Books of 2017

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With the new year, it’s time for my recap of the previous year’s reading. Here are all the books I read in 2017 (listed in chronological order, with ratings). After the long list, I’ve included some statistics and a list of my 20 favorites of the year with commentary on each.

This year, I read 172 books, split just about evenly between books by men and by women (49.5% by women and 50.5% by men), most of them very recent.

January

  1. Smriti Prasadam-Halls (ill. Alison Brown), I Love You Night and Day (2014) – 5 stars
  2. Rachel Ignotofsky, Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World (2016) – 4 stars
  3. Grant Morrison (ill. Frank Quitely), WE3 (2005) – 4 stars
  4. Warren Ellis, Normal (2016) – 4 stars
  5. Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016) – 5 stars
  6. Charles Foster, Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide (2016) – 4 stars
  7. Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy (adapted text) and John Jennings (illustrations), Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (2016) – 4 stars
  8. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Cliff Chiang), Paper Girls, Vol. 1 (2016) – 4 stars
  9. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin (ill. Nate Powell), March: Book One (2013) – 4 stars
  10. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin (ill. Nate Powell), March: Book Two (2015) – 5 stars
  11. Fellowship of Reconciliation, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story (1957) – 5 stars
  12. Dan Wells, Extreme Makeover (2016) – 4 stars
  13. China Miéville, The Last Days of New Paris (2016) – 4 stars

February

  1. Riad Sattouf, The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984 (2015) – 3 stars
  2. Wolfgang Bauer, Crossing the Sea: With Syrians on the Exodus to Europe (2014) – 4 stars
  3. John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (2016) – 3 stars
  4. Margaret Atwood (ill. Johnnie Christmas), Angel Catbird, Vol. 1 (2016) – 3 stars
  5. Luigi Serafini, Codex Seraphinianus (1981) – 5 stars
  6. Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water (2011) – 5 stars
  7. Sutton E. Griggs, Imperium in Imperio (1899) – 2 stars
  8. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin (ill. Nate Powell), March: Book Three (2016) – 5 stars
  9. Joanna Ebenstein, The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic (2016) – 4 stars
  10. Karen Joy Fowler (ed.), The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (2016) – 4 stars

March

  1. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Cliff Chiang), Paper Girls 2 (2016) – 5 stars
  2. Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis (ill. Brooke Allen), Lumberjanes, Vol. 2: Friendship to the Max (2015) – 5 stars
  3. Noelle Stevenson and Shannon Watters, Lumberjanes, Vol. 3: A Terrible Plan (2016) – 4 stars
  4. Stacy Alaimo, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (2016) – 5 stars
  5. Philippe Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life (2016) – 4 stars
  6. Jessie Sima, Not Quite Narwhal (2017) – 5 stars
  7. Maria Semple, Today Will Be Different (2016) – 3 stars
  8. Kate Evans, Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg (2015) – 4 stars

April

  1. Matt Fraction (ill. Chip Zdarsky), Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick (2014) – 4 stars
  2. John Darnielle, Universal Harvester (2017) – 4 stars
  3. Claire Belton, I Am Pusheen the Cat (2013) – 4 stars
  4. Ursula K. Heise, Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species (2016) – 4 stars
  5. Anne E. Greene, Writing Science in Plain English (2013) – 4 stars
  6. Kathleen McAuliffe, This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creature Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society (2016) – 2 stars
  7. Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move (2016) – 4 stars

May

  1. Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (2017) – 5 stars
  2. Jeff VanderMeer, Borne (2017) – 5 stars
  3. Jeff Lemire (ill. Dustin Nguyen), Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars (2015) – 4 stars
  4. Jeff Lemire (ill. Dustin Nguyen), Descender, Vol. 2: Machine Moon (2016) – 4 stars
  5. Hideo Yokoyama (trans. Jonathan Lloyd-Davies), Six Four (2012; 2017) – 4 stars
  6. Jeff Lemire (ill. Dustin Nguyen), Descender, Vol. 3: Singularities (2016) – 5 stars
  7. David R. Roediger, Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All (2014) – 4 stars
  8. Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays (2016) – 4 stars
  9. Ellen Datlow (ed.), Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror (2016) – 4 stars
  10. Dawn Keetley (ed.), Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film (2017) – 4 stars
  11. Tyler Kord, A Super Upsetting Book About Sandwiches (2016) – 4 stars

