Year-End Lists

Christian Science Monitor: 30 Best Books of 2017

[see also 2018]

Fiction

• Dark at the Crossing
  Elliot Ackerman
• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• The Hate U Give
  Angie Thomas
• Strange the Dreamer
  Laini Taylor
• The Golden Legend
  Nadeem Aslam
• The Leavers
  Lisa Ko
• Salt Houses
  Hala Alyan
• The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories
  Penelope Lively
• Anything Is Possible
  Elizabeth Strout
• The Essex Serpent
  Sarah Perry
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
  Arundhati Roy
• Glass Houses
  Louise Penny
• Sing, Unburied, Sing
  Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction

• The New Odyssey

  The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis
  Patrick Kingsley
• The Souls of China

  The Return of Religion After Mao
  Ian Johnson
• Thunder in the Mountains

  Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
  Daniel J. Sharfstein
• I Was Told to Come Alone

  My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad
  Souad Mekhennet
• Hue 1968

  A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam
  Mark Bowden
• Sea Power

  The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans
  James Stavridis
• Be Free or Die

  The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls’ Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
  Cate Lineberry
• Reading with Patrick

  A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship
  Michelle Kuo
• Henry David Thoreau

  A Life
  Laura Dassow Walls
• An Odyssey

  A Father, a Son, and an Epic
  Daniel Mendelsohn
• The Future Is History

  How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
  Masha Gessen
• Code Girls

  The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
  Liza Mundy
• The Gourmands’ Way

  Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy
  Justin Spring
• Stanton

  Lincoln’s War Secretary
  Walter Stahr
• Grant
  Ron Chernow
• Lenin

  The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
  Victor Sebestyen
• Calder: The Conquest of Time: The Early Years: 1898-1940
  Jed Perl

Mara Reinstein: Top 10 Movies of 2017, as published by Us Weekly

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013]

1. Get Out
   Jordan Peele
2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
   Martin McDonagh
3. Lady Bird
   Greta Gerwig
4. Dunkirk
   Christopher Nolan
5. The Big Sick
   Michael Showalter
6. Call Me by Your Name
   Luca Guadagnino
7. I, Tonya
   Craig Gillespie
8. The Florida Project
   Sean Baker
9. Wonder
   Stephen Chbosky
10. mother!
    Darren Aronofsky

Honorable mentions

• The Disaster Artist
  James Franco
• Battle of the Sexes
  Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
• Darkest Hour
  Joe Wright
• Wind River
  Taylor Sheridan
• The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
  Noah Baumbach
• Thor: Ragnarok
  Taika Waititi
• Ingrid Goes West
  Matt Spicer
• Good Time
  Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie
• Girls Trip
  Malcolm D. Lee

Rob Sheffield: 20 Best TV Shows of 2017, as published by Rolling Stone

1. Twin Peaks: The Return
2. The Young Pope
3. The Leftovers
4. The Good Place
5. The Deuce
6. Patton Oswalt: Annihilation
7. Rick and Morty
8. Insecure
9. Stranger Things
10. Game of Thrones
11. Master of None
12. Difficult People
13. Halt and Catch Fire
14. Better Things
15. The Vietnam War
16. Curb Your Enthusiasm
17. Riverdale
18. Legion
19. Better Call Saul
20. I Love Dick

Entertainment Weekly: 26 Best Albums of 2017

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2011]

1. Melodrama
   Lorde
2. DAMN.
   Kendrick Lamar
3. Ctrl
   SZA
4. MASSEDUCTION
   St. Vincent
5. All American Made
   Margo Price
6. american dream
   LCD Soundsystem
7. Big Fish Theory
   Vince Staples
8. What Now
   Sylvan Esso
9. From A Room: Volume 1
   Chris Stapleton
9. From A Room: Volume 1
   Chris Stapleton
10. Life Will See You Now
    Jens Lekman
11. Take Me Apart
    Kelela
12. This Old Dog
    Mac DeMarco
13. 4:44
    JAY-Z
14. Rainbow
    Ke$ha
15. No Shape
    Perfume Genius
16. HNDRXX
    Future
17. Glasshouse
    Jessie Ware
18. Number 1 Angel
    Charli XCX
19. Pure Comedy
    Father John Misty
20. Everybody Works
    Jay Som
21. Meaning of Life
    Kelly Clarkson
22. War & Leisure
    Miguel
23. New Energy
    Four Tet
24. Slowheart
    Kip Moore
25. Villains
    Queens of the Stone Age

