Year-End Lists

gal-dem: The Five Best Books of 2017 by Women of Color

1. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
   Reni Eddo-Lodge
2. Pachinko
   Min Jin Lee
3. Your Silence Will Not Protect You
   Audre Lorde
4. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
5. Peluda
   Melissa Lozada-Oliva

Laura Miller: 10 Favorite Books of 2017, as published by Slate

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018]

• Age of Anger

  A History of the Present
  Pankaj Mishra
• Augustown
  Kei Miller
• Autumn
  Ali Smith
• The Evangelicals

  The Struggle to Shape America
  Frances FitzGerald
• Golden Hill

  A Novel of Old New York
  Francis Spufford
• Killers of the Flower Moon

  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• Life in Code

  A Personal History of Technology
  Ellen Ullman
• Manhattan Beach
  Jennifer Egan
• This Long Pursuit

  Reflections of a Romantic Biographer
  Richard Holmes
• White Tears
  Hari Kunzru

Verso Books: Best Books of 2017 (some of which were published previously but were still “favourites of the year”)

[see also 2023]

Fiction

• Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
  James Baldwin
• The Corpse Exhibition

  And Other Stories of Iraq
  Hassan Blasim
• The Gift
  Barbara Browning
• Jane Eyre
  Charlotte Brontë
• The Debutante and Other Stories
  Leonora Carrington
• The Vet’s Daughter
  Barbara Comyns
• Segu
  Maryse Conde
• The Doll’s Alphabet
  Camilla Grudova
• The Secret Life of Saeed

  The Pessoptimist
  Emile Habiby
• Darker With the Lights On
  David Hayden
• Hot Milk
  Deborah Levy
• Her Body and Other Parties
  Carmen Maria Machado
• Evening Primrose

  a heart-wrenching novel for our times
  Kopano Matlwa
• First Love
  Gwendoline Riley
• Conversations with Friends
  Sally Rooney
• Love Story
  Erich Segal
• We That Are Young
  Preti Taneja
• Attrib. and other stories
  Eley Williams
• The Hoke Moseley Detective Series
  Charles Willeford
• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction

• Morbid Symptoms

  Relapse in the Arab Uprising
  Gilbert Achcar
• After Kathy Acker
  Chris Kraus
• Under My Thumb

  Songs That Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them
  Edited by Rhian Jones and Eli Davies
• Cosmic Society

  Towards a Sociology of the Universe
  Peter Dickens and James Ormrod
• The Greeks and the Irrational
  E.R. Dodds
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
  Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Capitalist Realism

  Is There No Alternative?
  Mark Fisher
• No Mercy Here

  Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity
  Sarah Haley
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself
  Harriet Ann Jacobs
• Spheres of Existence

  Selected Writings
  C.L.R. James
• Hell’s Destruction

  An Exploration of Christ’s Descent to the Dead
  Catherine Ella Laufer
• Your Silence Will Not Protect You
  Audre Lorde
• Beyond Words

  What Animals Think and Feel
  Carl Safina
• Against the Grain

  A Deep History of the Earliest States
  James C. Scott
• The Black Pacific

  Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections
  Robbie Shilliam
• Marx’s Inferno

  The Political Theory of Capital
  William Clare Roberts
• Storming Heaven

  Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism
  Steve Wright

Memoir

• Living for Change

  An Autobiography
  Grace Lee Boggs
• Close to the Knives

  A Memoir of Disintegration
  David Wojnarowicz

Library Journal: 10 Best Books of 2017

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2016 • 2012 • 2011]

1. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
   Sherman Alexie
2. Nomadland

   Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
   Jessica Bruder
3. Hunger

   A Memoir of (My) Body
   Roxane Gay
4. Killers of the Flower Moon

   The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
   David Grann
5. Ginny Moon
   Benjamin Ludwig
6. The Ninth Hour
   Alice McDermott
7. Ghost of the Innocent Man