June

  1. Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train (2015) – 4 stars
  2. Stephanie Lemenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century (2013) – 5 stars
  3. Ben Lerner, The Hatred of Poetry (2016) – 3 stars
  4. H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (1936) – 5 stars
  5. Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann, Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen (2016) – 3 stars
  6. Samanta Schweblin (trans. Megan McDowell), Fever Dream (2017) – 5 stars
  7. Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (2013) – 4 stars
  8. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017) – 3 stars
  9. Maggie Nelson, The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial (2007) – 4 stars
  10. Tig Notaro, I’m Just a Person (2016) – 4 stars
  11. Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (2014) – 4 stars
  12. Ben Woodard, Slime Dynamics: Generation, Mutation, and the Creep of Life (2012) – 1 star
  13. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 2 (2013) – 4 stars
  14. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 3 (2014) – 4 stars
  15. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 4 (2014) – 4 stars
  16. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 5 (2015) – 5 stars
  17. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 6 (2016) – 4 stars
  18. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Fiona Staples), Saga, Vol. 7 (2017) – 5 stars
  19. Ruthanna Emrys, The Winter Tide (2017) – 3 stars
  20. Baratunde Thurston, How to Be Black (2012) – 4 stars
  21. Kelly Sue DeConnick (ill. Valentine deLandro), Bitch Planet #9 (2016) – 5 stars
  22. Kelly Sue DeConnick (ill. Valentine deLandro), Bitch Planet #10 (2017) – 5 stars

July

  1. Meg Howrey, The Wanderers (2017) – 5 stars
  2. J. Ryan (ill. David Marquez), The Joyners #1 (2016) – 3 stars
  3. J. Ryan (ill. David Marquez), The Joyners #2 (2016) – 3 stars
  4. J. Ryan (ill. David Marquez), The Joyners #3 (2016) – 3 stars
  5. Brian K. Vaughan (ill. Clif Chiang), Paper Girls #11 (2017) – 5 stars
  6. Mira Grant, Final Girls (2017) – 4 stars
  7. Dale Carlson, The Plant People (1979) – 3 stars
  8. Stephen Graham Jones, Mapping the Interior (2017) – 5 stars
  9. H. P. Lovecraft (ed. S. T. Joshi), The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories (1932; 2004) – 3 stars
  10. Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016) – 4 stars
  11. Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning (2016) – 4 stars
  12. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us about Raising Successful Children (2016) – 2 stars
  13. Una, Becoming Unbecoming (2015) – 5 stars
  14. Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (2017) – 5 stars
  15. John Langan, The Fisherman (2016) – 5 stars
  16. Thomas W. Phelan, 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (1995) – 3 stars
  17. Chris Hayes, A Colony in a Nation (2017) – 4 stars
  18. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016) – 4 stars
  19. Gerry Canavan, Octavia E. Butler (2016) – 5 stars
  20. Karin Tidbeck, Amatka (2012; 2017) – 4 stars
  21. Riley Sager, Final Girls (2017) – 3 stars
  22. Jeff Lemire (ill. Dustin Nguyen), Descender, Vol. 4: Orbital Mechanics (2017) – 4 stars
  23. Chad Brewster, Jeff Drake, Justin Hook, Rachel Hastings, and Mike Olsen, Bob’s Burgers, Volume 1 (2015) – 3 stars
  24. Margot-Anne Ramstein & Matthias Arégui, Before After (2013) – 5 stars
  25. Noelle Stevenson & Shannon Watters (ill. Brooke Allen), Lumberjanes, Vol. 4: Out of Time (2016) – 4 stars
  26. Motoro Mase (trans. John Werry), Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 1 (2005; 2009) – 3 stars
  27. Motoro Mase (trans. John Werry), Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 2 (2006; 2009) – 4 stars
  28. Motoro Mase (trans. John Werry), Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 3 (2006; 2009) – 4 stars
  29. Motoro Mase (trans. John Werry), Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 4 (2007; 2010) – 3 stars

August

  1. Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara (eds.), Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory (2017) – 4 stars
  2. Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure (2017) – 5 stars
  3. Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give (2017) – 5 stars
  4. Robin R. Means Coleman, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011) – 3 stars
  5. Sian MacArthur, Gothic Science Fiction: 1818 to the Present (2015) – 2 stars
  6. Kim E. Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States (2012) – 4 stars
  7. Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) – 4 stars
  8. Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (2017) – 5 stars
  9. Junji Ito, Fragments of Horror (2014) – 3 stars
  10. Andrew Smith and William Hughes (eds.), EcoGothic (2013) – 4 stars
  11. Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (2016) – 4 stars
  12. Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (2002) – 4 stars