Alison Herman: 10 Best TV Shows of 2017, as published by The Ringer

[see also 2023 • 2016]

1. The Young Pope
2. Twin Peaks: The Return
3. The Leftovers
4. The Keepers
5. Big Little Lies
6. Riverdale
7. Halt and Catch Fire
8. BoJack Horseman
9. The Good Place
10. Rick and Morty

The New York Times Book Review: 100 Notable Books of 2017

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

Fiction & Poetry

• American War
  Omar El Akkad
• Anything Is Possible
  Elizabeth Strout
• Autumn
  Ali Smith
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories
  Tessa Hadley
• Beautiful Animals
  Lawrence Osborne
• The Book of Joan
  Lidia Yuknavitch
• A Boy in Winter
  Rachel Seiffert
• The Changeling
  Victor LaValle
• Christmas Days

  12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
  Jeanette Winterson
• Dance of the Jakaranda
  Peter Kimani
• The Dark Flood Rises
  Margaret Drabble
• The Dinner Party

  Stories
  Joshua Ferris
• The Essex Serpent
  Sarah Perry
• Exit West
  Mohsin Hamid
• Fast
  Jorie Graham
• Five-Carat Soul
  James McBride
• Forest Dark
  Nicole Krauss
• 4 3 2 1
  Paul Auster
• Fresh Complaint
  Jeffrey Eugenides
• Future Home of the Living God
  Louise Erdrich
• Giving Godhead
  Dylan Krieger
• History of Wolves
  Emily Fridlund
• Home Fire
  Kamila Shamsie
• Homesick for Another World
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• A Horse Walks into a Bar
  David Grossman
• The Idiot
  Elif Batuman
• Ill Will
  Dan Chaon
• A Kind of Freedom
  Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
• Less
  Andrew Sean Greer
• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• Manhattan Beach
  Jennifer Egan
• Mrs. Osmond
  John Banville
• My Absolute Darling
  Gabriel Tallent
• New People
  Danzy Senna
• The Ninth Hour
  Alice McDermott
• Pachinko
  Min Jin Lee
• The Power
  Naomi Alderman
• The Refugees
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Selection Day
  Aravind Adiga
• A Separation
  Katie Kitamura
• Sing, Unburied, Sing
  Jesmyn Ward
• Six Four
  Hideo Yokoyama
• Stay with Me
  Ayobami Adebayo
• The Stone Sky
  N.K. Jemisin
• Ties
  Domenico Starnone
• Transit
  Rachel Cusk
• Waking Lions
  Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
• WHEREAS
  Layli Long Soldier
• White Tears
  Hari Kunzru
• Who Is Rich?
  Matthew Klam

Nonfiction

• Age of Anger

  A History of the Present
  Pankaj Mishra
• American Fire

  Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land
  Monica Hesse
• Animals Strike Curious Poses
  Elena Passarello
• The Blood of Emmett Till
  Timothy B. Tyson
• Born a Crime

  Stories from a South African Childhood
  Trevor Noah
• Bunk

  The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
  Kevin Young
• Churchill and Orwell

  The Fight for Freedom
  Thomas E. Ricks
• The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick
  Elizabeth Hardwick
• A Colony in a Nation
  Chris Hayes
• The Color of Law

  A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
  Richard Rothstein
• The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution

  Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
  Ganesh Sitaraman
• The Dawn Watch

  Joseph Conrad in a Global World
  Maya Jasanoff
• The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
  Dan Egan
• Destined for War

  Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
  Graham Allison
• Devil’s Bargain

  Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
  Joshua Green
• The Evangelicals

  The Struggle to Shape America
  Frances FitzGerald
• The Evolution of Beauty

  How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World – and Us
  Richard O. Prum
• Fasting and Feasting

  The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray
  Adam Federman
• Flâneuse

  Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
  Lauren Elkin
• Friends Divided

  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
  Gordon S. Wood
• The Future Is History

  How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
  Masha Gessen
• Generation Revolution

  On the Front Line Between Tradition and Change in the Middle East
  Rachel Aspden
• The Glass Universe

  How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
  Dava Sobel
• Grant
  Ron Chernow
• Greater Gotham

  A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919
  Mike Wallace
• The Gulf

  The Making of An American Sea
  Jack E. Davis
• Hamlet Globe to Globe

  Two Years, 193,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play
  Dominic Dromgoole
• Henry David Thoreau

  A Life
  Laura Dassow Walls
• The House of Government

  A Saga of the Russian Revolution
  Yuri Slezkine
• The Invention of Angela Carter

