We asked 2015’s podcast-guests for their favorite books in 2015 and the books they hope to read in 2016 for our special year-end Guest List episode! More than 30 guests participated, so listen to the show to hear about their picks, and use this cheat-sheet to check out all the books, as well as their past episodes! This episode is also available on iTunes.

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS! And check out the 2013 and 2014 editions of The Guest List!

THE GUESTS

Derf Backderf

• Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
• Ringworld – Larry Niven

Derf’s 2016 goal

• To read more books from this list

Anthea Bell

• Before the Feast – Saša Staniši?
• All for Nothing – Walter Kempowski
• SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome – Mary Beard
• War and Peace – Tolstoy (tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky)
• Possession – AS Byatt

Anthea’s 2016 goals

• Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar – Tom Holland
• The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoevsky
• The Children’s Book – AS Byatt

John Clute (and our followup)

• Don Quixote – Cervantes
• The Buried Giant – Kazuo Ishiguro

John’s 2016 goals

• Mardi and a Voyage Thither – Herman Melville
• The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade – Herman Melville

Michael Dirda (and our 2012 and 2014 talks)

• TRUMBO – Bruce Cook

Matt Farber

• The Martian – Andy Weir
• NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity – Steve Silberman
• The Witches: Salem, 1692 – Stacy Schiff

Jonathan Galassi

• A Little Life: A Novel – Hanya Yanagihara
• Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov

Jonathan’s 2016 goals

• My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels, Book One – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two – Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Neapolitan Novels, Book Three – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four – Elena Ferrante

Brad Gooch

• My Struggle: Book 1 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 2 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 3 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book Four – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• A Little Life: A Novel – Hanya Yanagihara
• Tehran Noir (Akashic Noir) – Salar Abdoh

Brad’s 2016 goals

• City on Fire: A novel – Garth Risk Hallberg
• Black Deutschland: A Novel – Darryl Pinckney

Langdon Hammer

• Note Book – Jeff Nunokawa

Langdon’s 2016 goals

• The Quarry: Essays – Susan Howe

Liz Hand

• M Train – Patti Smith
• Alembic – Timothy d’Arch Smith

Liz’s 2016 goals

• My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels, Book One – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two – Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Neapolitan Novels, Book Three – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four – Elena Ferrante
• The Flamethrowers – Rachel Kushner
• Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s: A Library of America Boxed Set – Sarah Weinman

Jennifer Hayden

• M Train – Patti Smith
• The Blazing World: A Novel – Siri Hustvedt
• Bacchus Omnibus Edition Vol. 1 – Eddie Campbell
• The Sculptor – Scott McCloud
• Tim Ginger – Julian Hanshaw
• The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis – Darryl Cunningham
• Saint Cole – Noah Van Sciver
• Bright-Eyed At Midnight – Leslie Stein

Jennifer’s 2016 goals

• Ruins – Peter Kuper
• Not Funny Ha-Ha – Leah Hayes
• Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Love Affair With A Famous Cartoonist – Bill Griffith
• Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise – Oscar Hijuelos
• Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio – Jessica Abel
• Our Expanding Universe – Alex Robinson
• Bottomless Belly Button – Dash Shaw
• War of Streets and Houses – Sophie Yanow
• Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection – Kate Beaton

Ron Hogan

• Witches of America – Alex Mar
• The Incarnations: A Novel – Susan Barker

Dylan Horrocks

• The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America – James Wilson
• The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910-2010 – Selina Todd
• Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class – Owen Jones
• Common People: The History of an English Family – Alison Light

Dylan’s 2016 goals

• The Making of the English Working Class – EP Thompson
• Te Puea: A Life – Michael King
• My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir – Chris Offutt
• The Solitudes – John Crowley
• Love & Sleep – John Crowley
• Daemonomania – John Crowley
• Endless Things – John Crowley

David Jaher

• Moby-Dick: or, The Whale – Herman Melville

Kathe Koja

• The Complete Plays – Christopher Marlowe
• Heartbreaker: Stories – Maryse Meijer
• Stay, Illusion: Poems – Lucie Brock-Broido

Jonathan Kranz

• Middlemarch – George Eliot

Jonathan’s 2016 goal

• Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

Peter Kuper

• The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir – Riad Satouf
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Haruki Murakami
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Elizabeth Kolbert