   A True Story of Trial and Redemption
   Benjamin Rachlin
8. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
9. Lucky Boy
   Shanthi Sekaran
10. Home Fire
    Kamila Shamsie

Entropy: Best Books of 2017, divided into fiction and nonfiction (numbered but “in no particular order”)

[see also 2018]

Fiction

1. Isadora
   Amelia Gray
2. The Book of Joan
   Lidia Yuknavitch
3. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
4. Exit West
   Mohsin Hamid
5. Sour Heart
   Jenny Zhang
6. The Changeling
   Victor LaValle
7. The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington
   Leonora Carrington
8. Down Below
   Leonora Carrington
9. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
10. Motherest
    Kristen Iskandrian
11. No One Can Pronounce My Name
    Rakesh Satyal
12. The Dark Dark
    Samantha Hunt
13. The Red Barn
    Nat Baldwin
14. Silk Flowers
    Meghan Lamb
15. The Disintegrations
    Alistair McCartney
16. The Protester Has Been Released
    Janet Sarbanes
17. Sorry to Disrupt the Peace
    Patty Yumi Cottrell
18. The Golden House
    Salman Rushdie
19. Made for Love
    Alissa Nutting
20. The Complete Ballet

    A Fictional Essay in Five Acts
    John Haskell
21. Her Body and Other Parties
    Carmen Maria Machado
22. Homesick for Another World
    Ottessa Moshfegh
23. Tales of Falling and Flying
    Ben Loory
24. Sonata in K
    Karen An-hwei Lee
25. Enfermario
    Gabriela Torres Olivares
26. The Secret Room
    Kazim Ali
27. The Ladies
    Sara Veglahn
28. The Idiot
    Elif Batuman
29. The Leavers
    Lisa Ko
30. Genevieves
    Henry Hoke
31. Frontier
    Can Xue
32. Assisted Living
    Gary Lutz
33. The Grip of It
    Jac Jemc
34. The Golden Cockerel & Other Writings
    Juan Rulfo
35. Not One Day
    Anne Garréta
36. An Occasional History
    Laura Davenport
37. The Truth About Me
    Louise Marburg
38. The Week
    Joanna Ruocco
39. Houses of Ravicka
    Renee Gladman
40. New People
    Danzy Senna
41. Before Everything
    Victoria Redel
42. Wait Till You See Me Dance
    Deb Olin Unferth
43. Home Fire
    Kamila Shamsie
44. The World Goes On
    László Krasznahorkai
45. Stephen Florida
    Gabe Habash
46. Empty Set
    Verónica Gerber Bicecci
47. My Heart Hemmed In
    Marie NDiaye
48. Little Fires Everywhere
    Celeste Ng
49. Buckskin Cocaine
    Erika T. Wurth
50. Man’s Wars and Wickedness

    A Book of Proposed Remedies and Extreme Formulations for Curing Hositlity, Rivalry, and Ill-Will
    Amanda Ackerman & Harold Abramowitz
51. Large Animals
    Jess Arndt
52. Is God Is
    Aleshea Harris
53. Pachinko
    Min Jin Lee
54. Modern Love
    Constance DeJong
55. Things We Lost in the Fire
    Mariana Enriquez
56. Notes of a Crocodile
    Qiu Miaojin
57. Ice

    50th Anniversary Edition
    Anna Kavan
58. Writers Who Love Too Much

    New Narrative Writing 1977-1997
    Edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian
59. The Passion of Woo & Isolde
    Jennifer Tseng
60. A Small Revolution
    Jimin Han

Nonfiction

1. Afterglow (a dog memoir)
   Eileen Myles
2. After Kathy Acker
   Chris Kraus
3. 300 Arguments
   Sarah Manguso
4. They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
   Hanif Abdurraqib
5. Hunger

   A Memoir of (My) Body
   Roxane Gay
6. Sunshine State
   Sarah Gerard
7. Why Poetry
   Matthew Zapruder
8. Irradiated Cities
   Mariko Nagai
9. The Book of Disquiet

