastor As Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision - Kevin J. Vanhoozer & Owen Strachan
3. Mere Humanity: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition - Donald Williams
4. The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis Volume II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War 1931-1949 - Walter Hooper, Editor
5. Tolkien: How an Obscure Oxford Professor Wrote the Hobbit and Became the Most Beloved Author of the Century - Devin Brown
6. Why Church Matters - Joshua Harris
7. The Spiritual World of the Hobbit - James Stuart Bell
8. The Princess and the Goblin - George MacDonald
9. On the Incarnation - Athanasius
10. Preach: Theology Meets Practice - Mark Dever & Greg Gilbert
11. Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien and the Shadow of Evil - Colin Duriez
12. How to Be Rich - Andy Stanley
13. The Knowledge of the Holy - A. W. Tozer
14. Literature: A Student's Guide - Louis Markos
15. Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
16. Gorgias - Plato
17. Four Faultless Felons - G. K. Chesterton
18. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
19. Credo: Believing in Something to Die For - Ray Pritchard
20. Strange Fire - John MacArthur

This list of 20 books was compiled after reading 68 books this year.  As always, if you're only going to read one book, make sure it is the Bible.