Best books read in 2017

[marcshoe]

Not of 2017, but read in that year. I had less time than ever to read, so for me it was mostly listening.

Fiction:

1. The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood. I loved Marwood's first book, The Wicked Girls, but was mildly disappointed with her second, The Killer Next Door. This one, though. . . wow. Not exactly a mystery, although that's part of it, but a story about social class and disconnected family. Two half-sisters reconnect at their father's funeral, where the story of the disappearance of the younger girl's twin years before unravels, in every sense of that word. The story ends with an absolute gut punch.

2. Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay. I feel like this should be 1a. Trembley follows up A Head Full of Ghosts with a very different story, still with a postmodern vibe, about a Mother and sister coping with a boy's vanishing. The relationship between the younger boy and an older, disreputable, friend was perfect and reminded me of the way my nephew would latch on to older boys who weren't always the best influences.

3. Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. An older one I'm just getting to. Yeah, he steals from Stephen King, but he does it well. Great bunch-of-kids-on-the-cusp-fighting-a-monster-and-mean-adults story. Extra points for working in a cursed antique "Borgia Bell".

4. All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman. This is the 14th Merrily Watkins book, so you might not want to start here. Wraps up a couple of loose threads and reunites characters while advancing the overall plot. Merrily is the reluctant "deliverance minister" (aka exorcist) who finds herself involved in murders involving traditional rural rituals on the Welsh/English border. This series is horribly under-read, imho.

5. Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory. An eccentric family of ex-magicians with real abilities faces the End of Everything. Standout characters and a clever resolution that fits perfectly.

Honorable mention--The Western Star by Craig Johnson (I liked the Longmire series, except for the last season, but the books are much better), Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King (they get rural West Virginia pretty much right), and the three collections of weird stories by Robert Aickman that I physically read. A step down, but still worthy, The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova, and The Stone Man by Luke Smitherd.

Nonfiction/traditional will have to wait.

[Redsfaithful]

2. Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay. I feel like this should be 1a. Trembley follows up A Head Full of Ghosts with a very different story, still with a postmodern vibe, about a Mother and sister coping with a boy's vanishing. The relationship between the younger boy and an older, disreputable, friend was perfect and reminded me of the way my nephew would latch on to older boys who weren't always the best influences.

A Head Full of Ghosts knocked me on my ass - that was a great book. Disappearance at Devil's Rock was also good, but so draining it's hard for me to know where I really stand on it. I felt exhausted by the end in a way I don't really want to feel from books these days.

I probably read less books in 2017 than I have read in any year of my reading life, which bummed me out when I realized. Hoping to change that this year.

The best book I read in 2017 was probably The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll. Surreal and insane - I couldn't put it down.

The second best book was The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy which was brilliant, but devastating and made me think further about how my media needs to not be so mentally rough at this stage in my life.

The most charming book I read was Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, written by a teenage girl who decides to live for a year according to a 50's guide to popularity for girls that she finds in a thrift store, if I remember right. I'll have teens myself here in a few years, so I'm keeping an eye out for things like this. It was a very sweet book, and affirming - reinforced my belief that kids are mostly alright.

I read the annual King you mentioned (it was fine - better than I expected given the subject matter and location.)

Also read the annual Joe Hill, and he's starting to bum me out. I was hoping he'd be more like his dad, which is unfair, but he already seems to be going rapidly downhill compared to his earlier works.

Anyone else on GoodReads? I've been trying to keep track of what I read for a couple of years when I discovered kind of alarmingly that I was basically forgetting entire books I'd read within a few months, without refreshing my memory on Wikipedia. Reading right before I fall asleep isn't great for retention.

[WildcatFan]

1. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons—It's a book about how the different parts of the brain work, told through stories of injuries and diseases affecting those particular areas. So you read stories about conditions like people no longer able to detect movement, meaning the world looks like a neverending series of still snapshots. It gets into the deep science of the brain while still being incredibly accessible to the average reader (me).

2. Anna Karenina—I'd never really tackled Russian literature before this. I'm sure most of you have read it. What a masterpiece.

3. The Association of Small Bombs—A beautiful and heartbreaking novel about the fallout after a bomb is set off at a market in Delhi. Really gives humanity to these throwaway stories we read about in the world news every few weeks.

4. The Undoing Project—I'm an unabashed fanboy of Michael Lewis, and his latest book about the work of two Israeli psychologists on behavior and decision-making is another great window into the people behind research breakthroughs.

5. The Naked Now—I know there are several lapsed evangelicals on this board like myself, and Richard Rohr, a Franciscan mystic, has become my go-to for reconstruction of a spiritual worldview. He gives equal weight to many different spiritual disciplines by exploring their common threads of transcendence, presence and a non-judgemental love for yourself and others.

6. Sapiens—A history of humanity through the history of evolution and ending with some educated speculation about where our species goes from here. I learned a whole lot and gained a new appreciation for just how far we've come in evolutionary science.

Special mention to books I'd either re-read or didn't quite make my top 6, like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catch-22, The Great Gatsby, The Alchemist, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Orange is the New Black.

