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Books of 2017?

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List time! Hooray/boo. Here’s my favourite books of the year. They’re fiction and nonfiction , and all released in 2017. I might even do an AW poll unless there is tumbleweed. 🙂

Please list yours, released this year- I am always looking for new books. My top two are absolutely top; the others are in any old order (I don’t think it’s been a great year for books).

I’m sure they’re not the ‘best’ books, but they are the ones I most enjoyed.

‘The Sparsholt Affair’ : Alan Hollingsworth
‘The Book of Dust Vol. 1: La Belle Sauvage’:Philip Pullman
‘The Walworth Beauty’: Michele Roberts
‘How Not to be a Boy’: Robert Webb
‘How to be Champion’: Sarah Millican
‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’: Gail Honeyman
‘I am, I am, I am: Seventeen Brushes With Death’: Maggie O’Farrell
‘Days Without End’: Sebastian Barry
‘What Happened’: Hillary Clinton
‘Greatest Hits’: Laura Barnett
‘The Power’: Naomi Alderman
‘The Keeper of Lost Things’: Ruth Hogan
‘Swimming Lessons’: Claire Fuller
‘The Boy on the Bridge’: M.R. Carey
‘Help’: Simon Amstell

To read from 2017 – too many to list, but include ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ (Arundhati Roy); ‘Elmet’ (Fiona Mozley); and music biogs such as Lou Reed and Joni, Barney Hoskyns’ book, Peter Hook). I did read some other music biogs (e.g. Chris Difford, Carrie Brownstein, but I was not blown away by any of them).

1

Comments

    • Lower your standards, Baron! It can be interesting to hear about the goodish also-rans too.

      Excellent idea, Ruby. Although I wonder how many of the handfull of books I read were actually published this year. Unlike an album or film which can be consumed in one sitting, so to speak, a book takes a bit of time to build up a word-of-mouth reputation as people get round to reading it.

      • Yes that’s true and that’s one of the problems with a ‘2017’ list. My original list was much bigger but I checked and some were 2016, or even 2015!

        I’m not too bothered about the ‘2017’ requirement so whatever people read this year can count.

        An if people only want to mention one or two, that’s good too.

  3. Great idea, Ruby – some belters in your list. One negative: just finished Belle Sauvage – why do the Pullman books attract so much acclaim? I found this one in particular condescending in its conceit: look, a children’s book only like it’s deep. Cardboard characters, friendly gypsies, giant gatekeeper fooled by a cunning riddle, two hobbits on the run from the baddies (oops, wrong book).
    The Sparsholt Affair on the other hand is fab

    • Yeah a friend of mine, very well-read and whose opinion I respect, doesn’t rate Pullman at all, for the reasons you mention.

      ‘Sparsholt’ is fab; such a wonderful writer. He makes it seem effortless but every sentence is just beautiful.

    • I absolutely devoured La Belle Sauvage in about 3 hrs flat and bloody loved every word. Don’t at all recognise the cardboard characters accusation: Pullman’s a master of character. Lyra and Will are two of the best heroes of any book I know, and Malcolm was beautifully drawn, I thought.

      I really think only two of his books fit the “condescending” description: The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ (which, to be fair, is nearly the most condescending book I’ve ever read) and to an extent The Amber Spyglass which gets away with its preachiness by being a hell of a yarn, and beautifully written, and with the weight of Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife behind it – which are for my money two of the greatest novels ever written in English. So that helps.

      But back to LBS: “a children’s book but deep…” isn’t a conceit: it’s what it is. It’s a children’s book! And yes it has some depth; I’m not sure what the complaint is supposed to be here. Are children’s books supposed to be unambitious and shallow? I think generally if you don’t like children’s and young adult fiction, maybe it was never going to be the book for you?

      I guess from the “friendly gypsies” comment you haven’t read His Dark Materials? It’s certainly true that to “get” LBS fully you have to have read the original trilogy. Personally, seeing Coram as a younger man was an absolute thrill for me. The idea that the Gyptians are “friendly gypsies” is an unfairly reductive slating, and well wide of the mark.

  4. Best thing I read all year is ‘Nomad’ by Alan Partridge. Needless to say, it’s hilarious. Also, can I have ‘The Trouble With Goats And Sheep’ by Joanna Cannon please? – I only read paperbacks and although this was released initially in 2016, the paperback came out on 26/12/2016. That’s my No.2
    Nothing else springs to mind from this year, but that probably says more about me than anything.

          • I also read ‘The Trouble With Goats And Sheep’ this year @Lemonhope, and enjoyed it more than I expected. Currently reading another book from a couple of years ago – ‘Station Eleven’ – liking that as well. My best of the year, and published this year, was ‘he’ by John Connolly – absolutely fantastic. New, or newish, books in my “to read” pile also mentioned in this thread are by Sebastian Barry, Ian McEwan, Gail Honeyman.

