Verso Books: Best Books of 2017 (some of which were published previously but were still “favourites of the year”)
[see also 2023]
Fiction
Nonfiction
Memoir
Tiny Mix Tapes: 50 Favorite Music Releases of 2017
[see also 2010s • 2018 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]
Writing in The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum provides this wisdom about lists:
Each December, I write a festive rant about my loathing for Top Ten lists. It’s always the same: lists are reductive, phony, anti-art. Online, they work first as clickbait, then as groupthink. They force critics to rate radically dissimilar projects—the epic, the dramedy, the sleek time-killer, the ambitious game-changer that doesn’t quite cohere—so that algorithms can crunch out a blandly universal must-see selection. I don’t like math, and if I knew anything about how numbers worked I wouldn’t have gone into arts criticism. Plus, I haven’t seen all the TV, and neither have you.
After some important caveats and context, she offers these favorite TV shows:
Runners-up, not in order
Library Journal: 10 Best Books of 2017
[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2016 • 2012 • 2011]