  A Biography
  Edmund Gordon
• Janesville

  An American Story
  Amy Goldstein
• Killers of the Flower Moon

  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• Krazy

  George Herriman, a Life in Black and White
  Michael Tisserand
• Lenin

  The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
  Victor Sebestyen
• Letterman

  The Last Giant of Late Night
  Jason Zinoman
• Locking Up Our Own

  Crime and Punishment in Black America
  James Forman Jr.
• Looking for The Stranger

  Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic
  Alice Kaplan
• The Lost City of the Monkey God

  A True Story
  Douglas Preston
• Nomadland

  Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
  Jessica Bruder
• Notes on a Foreign Country

  An American Abroad in a Post-American World
  Suzy Hansen
• Prairie Fires

  The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
  Caroline Fraser
• Priestdaddy
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Songs We Know Best

  John Ashbery’s Early Life
  Karin Roffman
• Tenements, Towers & Trash

  An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City
  Julia Wertz
• To Siri with Love

  A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of Machines
  Judith Newman
• The Undoing Project

  A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
  Michael Lewis
• We Were Eight Years in Power

  An American Tragedy
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• What Happened
  Hillary Rodham Clinton
• World Without Mind

  The Existential Threat of Big Tech
  Franklin Foer
• You Say to Brick

  The Life of Louis Kahn
  Wendy Lesser

The Quietus: Top 100 Albums of 2017

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Peasant
   Richard Dawson
2. Zimpel/Ziołek
   Zimpel/Ziołek
3. Plunge
   Fever Ray
4. Interplanetary Class Classics
   The Moonlandingz
5. Holiday Destination
   Nadine Shah
6. Take Me Apart
   Kelela
7. The Animal Spirits
   James Holden & The Animal Spirits
8. 1992
   Princess Nokia
9. Trifle
   Lone Taxidermist
10. Thin Black Duke
    Oxbow
11. TFCF
    Liars
12. VV
    Lotto
13. Arpo
    Call Super
14. Come Play the Trees
    Snapped Ankles
15. Feed the Rats
    Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
16. Hunter Huntress Hawker
    Laura Cannell
17. Just Say No to the Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine
    Gnod
18. Modern Kosmology
    Jane Weaver
19. Terminal
    Circle
20. Rûwâhîne
    Ifriqiyya Electrique
21. Play What They Want
    Man Forever
22. Madonnatron
    Madonnatron
23. Through the Mirror
    ENDON
24. The Underside of Power
    Algiers
25. Unseen Forces
    Justin Walter
26. Multiverse
    BNNT
27. Total S**t!
    Shit & Shine
28. Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds
    Nicole Mitchell
29. Vanishing
    Vanishing
30. Big Fish Theory
    Vince Staples
31. Utopia
    Björk
32. Arca
    Arca
33. Rock N Roll Consciousness
    Thurston Moore
34. Before the Applause
    Re-TROS
35. Black Origami
    Jlin
36. Hungan
    Kemper Norton
37. The Two of Us
    Chloe x Halle
38. Suspended Second
    The Granite Shore
39. Everywhere At The End Of Time – Stage 3
    The Caretaker
40. Frequency is the New Ecstasy
    Teleplasmiste
41. Collective: The Shape of He to Come
    Botanist
42. Let the Dancers Inherit the Party
    British Sea Power
43. Enkar
    Al-Namrood
44. american dream
    LCD Soundsystem
45. Reassemblage
    Visible Cloaks
46. Bitter Music
    Perc
47. Kingdom Come
    Gazelle Twin
48. Savage (Songs from a Broken World)
    Gary Numan
49. Superlative Fatigue
    Errorsmith
50. It
    Alan Vega
51. The Kid
    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
52. Configuração do Lamento
    Deafkids
53. And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies
    The Inward Circles
54. Songs from the Sides of Lorries
    I, Ludicrous
55. Sells His Record Collection
    Japan Blues
56. Nightmare Logic
    Power Trip
57. Afro Mutations
    Riddlore
58. I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone
    Chastity Belt
59. Post Self
    Godflesh
60. Short Passing Game
    Davy Kehoe
61. For the Climax of the Night
    Total Leatherette
62. Wizard Bloody Wizard
    Electric Wizard
63. Ambient Black Magic
    Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement
64. A flame my love, a frequency
    Colleen
65. Common Sense
    J Hus
66. Sterilize
    Unsane
67. async
    Ryuichi Sakamoto
68. Ctrl
    SZA
69. Mnestic Pressure
    Lee Gamble
70. Kicking Away At The Decrepit Walls Til The Beautiful Sunshine Blisters Thru The Cracks
    MXLX
71. Tar
    Siavash Amini
72. Fabric of Time
    The Yossarians
73. UUUU
    UUUU
74. The Guillotine
    Hey Colossus
75. English Tapas
    Sleaford Mods
76. Sacred Horror in Design
    Sote
77. Bring On the Sun
    Laraaji
78. Gang Signs & Prayer
    Stormzy
79. Also sprach Zarathustra
    Laibach
80. I
    Still
81. Targ
    Bargou 08
82. Laisse ça être
    Aquaserge
83. Hesaitix
    MESH
84. IV
    Part Chimp
85. Veld
    Daniel O’Sullivan
86. Mario Batkovic
    Mario Batkovic
87. Silver / Lead
    Wire
88. Dust
    Laurel Halo
89. Fantasii
    Mhysa
90. Murder Of The Universe
    King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
91. Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia
    Hannah Peel
92. Here Lies Man
    Here Lies Man
93. Every Country’s Sun
    Mogwai
94. AZD
    Actress
95. Stellular
    Rose Elinor Dougall
96. Giraffe
    Simon Fisher Turner
97. Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 2
    Cardi B
98. Short Fuse
    Akatombo
99. Concrete Desert
    The Bug & Earth
100. Primal Incinerators of Moral Matrix
     Tetragrammacide