  5. I caught up on a couple of Cormac McCarthy books this year: predictably, The Road and Blood Meridian. They were both incredible. I’ve never really read anything quite like them – I can’t quite pinpoint what it is that he does with language, but it’s so spare and precise but somehow… I dunno. I want to say… chewy? Despite not being overwrought – the opposite, in fact – the language is very present in his writing. It’s a thing. Not intrusive, but a real technique thing that you feel as you’re reading.

    But, obviously, they’re both almost unbearably horrible. So I’ll probably never read them again.

    I’ve got to have a think about everything else I’ve read now and see if there’s any that were actually published this year. Back soon!

    • I read ‘All The Pretty Horses’ years ago and I think he’s a writer I admire rather than like. I can’t face ‘The Road’ and doubt I will ever read it.

      • “All The Pretty Horses” and the other two volumes of the Border Trilogy were bloody hard going for me. The Spanish dialogue that crops up in them didn’t help, as I know next to no Spanish. A frustrating mix of good plotting and characterisation plus a lot of florid but boring stuff that could have been dispensed with.
        “The Road” was a horribly gripping read that left me feeling down and rather shell-shocked.
        “No Country For Old Men” was much less horrifying but no less gripping.

      • I struggled with All The Pretty Horses too, but found The Road utterly compelling and magnificent. Give it a go Ruby, I suspect it might be the Cormac McCarthy book for people who don’t really like Cormac MCarthy.

        • Hmmmm, maybe I should try ‘The Road’. It’s been sitting on the shelf for years. Since having my son I have become over-sensitive to books about parental relationships and loss. I even found the opening of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy ‘ too much. God my brain has gone to blancmange.

          • I enjoyed the Border Trilogy and at some point I’ll probably read “All the Pretty Horses” again. There wasn’t a wasted word in that book.
            I’m looking forward to reading more of his books (Sutree next) but I need to take a few deep breaths before plunging back into his Heart of Darkness.

          • I recently re-read All The Pretty Horses and it is fantastic – its ‘Mk 1 McCarthy’ in tone and style, if you’re not up for extended descriptions of sagebrush and saddles (along with superb characterisation and a perfectly servicable plot).

            Road and NCFOM are Mk 2 Mccarthy – all stripped down and minimal, hence more accessible in style. I would definitely start with NCFOM first. The Road is difficult for those with kids – joining Don’t Look Now, Ice Storm and several others on the ‘not going to make you less worried’ list.

    • You know what? Shit. Apart from La Belle Sauvage, the only other book published this year that I’ve actually read is by a friend of mine: An Unremarkable Body by Elisa Lodato. It’s wonderful – I loved it. But I really do think that’s it for actual 2017 books. Bloody hell. That’s awful!

  6. Off the top of my head, the new book I enjoyed most this year was “We Were Eight Years In Power” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I didn’t agree with all of it, but it was beautifully written and full of interesting ideas.

      • It’s brilliant. And it made me want to find out more about the US Civil War, so I watched Ken Burns’ documentary in Netflix. Which is, predictably, ace. The thing that brought me up short was filmed footage of the Gettysburg reunion. It was in the 1930s! In fact, the last combat veterans died in 1952. That’s not in my lifetime but is fairly close.

        So in 1952, there was still someone living who had been prepared to kill others, for the right to treat black people as less than human. this stuff is not ancient history.

        • The US Civil War wasn’t just about slavery, although it played a very major part. It was also about how the South was treated by the Northern elite of the time. All the wealth generated in the South was disappearing into the North and funding the North’s industrialisation. Nothing much was coming back into the South. There was great poverty and a lot of resentment amongst the poor whites, whipped up by the big landowning dynasties who saw abolition as a threat to their prosperity.

  7. I only read one novel from 2017. And that was from 2016 (but I think paperback in 2017). Ian McEwan’s Nutshell. As a big fan of McEwan I was disappointed with his last few novels. Solar, Sweet Tooth and The Children Act were, I thought, all pretty boring. So I was very pleased to find him back on form. Although back on form isn’t really accurate, as Nutshell is very different to anything he’s written before. Very different to anything anyone’s written before, really. With the exception of the wonderful Atonement, I think McEwan is at his best when writing short novels, which Nutshell is. It sort of riffs on the story of Hamlet but as narrated by the protagonist as an unborn foetus. It’s nowhere near as pretentious or arty as that sounds. In fact it’s quite funny. (It begins “So here I am, upside down in a woman.”)

    • I had given up on McEwan so I’m pleased to read this. I still love ‘Atonement’. I think ‘On Chesil Beach’ was one of the most disappointing books I’ve ever read (rather appropriately).

      • Recent Mcewan: enjoyed Sweet Tooth as it was back to the nasty twisty tricksy Mcewan I love as opposed to the Big Important Issue stuff like Saturday, Solar – fear Childrens Act which is bought but not yet read is in the latter camp. But it is short.

      • Horses for courses – I enjoyed On Chesil Beach and The Children Act, but have struggled with other McEwan novels – A Child In Time was a slog, and Amsterdam in particular was just abysmal.