Peter’s 2016 goals

• Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir – Roz Chast
• My Struggle: Book 1 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 2 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 3 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book Four – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World – Bill Nye
• 10:04: A Novel – Ben Lerner
• Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories – Franz Kafka
• The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Lorenzo Mattotti

• Le Royaume (French Edition) – Emmanuel Carrère
• Inspector Maigret – Georges Simenon

JD McClatchy

• Anna Karenina – Tolstoy
• H Is for Hawk – Helen Macdonald
• Purity: A Novel – Jonathan Franzen
• Sentenced to Life: Poems – Clive James

Sandy’s 2016 goals

• Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
• My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels, Book One – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two – Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Neapolitan Novels, Book Three – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four – Elena Ferrante

Scott McCloud

• Safari Honeymoon – Jesse Jacobs
• Beautiful Darkness – Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët

Michael Meyer

• Moby-Dick: or, The Whale – Herman Melville

Michael’s 2016 goal

• Middlemarch – George Eliot

Dan Perkins (a.k.a. Tom Tomorrow)

• NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity – Steve Silberman
• The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper – Tony Ortega
• The End of All Things #4: To Stand or Fall – John Scalzi
• The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway
• A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George – Kelly Carlin
• Killing Pretty: A Sandman Slim Novel – Richard Kadrey

Summer Pierre

• Soldier’s Heart: The Campaign to Understand My WWII Veteran Father: A Daughter’s Memoir – Carol Tyler

Summer’s 2016 goals

• A Collection of Essays – George Orwell
• Selected Essays – Virginia Woolf

Witold Rybczynski

• Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads – Paul Theroux
• Inspector Maigret – Georges Simenon

Witold’s 2016 goals

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1-6 – Edward Gibbons

Dmitry Samarov (and check out our 2014 talk)

• Preparation For The Next Life – Atticus Lish
• The Other Paris – Luc Sante

Elizabeth Samet

• The Free World: A Novel – David Bezmozgis
• Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman

Elizabeth’s 2016 goal

• The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon

Liesl Schillinger

• Boswell’s London Journal, 1762-1763 – James Boswell
• My Struggle: Book 1 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 2 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book 3 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Struggle: Book Four – Karl Ove Knausgaard
• Fates and Furies: A Novel – Lauren Groff
• A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall: A Novel – Will Chancellor
• Brand New Ancients – Kate Tempest

Liesl’s 2016 goals

• The Big Green Tent: A Novel – Ludmila Ulitskaya
• Childhood; Boyhood; Youth – Tolstoy
• Eugene Onegin – Alexander Pushkin
• Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
• The Complete Works of Isaac Babel – Isaac Babel

Posy Simmonds

• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – Henry Fielding
• Alone in Berlin – Hans Fallada
• Promise at Dawn: A Memoir – Romain Gary

Posy’s 2016 goals

• My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels, Book One – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two – Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Neapolitan Novels, Book Three – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four – Elena Ferrante

Levi Stahl

• John Aubrey: My Own Life – Ruth Scurr

Rupert Thomson (and our 2014 talk)

• Love Me Back – Merritt Tierce
• Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell – Deborah Solomon
• The Green Road: A Novel – Anne Enright

Rupert’s 2016 goals

• The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories – Joy Williams
• A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories – Lucia Berlin

Irvine Welsh

• Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America – Jill Leovy
• Jellyfish – Janice Galloway

Warren Woodfin

• Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800-1200 – Maureen C. Miller
• Oliver VII – Antal Szerb (tr. Len Rix)

Warren’s 2016 goal

• Middlemarch – George Eliot

Jim Woodring

• Tenth of December: Stories – George Saunders
• How To Draw Cartoons – Clare Briggs

Claudia Young

• My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels, Book One – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two – Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Neapolitan Novels, Book Three – Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four – Elena Ferrante

Claudia’s 2016 goals

• Devotion: A Memoir – Dani Shapiro
• Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Life Rescued by Tragedy – Dani Shapiro
• The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
• Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Gil Roth

• James Merrill: Life and Art – Langdon Hammer
• The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World – David Jaher
• Beware of Pity – Stefan Zweig
• Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Love Affair With A Famous Cartoonist – Bill Griffith
• The Story of My Tits – Jennifer Hayden

Gil’s 2016 goals

• The Sword of Honour Trilogy – Evelyn Waugh
• Patience – Dan Clowes
• The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
• The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James