Slant Magazine: 25 Best Albums of 2017

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2016 • 2015 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. DAMN.
   Kendrick Lamar
2. MASSEDUCTION
   St. Vincent
3. Big Fish Theory
   Vince Staples
4. Something To Tell You
   HAIM
5. 4:44
   JAY-Z
6. Need to Feel Your Love
   Sheer Mag
7. Melodrama
   Lorde
8. american dream
   LCD Soundsystem
9. 50 Song Memoir
   The Magnetic Fields
10. Run the Jewels 3
    Run the Jewels
11. Utopia
    Björk
12. Plunge
    Fever Ray
13. Thrum
    Joe Henry
14. Flower Boy
    Tyler, The Creator
15. Ctrl
    SZA
16. Harmony of Difference
    Kamasi Washington
17. reputation
    Taylor Swift
18. Drunk
    Thundercat
19. The Order of Time
    Valerie June
20. Pure Comedy
    Father John Misty
21. The Navigator
    Hurray for the Riff Raff
22. Robyn Hitchcock
    Robyn Hitchcock
23. Black Cab
    Higher Brothers
24. Contact
    Harriet Brown
25. The Ride
    Nelly Furtado

The Guardian: 31 Best Fiction Books of 2017

[see also 2021 • 2020]

• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• Exit West
  Mohsin Hamid
• Reservoir 13
  Jon McGregor
• H(A)PPY
  Nicola Barker
• House of Names
  Colm Tóibín
• Mrs. Osmond
  John Banville
• The Golden House
  Salman Rushdie
• The Sparsholt Affair
  Alan Hollinghurst
• Manhattan Beach
  Jennifer Egan
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
  Arundhati Roy
• Birdcage Walk
  Helen Dunmore
• Home Fire
  Kamila Shamsie
• Dunbar
  Edward St. Aubyn
• We That Are Young
  Preti Taneja
• When I Hit You or a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
  Meena Kandasamy
• The End of Eddy
  Édouard Louis
• First Love
  Gwendoline Riley
• Fever Dream
  Samanta Schweblin
• Such Small Hands
  Andrés Barba
• Flights
  Olga Tokarczuk
• The Lie of the Land
  Amanda Craig
• Homegoing
  Yaa Gyasi
• My Absolute Darling
  Gabriel Tallent
• Conversations with Friends
  Sally Rooney
• Spoils
  Brian Van Reet
• The President’s Gardens
  Muhsin Al-Ramli
• Madame Zero

  9 Stories
  Sarah Hall
• Room Little Darker
  June Caldwell
• Attrib. and other stories
  Eley Williams
• Midwinter Break
  Bernard MacLaverty
• Winter
  Ali Smith

Lara Zarum: 16 Best TV Shows of 2017, as published by The Village Voice

[see also 2018]

1. Big Little Lies
2. The Leftovers
3. Better Things
4. Alias Grace
5. Broad City
6. The Good Place
7. Search Party
8. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
9. One Day at a Time
10. The Vietnam War

Honorable mentions

• Superstore
• GLOW
• Younger
• American Vandal
• The Deuce
• Girls