      • Funnily enough as someone who is not a huge McEwan fan (though Atonement was great) I really liked On Chesil Beach. Sweet Tooth and especially Solar were poor I thought.

        • I am totes agree. Solar was terrible. On Chesil Beach was fab. I want someone else on here to try Nutshell. I’d be interested in AW opinion.

          • Just finished Nutshell I quite enjoyed it. It is the first novel I have read to the end in a couple of years so it gets a thumbs up from me. I just seem to have lost my ability to read fiction these days.

  8. 1. Lincoln in the Bardo – simply stunning
    2. Golden Prey – John Sandford: nice to see Lucas out and about
    3 Sing Unburied Sing – Jesmyn Ward: breathtaking writing, an utter delight
    4 Autumn – Ali Smith: not usually her biggest fan but can’t wait for the next instalment
    5 Places in the Darkness – Chris Brookmyre: science fiction thriller detective, what’s not to adore?
    That will do for now

    • “Sing Unburied, Sing” is on my “To read” list, so it was nice to see it getting the Lodestone thumbs-up.

      The only Jesmyn Ward book I’ve read so far is her memoir text “Men We Reaped,” which I thought was an absolutely devastating piece of work.

  9. Most of my reading, like most of my listening, seems to involve the products of long ago. Beyond Billy Bragg’s skiffle history ‘Roots, Radicals & Rockers’ (which was excellent, in my view), I’m struggling to think of a book I’ve read this year that was also published this year – though I’ve read a few 2017 re-prints of pre-war British crime novels. But they don’t count.

    PS I did write a book this year, and I must have read it while doing so. A cunning manoeuvre to get me up to having read ‘two books published in 2017’… 🙂

    • Another shout here for Billy Bragg’s marvellous book. Skiffle is rarely written about and has been more or less airbrushed from the history of popular music. However it’s influence is immense.
      No skiffle, no Beatles, No Zep et al.

    • Hold the front page… Colin H is reading (gasp) a THIRD book published in 2017: Slademeister Dave Hill’s autobiography, courtesy of Carol From Luton. I feared it might be ghostwritten guff, but actually so far it has a feeling of authenticity about it – it feels like it really is Dave talking/writing, and the early stuff about his family is more interesting than that section of muso biogs generally is. It’s a good read so far, but I don’t think it’s going be in-depth re: the Slade years – probably impressionistic, which is fair enough. A few too many exclamation marks, but worth a punt if you’re half interested.

      Post-Christmas, I’ll be reading (faints from the sheer implausibility of it) a FOURTH book published this year – the biog of Brit jazz legend Stan Tracey, which looks a weighty tome (and from online evidence, now in a better cover design than was originally publicised).

  10. I read Blood Meridian every few years and the writing is actually far more colourful than The Road where he pared everything back to a very sparse style. Some of the descriptions in it are extraordinary and The Judge is one of the greatest fictional villains of all.

    Here are my some of my favourites from this year:
    Michelle Paver – Thin Air
    William Mcilvanney – Laidlaw
    Sebastian Barry – Days Without End
    Stephen Kotkin – Stalin, Vol. I: Paradoxes of Power
    Phillip Kerr – Prussian Blue
    Matt Haig – The Humans
    Noah Hawley – Before the Fall
    Lucia Berlin – A Manual For Cleaning Women
    Adrian McKinty – Police At The Station and They Don’t Look Friendly
    Stephen King – Song of Susannah & The Dark Tower
    Phillip Knightley – The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century

  12. I can’t think of a single book published in 2017 that I’ve read. Recently, I’ve read three of Kate Atkinson’s: A God In Ruins, Not the End of The World (Short stories) and Started Early, Took my Dog. Somehow I’d missed Started Early so it was great to unexpectedly share Brodie’s adventures one more time.
    The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, which had me blubbing like a baby by the end.
    All of Peter May’s novels except the ones set in China. I came across his books in a cheap shop, gave them a try and was hooked. I especially enjoyed the Lewis books.
    I got around to Blood Meridian this year and agree with the comments above; it’s probably the most horrifying novel I’ve read but incredibly well written.
    The Wild Places, by Robert MacFarlane: Good, but not as good as The Old Ways.
    Londoners, by Craig Taylor. It’s a collection of interviews with people in London from all walks of life talking about the City as they see and experience it. Fascinating.

    • I’ve read several of May’s books set on Lewis. After 4 or 5 you realise he’s basically rewriting the same story – troubled person in present, mirrored by troubled person in the past, interlaced, and past events somehow impact on present ones. I’d be disinclined to read another because of this. He’s worn that template out.

    • Londoners is great, one of the best books I have read on contemporary London. The writer has a good feel for all his interviewees and it’s a real talent to allow them to express themselves.

  13. Well I absolutely loved La Belle Sauvage, so there pussycats.

    Chris Packham’s childhood memoir Fingers In The Sprinkle Jar was just as odd as you might expect. The attempt at poetic writing was brave but unsuccessful IMO.

