2017 best reads

[scrubb]

I'd like to hear everyone's best reads of 2017.

Here are the books I enjoyed the most:

Fiction:
Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirikovsky
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
number9dream by David Mitchell
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld

Non-fiction:
My Invented Country by Isabelle Allende
No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

Also, I really enjoyed the Sandman graphic novel series, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by a bunch of people.

[Liiisa]

Oh, good idea. I had a lot of them!

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (might count as a sort of reread since I've seen this play twice, but this is the first time I've read a copy)
Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140
Jeff Vandermeer, Borne
Rachel Cusk, Transit
Geoff Dyer, White Sands
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
Fiona Mozley, Elmet
Sabina Murray, Valiant Gentlemen

[lillielangtry]

2 votes for Lincoln in the Bardo already, I see!

I change my mind every time I do this. Books I read for the first time and gave 5 stars to on Goodreads were:

Blood of the Dawn - Claudia Salazar Jiménez
Stoner - John Williams
Things we Lost in the Fire - Mariana Enriquez
Swing Time - Zadie Smith
Seeing Red - Lina Meruane
The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry
Das Muschelessen - Birgit Vanderbeke

But I don't know... were Swing Time or the Essex Serpent really better than Elmet or Linda Grant's The Dark Circle, both of which I gave 4 stars to? Probably not.

[Liiisa]

Yeah lillie, I think these ratings are kind of dependent on mood. My list here is just those things that I put a star by on my reading list when I finished them, which means I loved them at the time; but I'd have to think harder (and probably do some rereading) to rank them any farther than that.

Lincoln in the Bardo was amazing - don't listen to my mother.

[mei]

3 books jumped out looking back at my list (of only 14, boohoo):

Death's End by Liu Cixin - amazing final to his Three Body Problem trilogy.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Boven is het stil by Gerbrand Bakker - very impressive, quiet Dutch novel with so much going on at the some time.

[scrubb]

Yeah, it totally depends on mood and also some mental processes that aren't necessarily logical. Like, I read Stoner last year and looooooved it. This year I read John Williams' other two books and thought they were both really great, but not as good as Stoner. So I felt like I had to give them only 4 stars since they weren't as good as the 5 star Stoner.

But Augustus probably belongs on my best-reads-of-the-year list anyway.

Also, one of Liisa's and one of mei's recommendations are already on my "to read" list, and this thread has made me move them higher up!

[Liiisa]

I can't deal with a 5-star system - for me books are either fabulous, good (i.e., good enough to finish), or bad (and therefore abandoned).

Things on my to-read list are well represented above (as well as things I really liked in the past like Number9dream and The Underground Railroad)! Now for the weather to stop being shitty long enough for me to get to the bookstore....

[scrubb]

My personal rating system doesn't have stars - it's "excellent" "good-excellent" "good" "ok-good" "ok" and "bad". Ha!

[Queen]

copy pasting from December

Philida - Andre Brink
The Guest Cat - Takashi Hiraide
Em and the Big Hoom - Jerry Pinto
Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan

Best non-fiction;
The Sixth Extinction

I've picked up Lincoln in the Bardo twice in a bookshop and both times put it down... it's not appealing to me somehow. Might have another look since it's so recommended here.

[Liiisa]

Maybe you're channeling my mother, Q (and a sigline! I am honored!)