[marcshoe]

A Head Full of Ghosts knocked me on my ass - that was a great book. Disappearance at Devil's Rock was also good, but so draining it's hard for me to know where I really stand on it. I felt exhausted by the end in a way I don't really want to feel from books these days.

I probably read less books in 2017 than I have read in any year of my reading life, which bummed me out when I realized. Hoping to change that this year.

The best book I read in 2017 was probably The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll. Surreal and insane - I couldn't put it down.

The second best book was The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy which was brilliant, but devastating and made me think further about how my media needs to not be so mentally rough at this stage in my life.

The most charming book I read was Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, written by a teenage girl who decides to live for a year according to a 50's guide to popularity for girls that she finds in a thrift store, if I remember right. I'll have teens myself here in a few years, so I'm keeping an eye out for things like this. It was a very sweet book, and affirming - reinforced my belief that kids are mostly alright.

I read the annual King you mentioned (it was fine - better than I expected given the subject matter and location.)

Also read the annual Joe Hill, and he's starting to bum me out. I was hoping he'd be more like his dad, which is unfair, but he already seems to be going rapidly downhill compared to his earlier works.

Anyone else on GoodReads? I've been trying to keep track of what I read for a couple of years when I discovered kind of alarmingly that I was basically forgetting entire books I'd read within a few months, without refreshing my memory on Wikipedia. Reading right before I fall asleep isn't great for retention.

I'm on Goodreads, but I've lapsed. As for exhausting books, I think I've been tending that way recently. The only one of my top five that I could call fun was Spoonbenders. There was some fun in the Dan Simmons book, but in the sense that there was some fun in It.

[WildcatFan]

I'm on Goodreads, but I've lapsed. As for exhausting books, I think I've been tending that way recently. The only one of my top five that I could call fun was Spoonbenders. There was some fun in the Dan Simmons book, but in the sense that there was some fun in It.

I've been keeping a new list on my phone each year to help me when people ask for recommendations. I have a Goodreads account, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

[marcshoe]

1. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons—It's a book about how the different parts of the brain work, told through stories of injuries and diseases affecting those particular areas. So you read stories about conditions like people no longer able to detect movement, meaning the world looks like a neverending series of still snapshots. It gets into the deep science of the brain while still being incredibly accessible to the average reader (me).

2. Anna Karenina—I'd never really tackled Russian literature before this. I'm sure most of you have read it. What a masterpiece.

3. The Association of Small Bombs—A beautiful and heartbreaking novel about the fallout after a bomb is set off at a market in Delhi. Really gives humanity to these throwaway stories we read about in the world news every few weeks.

4. The Undoing Project—I'm an unabashed fanboy of Michael Lewis, and his latest book about the work of two Israeli psychologists on behavior and decision-making is another great window into the people behind research breakthroughs.

5. The Naked Now—I know there are several lapsed evangelicals on this board like myself, and Richard Rohr, a Franciscan mystic, has become my go-to for reconstruction of a spiritual worldview. He gives equal weight to many different spiritual disciplines by exploring their common threads of transcendence, presence and a non-judgemental love for yourself and others.

6. Sapiens—A history of humanity through the history of evolution and ending with some educated speculation about where our species goes from here. I learned a whole lot and gained a new appreciation for just how far we've come in evolutionary science.

Special mention to books I'd either re-read or didn't quite make my top 6, like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catch-22, The Great Gatsby, The Alchemist, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Orange is the New Black.

I've read one Richard Rohr book and should probably read more. I'll put this one on my list.

btw, I haven't read Anna K, perhaps because I can't spell it. I went through a period when I was younger in which I read quite a few Russian short stories as well as Crime and Punishment, but it's been a while.

[Rojo]

I went through a period when I was younger in which I read quite a few Russian short stories as well as Crime and Punishment, but it's been a while.

I've read most of Dostoyevsky, even though squiggly line doesn't think I can spell it, yet never read Tolstoy. Will have to tackle this year.

I'd put my list in here, but I think it belongs in P and R thread.

I'm currently in the market for a good, succinct history of Native Americans, if anyone has a recommendation.

[BillDoran]

Special mention to books I'd either re-read or didn't quite make my top 6, like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catch-22, The Great Gatsby, The Alchemist, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Orange is the New Black.

Went on a James Baldwin kick; read Go Tell It on a Mountain, The Fire Next Time and No Name in the Street.

Really enjoyed the two essay collections. Some of my favorite writing ever. Seems especially relevant given the results of the last election.

[WildcatFan]

Went on a James Baldwin kick; read Go Tell It on a Mountain, The Fire Next Time and No Name in the Street.

Really enjoyed the two essay collections. Some of my favorite writing ever. Seems especially relevant given the results of the last election.

Man, he's just the best. Loved The Fire Next Time. If Beale Street Could Talk is being made into a movie this year—that one's a definite recommend also.

[Boston Red]

Uncle Tom's Cabin. Somehow I'd missed that one over the years.

[Fil3232]

“A Gentleman in Moscow” -Towles
“String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis” -collection of DFW writings
“Player Piano” -Vonnegut