   The Complete Edition
   Fernando Pessoa
10. Of Sphere
    Karla Kelsey
11. Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit
    Aisha Sabatini Sloan
12. Autumn
    Karl Ove Knausgaard
13. Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
    Yiyun Li
14. Being a Beast

    Adventures Across the Species Divide
    Charles Foster
15. You, Me, and the Violence
    Catherine Taylor
16. We Were Eight Years in Power

    An American Tragedy
    Ta-Nehisi Coates
17. The Misfit’s Manifesto
    Lidia Yuknavitch
18. The Art of Death

    Writing the Final Story
    Edwidge Danticat
19. Swallow the Fish
    Gabrielle Civil
20. Blind Spot
    Teju Cole
21. like a solid to a shadow
    Janice Lobo Sapigao
22. Emergent Strategy

    Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
    adrienne maree brown
23. Cecilia Vicuña

    About to Happen
    various authors
24. Final Fantasy V
    Chris Kohler
25. Book of Mutter
    Kate Zambreno
26. Dying
    Cory Taylor
27. Caca Dolce

    Essays from a Lowbrow Life
    Chelsea Martin
28. The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

    1940-1956
    Sylvia Plath
29. Living a Feminist Life
    Sara Ahmed
30. Ideal Suggestions

    Essays in Divinatory Poetics
    Selah Saterstrom
31. Birds Art Life

    A Year of Observation
    Kyo Maclear
32. From Our Hearts to Yours

    New Narrative as Contemporary Practice
    Edited by Rob Halpern and Robin Tremblay-McGaw
33. The Sarah Book
    Scott McClanahan
34. Long Shot

    The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter
    Craig Hodges
35. A Woman Is a Woman Until She Is a Mother
    Anna Prushinskaya
36. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
    Samantha Irby
37. No Is Not Enough

    Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need
    Naomi Klein
38. How to Keep You Alive
    Ella Longpre
39. Bunk

    The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
    Kevin Young
40. A TransPacific Poetics
    Edited by Lisa Samuels & Sawako Nakayasu

Entertainment Weekly: 10 Best Books of 2017

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2016 • 2015]

1. Exit West
   Mohsin Hamid
2. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
3. Killers of the Flower Moon

   The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
   David Grann
4. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
5. Little Fires Everywhere
   Celeste Ng
6. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
   Emil Ferris
7. Goodbye, Vitamin
   Rachel Khong
8. The Power
   Naomi Alderman
9. The Hate U Give
   Angie Thomas
10. The Rules Do Not Apply
    Ariel Levy

The Chicago Tribune: 10 Best Books of 2017

Fiction

1. Stay with Me
   Ayobami Adebayo
2. Electric Arches
   Eve L. Ewing
3. Her Body and Other Parties
   Carmen Maria Machado
4. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
5. Autumn
   Ali Smith

Nonfiction

1. They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
   Hanif Abdurraqib
2. The Future Is History

   How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
   Masha Gessen
3. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
   Samantha Irby
4. Priestdaddy
   Patricia Lockwood
5. Tenements, Towers & Trash

   An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City
   Julia Wertz

John Freeman: 22 Best Fiction Books of 2017, as published by The Boston Globe

[see also 2016]

• Borne
  Jeff VanderMeer
• Blameless
  Claudio Magris
• The Burning Girl
  Claire Messud
• The City Always Wins
  Omar Robert Hamilton
• Cockfosters
  Helen Simpson
• The End of Eddy
  Édouard Louis
• Exit West
  Mohsin Hamid
• Fever Dream
  Samanta Schweblin
• Frontier
  Can Xue
• Go, Went, Gone
  Jenny Erpenbeck
• Her Body and Other Parties
  Carmen Maria Machado
• Home Fire
  Kamila Shamsie
• House of Names
  Colm Tóibín
• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• The Lonely Hearts Hotel
  Heather O’Neill
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
  Arundhati Roy
• My Cat Yugoslavia
  Pajtim Statovci
• Pachinko
  Min Jin Lee
• The Power
  Naomi Alderman
• Savage Theories
  Pola Oloixarac
• Sing, Unburied, Sing
  Jesmyn Ward
• Things We Lost in the Fire
  Mariana Enriquez