September

  1. Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017) – 5 stars
  2. Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent (2016) – 4 stars
  3. Chris Dingess (ill. Matthew Roberts and Owen Gieni), Manifest Destiny, Vol. 1: Flora and Fauna (2014) – 4 stars
  4. Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, Daytripper (2011) – 5 stars
  5. Jac Jemc, The Grip of It (2017) – 4 stars
  6. Adam Nevill, The Ritual (2011) – 4 stars

October

  1. Paula Hawkins, Into the Water (2017) – 4 stars
  2. Adam Trexler, Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change (2015) – 3 stars
  3. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (1977) – 4 stars
  4. Susan A. George, Gendering Science Fiction Films: Invaders from the Suburbs (2013) – 3 stars
  5. Thomas P. Slaughter, Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (2003) – 3 stars
  6. Claire Messud, The Burning Girl (2017) – 4 stars
  7. Jeffrey Ford, The Twilight Pariah (2017) – 3 stars
  8. James Duane, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent (2016) – 3 stars
  9. Michael Finkel, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (2017) – 4 stars
  10. Jill Ciment, Act of God (2015) – 3 stars
  11. Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Petrochemical America (2012) – 5 stars
  12. Nick Abadzis, Laika (2007) – 4 stars
  13. Kenji Yoshino, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights (2007) – 5 stars
  14. Junji Ito, Tomie (2011; 2016) – 3 stars
  15. Annalee Newitz, Autonomous (2017) – 4 stars
  16. Richard Matheson, Hell House (1971) – 4 stars
  17. Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones (2017) – 5 stars
  18. Emma Cline, The Girls (2016) – 4 stars
  19. Bonnie Noonan, Gender in Science Fiction Films, 1964-1979: A Critical Study (2015) – 2 stars
  20. Beth Underdown, The Witchfinder’s Sister (2017) – 4 stars
  21. Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) – 4 stars
  22. Cassandra Khaw, Hammers on Bone (2016) – 4 stars
  23. John Green, Turtles All the Way Down (2017) – 5 stars

November

  1. David M. Oshinsky, Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital (2016) – 4 stars
  2. Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Miracles (2017) – 5 stars
  3. Clare Mackintosh, I See You (2016) – 4 stars
  4. Katie Anthony, Feminist Werewolf (2017) – 4 stars
  5. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005) – 4 stars
  6. Warren Ellis (ill. Colleen Doran), Orbiter (2003) – 3 stars
  7. Tade Thompson, The Murders of Molly Southbourne (2017) – 3 stars
  8. Lidia Yuknavitch, The Book of Joan (2017) – 4 stars
  9. Samantha Bee, I Know I Am, But What Are You? (2010) – 3 stars
  10. Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, It Devours! (2017) – 4 stars
  11. Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God (2017) – 5 stars
  12. Grady Hendrix, Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and 80s Horror Fiction (2017) – 4 stars
  13. Susan M. Bernardo (ed.), Environments in Science Fiction: Essays on Alternative Spaces (2014) – 3 stars

December

  1. Ann E. Kaplan, Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction (2015) – 4 stars
  2. Mira Grant, Into the Drowning Deep (2017) – 4 stars
  3. Reza Farazmand, Comics for a Strange World: A Book of Poorly Drawn Lines (2017) – 4 stars
  4. John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches (2017) – 4 stars
  5. Antonia Mehnert, Climate Change Fictions: Representations of Global Warming in American Literature (2016) – 2 stars
  6. Ann Leckie, Provenance (2017) – 4 stars
  7. Marjorie Liu (ill. Sana Takeda), Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood (2017) – 4 stars
  8. James Han Mattson, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves (2017) – 2 stars
  9. Jennie Melamed, Gather the Daughters (2017) – 4 stars
  10. Krysten Ritter, Bonfire (2017) – 4 stars
  11. Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems (2017) – 5 stars
  12. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017) – 4 stars
  13. Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Stories (2017) – 4 stars
  14. Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (2017) – 4 stars
  15. Laurie Penny, Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults (2017) – 4 stars
  16. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic (2006) – 3 stars
  17. Alexis Shotwell, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times (2016) – 3 stars
  18. Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (2017) – 3 stars
  19. Anne Finger, Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio (2006) – 5 stars