    I read both Vinyl Detective books by Andrew Cartmel on the recommendation of someone here. As a vinyl nerd I enjoyed the first immensely but found the second a little ho hum.

    I did like Ben Aaronovitch’s The Hanging Tree this year though. Aarovitch and Cartmel are oddly similar in style and tone I find.

    I have been ploughing through Robert Jordan’s immense Wheel Of Time series for about four years now. There are some annoying longueurs but they all finish strongly, especially the last one I just read, Volume Eleven Knife Of Dreams. The battles at the end are amazing. Only 3 books to go, the ones completed (after Jordan) died by Brandon Sanderson so they won’t have the annoying attitude to female characters I hope.

    On that note I have just started Brandon Sanderson’s new book Oathbringer. This is the third volume in his amazing Stormlight Archive series. Should have it finished by Christmas. I read his first novel Elantris this year and enjoyed it too.

    • I too enjoyed books by the first Vinyl Detective by Cartmel and a couple of the Aaronvitches this year. Enjoyable, escapist romps by two guys who know lots of interesting stuff about history, records etc.

      Agree with your point about the similarities, Artery, and so was intrigues to note in the dedications that Cartmel thanks Aaronvitch for encouraging him to write his novel.

  14. The last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp is the only book from 2017 that I’ve read … er … listened to counts, right? Fortunately it’s a very good, supernatural story. The favourite books that I read in 2017, though they were written much earlier, were The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Lovely precise, crisp language.

  15. I read a lot. Really, a lot. 110 books so far this year, according to Goodreads, and I probably forgot to put a few on there. Second only to @locust, I expect. Anyway, here are some of the 2017-published books I’ve enjoyed (not in order of enjoyment, but most recently read backwards, as I am cherry picking my Goodreads list)

    Ned Beauman – Madness Is Better Than Defeat. This is like one of the really good Coen Bros films.

    Simon Avery – The Teardrop Method. A lovely little novella, borderline horror, about music and musicians, full of wintry Mitteleuropan atmosphere. A quick read, but one that lingers.

    Paul McAuley – Austral. Near future SF, about climate change, Antartica and gene modification.

    Nick Harkaway – Gnomon. Incredible book, labyrinthine, recursive and very very dense. I could probably read this a dozen times, and not pick up on everything in it.

    Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland – The Rise And Fall Of DODO. Stephenson back to doing comedy. It’s very entertaining, and a good read, but he also does his other trick of making you read seven hundred pages and then leaves the story hanging for a probably never to be written sequel.

    Ryan Gattis – Safe. Absolutely brilliant crime novel, about a safecracker and the gang member chasing him in modern day Los Angeles. From the author of the equally excellent All Involved.

    Alan Moore – Jerusalem. Monumental.

    George Saunders – Lincoln In The Bardo. Already mentioned by Bingo, and he is as right about this as he is wrong about Father John Misty.

    Kim Stanley Robinson – New York 2140. More climate change SF. The plot has largely slipped my mind, but the images of people boating between half sunken skyscrapers linger.

    John Connolly – A Game Of Ghosts. I like the Parker novels a lot, but I am increasing of the opinion that the series needs to start wrapping up soon. So far, it’s all tease and no reveal, and that can only last so long.

    Thomas Dolby – The Speed Of Sound. I think this has been done here.

    Robert Jackson Bennett – City Of Miracles. Conclusion to the best fantasy trilogy of recent years, set in a world where the gods where slaughtered, and technology has reached a Victorian-ish sort of level – a million miles from Tolkien, elves and pixieshit

    David Keenan – This Is Memorial Device. A novel about the mythic (made up) post punk Memorial Device, and the catalyst of punk rock in small town Scotland. Bit Quietus-y, but really good.

    Christopher Robinson and Gavin Kovite – War Of The Encyclopaedists. An America-in-Iraq novel, and a good one

    Hari Kunzru – White Tears. Scorching, excoriating, novel brings the blues from gentle historical curiosity under glass to a visceral beating bloody heart of a thing, a scream of outrage at injustice down through the decades. What starts as a tale of college boys messing with music swings into fullblown horror by the end, but there is none of the cosy distance of genre here. The only monsters are human, there are no silver bullets or crosses, no escape. In these years of Trayvon Martin, Ferguson and Black Lives Matter, it’s a timely read, powerfully fuelled by passion and rage.

    Min Jin Lee – Pachinko. A saga of Korean immigrants in Japan. A biggish deal in the US, but doesn’t seem to have made much of a ripple over here. It deserved to.

    Nathan Hill – The Nix. 60s radicalism, MMORPGs, and Scandinavian folklore.

    Good books I read this year that weren’t published this year

    Jesse Jarnow – Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. The history and influence of LSD. Contains lots of Grateful Dead.

    Stefan Zweig – Beware Of Pity. More Mitteleuropa, this time in full melodrama mode. Great stuff.

    Colson Whitehead – The Underground Railroad

    Anna North – The Life And Death Of Sophie Stark. Superb novel, which joined Marisha Pessl’s Night Movie in my list of favourite novels about fictional film directors

    Brian K Vaughan – Y: The Last Man. Somehow only got round to this set of graphic novels this year.