Kate Tuttle: 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2017, as published by The Boston Globe

[see also 2016]

• American Fire

  Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land
  Monica Hesse
• The Blood of Emmett Till
  Timothy B. Tyson
• Calder: The Conquest of Time: The Early Years: 1898-1940
  Jed Perl
• The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick
  Elizabeth Hardwick
• The Color of Law

  A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
  Richard Rothstein
• Elizabeth Bishop

  A Miracle for Breakfast
  Megan Marshall
• The Extra Woman

  How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It
  Joanna Scutts
• The Future Is History

  How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
  Masha Gessen
• Grant
  Ron Chernow
• Janesville

  An American Story
  Amy Goldstein
• The Kelloggs

  The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek
  Howard Markel
• Killers of the Flower Moon

  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• Nine Continents

  A Memoir In and Out of China
  Xiaolu Guo
• Prairie Fires

  The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
  Caroline Fraser
• Priestdaddy
  Patricia Lockwood
• Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire

  A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
  Kay Redfield Jamison
• We Were Eight Years in Power

  An American Tragedy
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• What Happened
  Hillary Rodham Clinton
• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
  Sherman Alexie

Paste Magazine: 45 Best Books of 2017, listed as novels and nonfiction

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2010s • 2018]

Novels

1. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
2. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
   Hannah Tinti
3. The Leavers
   Lisa Ko
4. Exit West
   Mohsin Hamid
5. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
6. Home Fire
   Kamila Shamsie
7. The Lucky Ones
   Julianne Pachico
8. Pachinko
   Min Jin Lee
9. Little Fires Everywhere
   Celeste Ng
10. Oathbringer
    Brandon Sanderson
11. Class
    Francesco Pacifico
12. The Destroyers
    Christopher Bollen
13. The Power
    Naomi Alderman
14. Borne
    Jeff VanderMeer
15. The River of Kings
    Taylor Brown
16. The Golden Legend
    Nadeem Aslam
17. The Stone Sky
    N.K. Jemisin
18. The Thirst
    Jo Nesbo
19. American War
    Omar El Akkad
20. Ill Will
    Dan Chaon
21. The Essex Serpent
    Sarah Perry
22. Waking Gods
    Sylvain Neuvel
23. What We Lose
    Zinzi Clemmons
24. Universal Harvester
    John Darnielle
25. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
    Taylor Jenkins Reid

Nonfiction

1. Priestdaddy
   Patricia Lockwood
2. The Cooking Gene

   A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South
   Michael Twitty
3. The Future Is History

   How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
   Masha Gessen
4. We Were Eight Years in Power

   An American Tragedy
   Ta-Nehisi Coates
5. A Disappearance in Damascus

   Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War
   Deborah Campbell
6. How to Murder Your Life
   Cat Marnell
7. Grown-Up Anger

   The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913
   Daniel Wolff
8. The Blood of Emmett Till
   Timothy B. Tyson
9. Meet Me in the Bathroom

   Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
   Lizzy Goodman
10. They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
    Hanif Abdurraqib
11. Hunger

    A Memoir of (My) Body
    Roxane Gay
12. Sunshine State
    Sarah Gerard
13. The Fear Factor

    How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between
    Abigail Marsh
14. Killers of the Flower Moon

    The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
    David Grann
15. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
    Scaachi Koul
16. The Potlikker Papers

    A Food History of the Modern South
    John T. Edge
17. Otis Redding

    An Unfinished Life
    Jonathan Gould
18. Nasty Women

    Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America
    Edited by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding
19. The Vanity Fair Diaries

    1983 – 1992
    Tina Brown
20. Crash Override

    How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate
    Zoe Quinn