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Best Books of 2017

29th Dec 2017 in Books

This year I read 220 books. As you may be able to tell, I really, really (really) fucking like books.

Here is a highly personal, not-very-scientifically-chosen list of my 50 favourites of 2017.

Books out in 2017:

• Best Book That Actually Made Me Have to Put it Down For a Moment and Close My Eyes Because it Was So Perfect: I Am, I Am, I Am, Maggie O’Farrell
• Best Book I Loved So Much I Wanted to Eat It: A Pocketful of Crows, Joanne M. Harris
• Best Believe-All-the-Hype-Because-It’s-Seriously-Bloody-Good Book: The Power, Naomi Alderman
• Best Pregnancy Sci-Fi: The Growing Season, Helen Sedgwick
• Best Horror Novel That Creeped Me Out So Much I Actually Said OH MY GOD Out Loud: The Silent Companions, Laura Purcell
• Best Disturbing Book About a Call Centre: Oh Honey, Emily R. Austin

• Best Short Stories I Adored But Also Made Me Need to Have a Shower Because I Felt a Bit Grimy: The Doll’s Alphabet, Camilla Grudova
• Best Fairytale-Inspired Short Stories: The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night, Jen Campbell
• Best LGBT Heroine: Dark Asylum, E.S. Thomson
• Best Thriller About a Writer: Based on a True Story, Delphine de Vigan
• Best Sparse, Finely-Wrought Novella With a Complex Heroine: Flesh of the Peach, Helen McClory
• Best Much-Anticipated Book: The Book of Dust #1: La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman

• Best Sci-Fi/Horror Novella: Final Girls, Mira Grant
• Best Novella That I Still Sometimes Think About As I’m Falling Asleep: The Ghost Line, Andrew Neil Gray & J.S. Herbison
• Best Novella About a Haunted House: You Should Have Left, Daniel Kehlmann
• Best Start to a Series: WTF (Geek Actually Season 1 Episode 1), Cathy Yardley
• Best Book About the Realities of Being a Writer: Scratch, Manjula Martin (ed.)
• Best Anthology of Angry-Making Yet Inspiring Feminist Essays: Nasty Women, Various Authors

• Best Poetry by a Woman of Colour: peluda, Melissa Lozada-Oliva
• Best Debut Book of Poetry By a Poet Whose Work I Have Adored For Years: The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate, Rachel McCrum
• Best Poem About a Selkie: All the Prayers in the House, Miriam Nash
• Best Poetry That Made Me Look at Myself and My Thoughts and My Actions So Closely I Felt Uncomfortable: In These Days of Prohibition, Caroline Bird
• Best Book About Death: Past Mortems, Carla Valentine
• Best Book About Ghosts That Wasn’t a Book of Ghost Stories: The Ghost: A Cultural History, Susan Owens

• Best Courtney Love Analysis: All the Lives I Want, Alana Massey
• Best Advice Column by a Fairytale Witch: Ask Baba Yaga, Taisia Kitaiskaia
• Best No-Bullshit Self-Help Book: This Is How, Augusten Burroughs
• Best Book About Disastrous Medical History: Quackery, Lydia Kang
• Best Creepy Graphic Novel About Oddly Specific Yet Terrifying Hypothetical Situations: The Creeps, Fran Krause
• Best Graphic Novel About Giving Birth to the Devil: Babyteeth #1, Donny Cates

• Best Graphic Novel About Witches: Jim Henson’s Storyteller: Witches, Various Authors
• Best LGBT Romance in a Graphic Novel: Taproot, Keezy Young
• Best Graphic Novel About Norse Mythology and Queer Love: Heathen #1, Natasha Alterici

 

Books Out Before 2017:

• Best Love Poems: The Fire Eater’s Lover, Sophia Blackwell
• Best Grief Poems: Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, Karen Finneyfrock
• Best Short Stories That Got Under My Skin and Stayed There: Gutshot, Amelia Gray
• Best Short Stories I Wish I’d Written: The Hair Wreath and Other Stories, Halli Villegas
• Best Short Stories I Got For Free on Kindle and Couldn’t Believe They Were Free Because They Were Great: If I Were You, Graeme Keeton
• Best Book I Really Enjoyed But Had to Hide the Cover of While Reading on the Bus: Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11, Aaron Michael Kerner

• Best Japanese Mystery: The Master Key, Masako Togawa
• Best Queer Cuban Sci-Fi: Super Extra Grande, Yoss
• Best Indonesian Feminist Spec-Fic: Spinner of Darkness and Other Tales, Intan Paramaditha
• Best Scandinavian-Inspired Short Stories: Jagannath, Karin Tidbeck
• Best Uplifting Book About Incorrect Paperwork: The Invoice, Jonas Karlsson
• Best Book About the Sea: Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

 

• Best True Crime About a Crime I Didn’t Think I’d Ever Want to Read About: As If, Blake Morrison
• Best Surreal, Disturbing Fables About WWII Japan: The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine, Akiyuki Nosaka
• Best Disturbing Combination of 1970s Nostalgia and Graphic Design: Discovering Scarfolk, Richard Littler
• Best Point Horror: Dream Date, Sinclair Smith
• Best-Worst Point Horror: The Perfume, Caroline B. Cooney

 

How about you? What were your best reads of 2017?