Runners up allowed, in case the winners cannot fulfill their duties…
Fiction: * Every Heart a Doorway*, by Seanan McGuire
Runner Up: The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate
Non-Fiction (and the best book I read this year): At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson
Runner Up: Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now, by Mark Steyn
Fiction : Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece Dandelion Wine.
He’s already my favorite writer, but that book… It makes you feel everything there is to feel. It’s funny, sweet, nostalgic, heart-rending, and even terrifying. And you can pull any random sentence from it and be awestricken by the power of his description. My God that man can write.
Nonfiction: The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne.
Wish I had read it ten years ago, or at least before I attempted my first serious novel. It’s a blueprint for storytelling and for me it has changed everything about how I write.
Favorite novel: “Paris in the Present Tense,” by Mark Helprin. No one writes like Helprin, but besides his use of language which is glorious as usual, the story is funny, tragic, completely compelling and humane. I love this author and this book.
Favorite non-fiction: “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”. Possibly the best, certainly the funniest memoir I have ever read, it’s Sherman Alexie’s memoir and eulogy to his mother. I’m listening to the audiobook, read perfectly by the author, and walking many more miles than I normally would just to keep it going. He says, “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I see them all the time.” Me too, Mr. Alexie.
Runner up novel: “Lincoln in the Bardo,” by George Saunders. A bizarre wtf novel of Abraham Lincoln’s loss of his son and the hundreds of voices of the historically recently dead. Truly strange, really good.
Runner up non-fiction: “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell,” by David Yaffe. Since it’s doubtful we’re going to see an autobiography, this book is probably the closest we’ll get, with lots of new (to me) details of her facsinating life and the genesis of the songs. l listened to the audiobook and I have to admit to speeding it up for the parts about the later albums I’m not especially fond of. It made the narrator sound like Mickey Mouse, but it got me past the duller bits. The part that covered from, say, 1962 through the 70s was riveting, though.
Fiction: The Element of Fire, by Martha Wells. Great characters, great political intrigues, great writing.
Non-fiction: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, by Tony Horwitz. Laugh out loud funny, poignant, maddening, and enlightening.
Runner-up fiction: Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, by Kate DiCamillo. This one was a tough call.
2017 was not a great reading year for me. My job was a stressful mess, so I was reading very much in a rut of safe choices. But these books were all top-notch.
Fiction: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Fiction: I read all of the main Honor Harrington novels except for a couple of short stories (haven’t gotten into the Manticore Ascendant prequels).
Non-Fiction: I’m blanking on this one.
Fiction: The Lost World by H.G. Wells
Non-Fiction: Jungle of Stone by William Carlsen - About the (re) discovery of the Mayan civilization, and all sorts of other fascinating 19th century events. Now that I think about it, probably also inspired me to read The Lost World.
Runner-up Non-Fiction: *Trapped!: The Story of Floyd Collins *- Not for the claustrophic. The story of the biggest media event of the 1920’s, which inspired books, songs, movies and even a musical.
Non-fiction: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Fiction: Tie between the previously mentioned Every Heart a Doorway and Empire Games by Charles Stross (I did also like the Anders book).
Fiction: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Non-Fiction: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
'Kind of a lean year for books for me, I’m afraid. But I did rather enjoy Von Wielligh’s The Bomb: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme.
Kind of a niche historical/technical subject, though.
Non-fiction:
In the Darkroom
Runners-up:
Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica
Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality
The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession
Fiction:
Mink River
Runners up:
Hild
Future Home of the Living God
I can’t think of a novel that I read in 2017 that made a lasting impression. For all I can recall I may not have finished one.
However, Joe Hill says the 4 novellas in Strange Weather are novels. Whatever, they were pretty good.
In a similar vein, the collection of stories that makes up Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson was great reading.
I have read a lot of good non-fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment by Robert Wright. I have enjoyed his stuff for 20 years.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is a simply incredible true story beautifully told.
My favorite book I read in 2017 that was published in 2017 is nonfiction: The Herbalist’s Kitchen by Brittany Nickerson. It’s a cookbook far more than an herbal, and reading it makes me feel really calm. Recipes are delicious, and the herbal parts don’t seem too “woo” to distract me.