Decades:
2010s – 147 (85%)
2000s – 14 (8%)
1990s – 1 (0.5%)
1980s – 2 (1%)
1970s – 3 (2%)
1950s –1 (0.5%)
1930s – 2 (1%)
1890s – 1 (0.5%)
1880s – 1 (0.5%)

Ratings:
5 stars – 42 (24%)
4 stars – 89 (51.5%)
3 stars – 34 (20%)
2 stars – 7 (4%)
1 star – 1 (0.5%)

Favorites: I decided not to limit my list of favorites to five-star books; there are a couple here that I found flawed and so didn’t give five stars but that I still enjoyed quite a bit and that are sticking with me. I wound up with a nice, even 20 for my list of favorites and rather than ranking them or listing them somewhat randomly, I’ll separate them into categories.

  • Fiction
    • Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream (2017): This might be my favorite book of the last year. I intensely disliked it at first, but it grew on me and profoundly disturbed me. I’m teaching it this semester in my environmental lit, film, and culture class, so I’ll see how I feel upon re-reading it and discussing it. I’m also trying to work out something more critical to say in article form.
    • John Langan, The Fisherman (2016): A great horror novel with a strong emotional core.
    • John Green, Turtles All the Way Down (2017): C’mon, it’s John Green. As always, he made me cry. I’m seriously considering teaching this one in my Fall 2018 Intro to Humanities course (which will likely focus on disability and illness).
    • Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Miracles (2017): This book is the conclusion of one of my favorite fantasy series. I cannot recommend these books highly enough. They have all the trappings of fantasy that you might expect, but/and (choose your conjunction depending on your previous experience with fantasy) they do a fantastic job digging into the consequences and resonances of both political and personal action.
    • Louise Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God (2017): A bit of a departure for Erdrich in some ways, but just as heartbreaking and smart as usual. This one made me sob.
  • Biography / Memoir
    • Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016): Noah shines here in narrative form. Based on this book and his standup, I think his talents and skills are wasted on The Daily Show.
    • Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (2017): It’s Sherman Alexie. It’s great.
    • Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017): It’s Roxane Gay. It’s great.
    • Anne Finger, Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio (2006): This was the last book I read this year and so it’s fresh. It may not stick as strongly as some others, but it is an excellent memoir about living with the effects of polio. What I really loved about it is that – as the title indicates – it doesn’t simply focus on the individual experience but is constantly placing that individual experience in the context of the cultural (while also providing a vivid look into Finger’s life).
    • Gerry Canavan, Octavia E. Butler (2016): This could go in the following section as well, really, but the main draw for me here was the glimpse into Butler’s personal life and writing process. She’s one of my favorite sf writers, and Canavan’s presentation of his research is both scholarly and readable.
  • Criticism / Theory
    • Stacy Alaimo, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (2016): I will be returning to this book repeatedly in my own work, as I always do with her work.
    • Stephanie Lemenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century (2013): Brilliant and fascinating. I particularly loved the chapter in which she explores museum presentations of petroleum.
    • Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (2017): Not only did I love what Ahmed had to say here about feminism in the academy (and in life) but I loved how she said it. I found myself marking almost every page.
    • Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure (2017): Yet another beautifully written and fascinating book. Clare’s exploration of disability, sexuality, and environment here is complex in all the best ways.
  • Art / Graphic Novel
    • Luigi Serafini, Codex Seraphinianus (1981): Nonsense, but such interesting nonsense.
    • Joanna Ebenstein, The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic (2016): I had never read much about this bit of history before, so I learned a lot from this book (and have used it in my teaching since) and it is a beautifully constructed book with tons of pictures.
    • Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Petrochemical America (2012): A combination of photography and infographics about Cancer Alley in Louisiana. I will be teaching this in my environmental lit, film, and culture course as well, and I am so curious to see what my students make of it.
    • Grady Hendrix, Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ‘80s Horror Fiction (2017): This book is a bit flawed, but even with its flaws it’s a favorite of 2017. It’s funny and has so many great book covers to enjoy and wonder over. I definitely added quite a few authors and titles to my to-read lists based on Hendrix’s coverage.
    • Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (2017): Aaah, this is so good! I can’t wait for the sequel!
  • Poetry
    • Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems (2017): I apparently didn’t read much poetry this year, at least not whole books of it. Even given that, this is a fantastic collection. I’d read one of Smith’s poems before (Dinosaurs in the Hood) and loved it. The collection extends the concerns of that poem (race, violence, representation) and adds others (e.g., sexuality).

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