    Gavin Young – Slow Boats Home. Sequel to Slow Boats To China, completing Young’s circumnavigation of the world by whatever ship he can find passage on. Jammy sod. Plus he finishes his epic journey by having a pint in the Breakwater pub in Plymouth, which @Vulpes-Vulpes may also recognise (don’t bother looking for it, it’s not there anymore).

    Seth Dickinson – The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Grimdark fantasy, with a strong economic bent. More fun than that sounds.

    Paul Fischer – A Kim Jong-Il Production. The true story of how North Korea kidnapped cinematic talent from the South and from Japan, and set them to work making their own propaganda movies, including a take on Godzilla.

    Lloyd Bradley – Bass Culture. Superb history of reggae, essential for anyone with an interest that goes beyond Bob Marley.

  16. Some I’ve enjoyed – others endured because of the subject matter – but all well-written:

    Gary Younge – Another day in the death of America: great but hugely depressing piece of journalism chronicling the stories of shooting victims in one random day in the US.

    David Enrich – The Spider Network: more non-fiction, charting individuals’ and institutional roles in the Libor inter-bank lending rate scandal. Sounds dull, but written like a thriller.

    Andrew Michael Hurley – Devils day: follow-up to “The Loney” – think he’s carving out his own niche of rural gothic horror – decent writer as well.

    Sebastian Barry – Days without End: not without its flaws, but a cracking beautifully written tale.

    Adele Stripe – Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile: “imagined” biography of working class playwright Andrea Dunbar – of Rita, Sue and Bob Too fame – from desperate early days in Bradford to a brief sparkling West End career and sad decline. Great to see this proving a success for Hull’s Wrecking Ball Press – also home to local poet Dean Wilson who’s worth taking a look at on YouTube.

    Patricia Lockwood – Priestdaddy: genuinely very funny and sparky memoir of her return to live at home in America’s Midwest with her deranged parents – her father a priest who converted to Catholicism after repeated viewings of the Exorcist while a submariner and a very strange mother. Not many books in this list made me laugh – found this hilarious.

    James Lee Burke – The jealous kind: a new Robicheaux is on the way in the New Year, but I buy anything he writes and even if his work occasionally is repetitive and clichéd, still think he’s going strong into his 80s.

  17. I rarely get round to reading anything in the actual year it is published, but I think these all came out in paperback this year so are my best shot

    Days Without End – Sebastian Barry. Looks like that’s the Afterword fave and rightly so – a magnificent piece of writing by one of our best novelists at the top of his game.

    Beatlebone by Kevin Barry in which, in the early 70s a paranoid John Lennon tries to visit the island he bought off the west coast of Ireland without the press tracking him down. Funny, weird, and although I wasn’t completely convinced when I read it it has stayed in my mind ever since

    His Bloody Project by Graeme McCrae Burnet – brilliantly atmospheric crime novel set in a Scottish crofting community in the 19th century

    The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble. Have never read any of her books before, probabaly unfairly dismissing her in my mind as a middle class Hampstead novelist writing about people and things of no interest to me. But I really like this – funnier, more politically angry and more moving than I expected.

    But the best book I (re-)read this year by a distance was Middlemarch. Probably fourth or fifth time I’ve read it but first for at least twenty years and it is every bit as brilliant as I remember it. The greatest novel in the English language? That’s another thread, but probably.

  18. It’s a been a good year for reading.

    Some I’ve enjoyed.

    The Constant soldier by William Ryan – This wins the prize for the worst cover (I would never have bought it had not the bookseller insisted), but the books is wonderful. A WW11 novel about a German soldier returning home, meets up with past love. It has a satisfying ending and is written with great style. A really wonderful book.

    The Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff – French cop thriller based in Paris and centres around a group of group of policemen who don’t fit, hence awkward. It has all the ingredients; flawed but interesting characters, good plot and plenty of Parisian colour.

    Reading allowed by Chris Paling – Year in the life of a novelist/librarian. I had read some of his stuff in the past and then he seemed to disappear. This is a wonderful read about his time spent working in a library. He doesn’t spare the loons and unhinged he has to deal with, but it is written with good sense and affection.

    The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen. A kind of a follow up to The Sympathiser. A collection of short stories about Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. Good to see The Sympathiser wasn’t a one off.

    Thin Air by Michelle Paver – Ghost story based around a mountaineering expedition in the Himalayas. I’ve never been one for ghost stories before but this is well written and believable.

    Days without end by Sebastian Barry – I thought it was excellent in the description of the brutality of the wars and there are passages of quite beautiful writing, yet still a page turner. I was less convinced by the love story element though.

    Outskirts by John Grindrod – Growing up in suburbia and the development of the green belt. It sounds dry and boring, it isn’t. Anyone who read Concretopia will like this and if you have a past studying urban geography, you’ll love it even more.

