This is a list of the books, I read in 2017 that I found to be okay to fabulous. However after participating in writing critique groups for the last 25 years or so and book clubs for the past 45 years, I appreciate an author’s effort and recognize that different people have different tastes. Therefore the books I found entirely dull or horrible are simply excluded from the list and there is no ranking system among titles. If you choose to read books off my list you will have to make your own decision about what you like.
You will see I like to read in series and a body of work by a singular author. I often do this to try to have a better understanding of the writer and their form of storytelling to figure out what I can learn from their efforts. As you will see from the assembled lis, I don’t just read “fine literature.” I read children’s books, non-fiction, fantasy, science fiction, novels, memoir self help books, romance and history. I read for escape, enjoyment, sometimes for a world where magic or good people can set the world to rights within a few hundred pages. This feels especially important when the real world around me becomes harsh and people act in ways that are unrecognizable to me.
I share this list because I am so often asked for recommendations. I hope you discover something new that delights you among these many authors and their efforts. If you are seeking to purchase some of these titles may I suggest supporting your local independent bookseller as my family owned my hometown bookstore for years. If you don’t have one nearby, I’d like to recommend a few favorites of mine: Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, NH; Belmont Books in Belmont, MA; The Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY; An Unlikely Story in Plainview, MA; Books and Books in Key West, FL; Oblong Books in Rheinbeck, NY; Still North Books and Bar in Hannover, NH; Longfellow Books in Portland, ME; Print, A Bookstore in Portland, ME and Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN. I’ve found the booksellers in each shop knowledgable and they all seem to have good fulfillment when ordering from them on line.
The 2017 List
Title | Author |
The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work and Confidence with Everyday Courage | Mel Robbins |
The Orphan’s Tale | Pam Jenoff |
A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles |
Three Feet From Gold : Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities | Sharon Lechter, Greg S. Reid |
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So -Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life- Before 8 AM | Hal Elrod |
Go for No!: Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There | Richard Fenton, Andrea Waltz |
The One: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results | Gary Keller |
King’s Cage | Victoria Aveyard |
Glass Sword | Victoria Aveyard |
The Slow Regard of Silent Things | Patrick Rothfuss |
Rather Be The Devil | Ian Rankin |
Autumn in Oxford | Alex Rosenberg |
The Nest | Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney |
Seven Stones to Stand or Fall | Diana Gabaldon |
The Firebird | Susanna Kearsley |
The Name of the Wind | Patrick Rothfuss |
The Wise Man’s Fear | Patrick Rothfuss |
A Little Life | Hanya Yanagihara |
A Man Called Ove | Fredrick Backman |
The Sword-Edged Blonde | Alex Bledsoe |
I Shall Wear Midnight | Terry Pratchett |
Furies of Calderon | Jim Butcher |
The Black Witch | Laurie Forest |
Under Heaven | Guy Gavriel Kay |
Confessions of a Domestic Failure | Bunmi Laditan |
You Don’t Look Your Age … and Other Fairy Tales | Shelia Nievins |
Married Lovers | Jackie Collins |
One Man’s Meat | E. B. White |
Station Eleven | Emily St. John |
Up Country | Nelson De Mille |
And Again | Jessica Chianrella |
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett | Chelsea Sedoti |
Murder in G Major | Alexia Gordon |
Herzog | Saul Bellow |
First Star I See Tonight | Susan Elizabeth Phillips |
First Comes Love | Emily Giffin |
Lab Girl | Hope Jahrem |
Talking As Fast As I Can | Lauren Graham |
Delirium | Lauren Oliver |
My Adventures with God | Stephen Tobolowsky |
The Boston Girl | Anita Diamant |
Flash Boys | Michael Lewis |
Pachinko | Min Jim Lee |
A Mad Wicked | Sharon Biggs Waller |
A Spool of Blue Thread | Anne Tyler |
The Secret Chord | Geraldine Brooks |
Red Queen | Victoria Aveyard |
Eligible | Curtis Sitten Feld |
Today Will Be Different | Maria Semple |
Wicked Appetite | Janet Evanovich |
The House of Spirits | Isabel Allende |
Leaving Time | Jodi Picoult |
Shopaholic to the Stars | Sophie Kinsella |
The Museum of Extraordinary Things | Alice Hoffman |
The Nest | Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney |
When Breath Becomes Air | Paul Kalanithi |
See You in the Cosmos | Jack Cheng |
A Truck Full of Money | Tracy Kidder |
The Witch’s Daughter | Paula Brackston |
The Quick | Lauren Owen |
Tell Me | Joan Bauer |
The Nix | Nathan Hill |
Peeled | Joan Bauer |
Dancing in Cadillac Light | Kimberly Willis Holt |
Cimarron Rose | Billy Bob Holland |
Commonwealth | Ann Patchett |
The Water Seeker | Kimberly Willis Holt |
The Hedge Knight | George R. R. Martin |
The World of Ice and Fire | George R. R. Martin |
I’ll Take You There | Wally Lamb |
Paris for One and | Jojo Moyes |
Faithful | Alice Hoffman |
The Last Letter | Jojo Moyes |
Shantaram | Gregory David |
My Brilliant Friend | Elena Ferrante |
The Girl You Left Behind | Jojo Moyes |