Year-End Lists

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

Katy Waldman: 10 Favorite Books of 2017, as published by Slate

[see also 2020 • 2019 • 2018]

• Manhattan Beach
  Jennifer Egan
• Conversations with Friends
  Sally Rooney
• What Happened
  Hillary Rodham Clinton
• The Book of Dust

  La Belle Sauvage (Volume 1)
  Philip Pullman
• Her Body and Other Parties
  Carmen Maria Machado
• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• Priestdaddy
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Invention of Angela Carter

  A Biography
  Edmund Gordon
• The Odyssey
  Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
• The Idiot
  Elif Batuman

Maureen Corrigan: 10 Best Books of 2017 (as aired on NPR’s Fresh Air)

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

• Sing, Unburied, Sing
  Jesmyn Ward
• Lincoln in the Bardo
  George Saunders
• The Ninth Hour
  Alice McDermott
• Manhattan Beach
  Jennifer Egan
• Golden Hill

  A Novel of Old New York
  Francis Spufford
• Between Them

  Remembering My Parents
  Richard Ford
• Killers of the Flower Moon

  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• What She Ate

  Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories
  Laura Shapiro
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
  Erika L. Sánchez
• The Big Book of the Continental Op
  Dashiell Hammett

Publishers Weekly: 10 Best Books of 2017

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

• Ants Among Elephants

  An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India
  Sujatha Gidla
• White Tears
  Hari Kunzru
• The Apparitionists

  A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost
  Peter Manseau
• The Color of Law

  A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
  Richard Rothstein
• Extreme Cities

  The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change
  Ashley Dawson
• Fear City

  New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics
  Kim Phillips-Fein
• Ill Will
  Dan Chaon
• In the Distance
  Hernan Diaz
• Grief Cottage
  Gail Godwin
• Sing, Unburied, Sing
  Jesmyn Ward

Time Magazine: Best Fiction and Nonfiction Books of 2017

[see also The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020 • The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019 • Best Books of 2018]

Fiction

1. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
2. White Tears
   Hari Kunzru
3. Transit
   Rachel Cusk
4. Manhattan Beach
   Jennifer Egan
5. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
6. Exit West
   Mohsin Hamid
7. The Changeling
   Victor LaValle
8. The Ninth Hour
   Alice McDermott
9. Days Without End
   Sebastian Barry
10. New People
    Danzy Senna

Nonfiction

1. What Happened
   Hillary Rodham Clinton
2. We Were Eight Years in Power

   An American Tragedy
   Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. Killers of the Flower Moon

   The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
   David Grann
4. Homo Deus

   A Brief History of Tomorrow
   Yuval Harari
5. The Rules Do Not Apply
   Ariel Levy
6. Hunger

   A Memoir of (My) Body
   Roxane Gay
7. Blind Spot
   Teju Cole
8. The Meaning of Michelle

   16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own
   Veronica Chambers
9. The Evangelicals

   The Struggle to Shape America
   Frances FitzGerald
10. The Vanity Fair Diaries

    1983 – 1992
    Tina Brown

Christian Lorentzen: 10 Best Books of 2017, as published by New York Magazine’s Vulture

[see also 2018]

1. So Much Blue
   Percival Everett
2. Priestdaddy
   Patricia Lockwood
3. The Idiot
   Elif Batuman
4. The Schooldays of Jesus
   J.M. Coetzee
5. Sour Heart
   Jenny Zhang
6. The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick
   Elizabeth Hardwick
7. Sticky Fingers

   The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine
   Joe Hagan
8. Notes on a Foreign Country

   An American Abroad in a Post-American World
   Suzy Hansen
9. Moving Kings
   Joshua Cohen
10. The Invention of Angela Carter

    A Biography
    Edmund Gordon