    Little Deaths by Emma Flint – A murder mystery set in 50s New York. The plotting isn’t that significant (you can guess easily enough who dunnit), it’s the way she writes about the startling misogyny of the police and the feel of 1950s Brooklyn that is so good.

    The Upstairs Room by Kate Murray Browne – Almost as good as The Constant Soldier. It’s been sold as a ghost story about a creepy house in North London recently bought by a young couple, and whilst it is very good on this, it’s also about modern life and relationships. Both funny and creepy.

    On the Xmas wish-list is the new Asterix.

      • Thanks, Ruby. When I’m in England at Christmas, I’ll look out for it. I do like the way she gets to the emotional heart of her characters in such an intimate way.

        • Yes, she’s a very perceptive and unusual writer. I think she’s very underrated- I suspect she’s seen as somewhat ‘middlebrow book group’ which is a shame (I suspect the cover art doesn’t help in that regard). Not that there’s anything wrong with such book groups, but I don’t think her books are seen as ‘literature’ (same with Tessa Hadley and Rachel Cusk, unfortunately).

          • Thanks for the recommendations – I might check them out. I must admit, I picked up the first one i read – “My Lover’s Lover” – expecting something saucy (maybe a bit Darling Buds*), but was drawn in by the quality of the writing. She hits the same sweet spot that Susan Hill does. Knowledgeable writing by wise women can be very rewarding.

            * you know – quality sauce, none of your Bisto granules, a proper roux. Not that there’s anything wrong with Aah Bisto – I miss his posts – always readable.

          • Haven’t read Cusk or O’Farrell but Hadley’s The Past is one of the best novels I’ve read in recent years. Beautifully subtle and accurate about siblings, marriage, children, and more. Its true what you say – so many female writers are dismissed as middle-brow or limited in range – Ann Tyler is another one – when the reverse is true. I heard Giles Coren banging on on The Today Programme this morning about how awful he thinks Jane Austen is. It was to promote some faux controversial programme he’s done on Sky Arts tonight and its best not to react. But really – I can’t believe this patronising view of Austen as a limited small-scale romantic domestic novelist still gets houseroom and unfortunately you see this attitude in the way so many contemporary female novelists are viewed.

            • There’s something truly loathesome about Coren. I get that much of his schtick is more or less to be loathesome and controversial, yet one gets the feeling that underneath that put-on he really IS objectionable and up his own arse. I refer mostly to his Times columns. I don’t watch his TV shows.

                • If Giles were here he would pen a self-important thousand-word expletive laden retort about the missing ‘k’. (He did this when some sub-editor left a single letter out in one of his columns.)

                    • No, it was a food review that involved some laboured innuendo about ‘a nosh’ instead of ‘nosh’. Apparently the former is some kind of seedy practice. I’ve no idea – even if I understood the slang – what it had to do with his restaurant review. What I do know is that the person who wrote the tirade of crap to an editor afterwards is simply ‘a shit’ (yes Giles, there’s an ‘a’ there). There’s no other term for it. Yet part of me thinks he probably leaked the tirade himself. Which makes him a self-aggrandising git as well.

  20. Once you take comics and graphic novels out, I haven’t read a lot that was published this year.

    Of what I have read, the ones that stand out are:
    Horses don’t fly, by Frederick Libby. Autobiography of a cowboy-turned-WW1 ace. The man lived a movie, and it’s written in what feels like the author’s genuine voice.

    The Searchers, by Glenn Frankel. If you like the movie, and the real story, this is a fascinating little book.

    Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II, by George MacDonald Fraser of Flashman fame. 5 stars from the Smith house.

    Your song changed my life by Bob Boilen. It’s patchy; he gets musicians playing in DC (mainly at the 930 Club) to talk about an influential piece of music from their life. The good interviews are great. Others are just…meh.

    Religion and the decline of Magic, by Keith Thomas. if you’re interested in late Tudor and Stuart religion and politics, this is for you. Otherwise it isn’t.

    See also: The Leveller Revolution by John Rees. I thought it was great, but I have a deep interest in quite a niche area.

    Finished SPQR in January, and loved it.

    I binged a lot of crime fiction. Some was good, some was fluff, some was only so-so. I did enjoy finishing off the Sidney Chambers series. Very gently written, and thoughtful. if anyone wants crime fiction series to read, I can expand. Otherwise I shall keep my Phryne Fisher secret to myself.

  21. I’ve probably read more old books than new this year, as I tend to buy a lot from charity shops. Also, books translated into Swedish in 2017 were of course published much earlier in their country of origin. And quite a few Swedes in my list, not translated…
    But these were some of my favourites from 2017-ish…

    Linn Ullman – De Oroliga (“The Worried” – Remarkable autobiographical novel by the daughter of Liv Ullman and Ingmar Bergman, and I haven’t really liked any of her previous novels. Don’t know if it’s been translated into English yet)

    Yaa Gyasi – Homegoing (Follows the bloodlines of two African sisters; one sold into slavery and one married to a British soldier at the slave fort. Generation after generation in alternate chapters, short story-like, tell the story of African and African-American history)

    John Ajvide Lindqvist – Den Sista Platsen (“The Last Place” – Final installment of his unique and fascinating trilogy, but only the first one published in English so far)

    Alex Schulman – Glöm Mig (“Forget Me” – Autobiographical about the author’s relationship with his alcoholic mother, chilling, heartbreaking and brutally honest)

    José Eduardo Agualusa – A General Theory of Oblivion (Slow-starting novel about a woman bricked up in her apartment for years, and seemingly random stories about other people in the same city, woven together at the end. Interesting)

    Mariana Enriquez – Things We Lost In the Fire (short stories, magic/spooky realism, poetically creepy)

    Stefan Spjut – Stalpi (Part two of – I assume – another trilogy, folklore horror. Actually, this one wasn’t quite as good as part one; Stallo, but its apperance reminded me that I hadn’t actually read the first one, only bought it. So the favourite for 2017 was Stallo…but it was Stalpi that came out this year!)

    P C Jersild – Tivoli (Another Swede, one of my all-time favourite authors, very versatile and always entertaining. This novel was set in a future utopia/dystopia and poked intelligent fun at all sorts of subjects)

    David Sedaris – Theft By Finding – Diaries Vol. One (I’ve yet to read anything by David Sedaris that I didn’t like. Fascinating peak into his life and the many strange characters he runs into…including his always wonderfully odd family)

    @Gary – I did read Nutshell this year, but I didn’t like it much. I just found them all too annoying (especially the narrator) and when a book doesn’t have a single character in it that I like, I just lose interest no matter how well it’s written. I’m the same way with film and TV (I don’t mean that they have to be likeable, they can be absolutely horrible as long as I enjoy them being horrible).

  22. Thanks for all the responses – so interesting to read such a diverse list. My own list is very much a Guardianista one so it’s especially good to see some new-to-me books.

    With such a diverse list I doubt there is much point in collating the results but I’ll have another look later in the week and see if I can at least get a top 5.

  23. Albert Fleichsman’s ‘History of fleshy mermaid tales from the deep seated enigma of lonesome shipwrecks’.

    Had me in a lifeboat.

    Don’t forget to pull the anchor after dark lest the seaweed spoils the night…

  24. I don’t think I’ve read anything from 2017. I seem to be at least a year in arrears with everything; music, films, books. I do read a lot though. As with all entertainment forms, it’s not so easy to discover new things to consume. That’s why end of year lists and other recommendations are helpful. The Afterword can be useful, although tastes are often not the same as mine. I also sometimes try Booker prize winners. It takes a while for the right book to come to me. I don’t really attempt to get books that come out in the curent year. With music that was always the aim but not books. I have authors I tend to read and when I’ve read eveything by one author, I’m disappointed there’s nothing more. It’s always great to find authors new to me, as fresh new reading territory opens up in front of me.

  25. A few I’ve enjoyed

    Non – fiction
    Daniel Pinchbeck – How Soon Is Now (no, it’s not about The Smiths!)
    Tim Shipman – Fall Out (best political book of the year, or in fact since its prequel All Out War)
    Nick Sedgwick – In The Pink ( a must for all Floyd fans)

    Fiction
    John Le Carre – A Legacy of Spies
    Phillip Kerr – Prussian Blue
    An old one but only just got round to it – Neil Gaiman – American Gods

    Disappointments –

    Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage ( a let down)
    Stephen Fry’s Mythos (very hard work)

  26. Read lots of novels this year, “but then again too few to mention” …

    Standout nonfiction reads were:
    Deep South — Paul Theroux
    Murder at Small Koppie — Greg Marinovich
    The Summit — Ed Conway

  27. 2017 books on my Christmas list are the Hollingshurst (is it as good as his other work Ruby?); the new Roddy Doyle, which has had very good reviews; the new Bernard MacLaverty – he publishes occasionally with big gaps between his books but is always worth the wait – and definitely the George Saunders which sounds brilliant. Anyone read the Paul Auster? My brother in law was raving about it but I’m not sure, and its a hell of a big book.

    I have already bought the new Salman Rushdie, for the same completist reason I buy every Dylan or Morrison album. I will read it, but to be honest he stopped writing great novels years ago. Midnight’s Children blew me away, Satanic Verses was much better than that ridiculous controversy allowed room for, but its been decidedly mixed returns since.

    • Currently about 800 pages into Paul Auster’s 4321, and really enjoying it. It is a long read but worth it, although juggling the 4 strands does take a bit of effort. I haven’t read the Saunders book yet but the reviews here have piqued my interest

  28. The most memorable things I have read this year are

    – “Fever Dream” by Samanta Schweblin. It was up for the Man Booker International (what David Grossman won) and the only reason it probably didn’t win is because it’s too similar to last years winner “The Vegetarian.” Like that book it’s a short, poetic, ferociously intense mix of horror and family dynamics written by a first time novelist in the UK (although she’s Argentinian and has published short story collections there). Basically this is Samuel Beckett meets Stephen King (with no small dose of George Monbiot) and it’s wonderful.

    – “Compass” by Mattias Enard- If you like WG Sebald you will probably like this. It’s occasionally infuriating, tips over into wanky, but I thought on reflection “generous” rather than wanky overall. It’s a book in which a musicologist and expert on Syria thinks about his lost unrequited love and ruminates on the relationship between the west and east. It’s also the first novel I’ve read which ponders the Syrian Civil War. It’s big, quite demanding but ultimately worth it.

    – Beast and Confessions Of A Recovering Environmentalist both by Paul Kingsnorth – His novel The Wake was easily the best thing I read last year. Beast is the follow up, Confessions is a collection of essays about his gradual estrangement from the green movement at large. He is literally the only credible person who voted for Brexit and a fascinating writer and thinker who deserves a larger audience.

    – The World Ending Fire, Wendell Berry – He’s an essayist and poet who has been writing about the relationship of humans and the natural world for about fifty years from his farm in Kentucky. A huge influence on Paul Kingsnorth who provides the intro to this collection of his best known stuff (which is why I read it, I’d never heard of the man). “A Native Hill” the first essay, is the single best thing I have read all year by anyone.

    – The Secret Life, Andrew O’Hagan – Cheating here, because I subscribe to the LRB and the three articles in it previously appeared there. But it has his MAGNIFICENT description of trying to write Julian Assange’s autobiography is a genius piece of knife sticking which will make your jaw drop.

    • Hmmm … interesting review of the Wendell Berry book, gangle. I’ve been meaning to buy and read Berry’s novel “A Place on Earth” for years, but have never quite got round to it.

      • No idea about his novel, but this poem “Prayer After Eating” is pretty damn wonderful as well.

        “I have taken in the light
        that quickened eye and leaf.
        May my brain be bright with praise
        of what I eat, in the brief blaze
        of motion and of thought.
        May I be worthy of my meat.”

  29. Favourite books I’ve read this year are:

    How To Stop Time – Matt Haig
    The Music Shop – Rachel Joyce
    Golden Hill – Francis Spufford
    This Is Going To Hurt – Adam Kay
    The Party – Elizabeth Day
    The Ashes of London – Andrew Taylor
    To Kill The President – Sam Bourne (aka Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian)

  30. 20 new cds and 20 books a year is about all I can manage, and I’m retired! I’m just a lightweight compared to you lot.
    I thought a lot more of the books I had read were from this year, but it seems they were from 2016.

    Fiction
    Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is completely Fine
    Matt Haig – How To Stop Time
    Erin Kelly – He Said/She Said
    Irvine Welsh – The Blade Artist

    I enjoyed all of the above, though I thought the Welsh was poor. Probably rushed out to coincide with T2 Trainspotting. Doc retro liked it though, so it’s good that we all have different tastes. I’m well over half way through The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel right now, and I’ve no idea how it’s going to end(very badly for sure), but it’s probably going to be my book of the year. It’s set in modern times in Kansas, and is gripping for all the wrong reasons, as its theme is incest.

    Non fiction

    Loudon Wainwright III – Liner notes
    Arrest This Moment – James Robertson

    The Loudon is an autobiography, the other, a biography of Michael Marra. I enjoyed both, being a huge fan of both their careers. Liner notes has a lot of Wainwright’s lyrics and a few pages of his father’s work(he was a writer for Time magazine)that I felt it could have done without. The Marra book is a joy, mostly becsuse it’s about the only place we can find out about him. What amazed me really, was how different both these artists were as people. Wainwright is a fame obsessed spoilt rich kid, who enjoys it when people on stage fuck-up, as if it somehow makes his star shine brighter, whereas Marra was the complete opposite in every sense, seeing beauty everywhere, in everyone else’s artistic endeavours.

  31. The Results

    This was difficult, due to the diversity of choices , with many books having only one mention. Understandably, lots of us have read pre-2017 books, but ruthlessly I have excluded these, so nerr.

    1. George Saunders: ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’, 5 votes.
    2. Sebastian Barry: ‘Days Without End’, 4 votes.
    3. Philip Pullman: ‘La Belle Sauvage’, 3 votes.

    The rest are all on two votes each:

    Gail Honeyman: ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’.
    Alan Hollinghurst: ‘The Sparsholt Affair’.
    Billy Bragg: ‘Roots, Radicals and Rockers’
    Matt Haig: ‘How to Stop Time’
    Joanna Cannon: ‘The Trouble With Goats and Sheep’.

    Honourable mention to Partridge’s ‘Nomad’.

    Thanks-fascinating discussion and a very good list. I bought more new books too so thanks (I think?)

  32. I’ve been reading several “Best Books of 2017” lists this past week and I’m happy to say that I have lots of them…haven’t actually read them yet, but I’ve bought them during the year and placed them in my To Read-pile. I’m buying too many books (no, of course; no such thing!) and is always one year behind with most of them.
    Frankly I’m amazed I managed to read as many brand new books as I did, between the 2016 (and 1816 etc) ones.

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