2017 was not a banner year for me book-wise.  I finished 12 books – a couple of duds, a few decent ones, and a couple of stand-outs.  I do believe I should get extra credit for finishing all 1,168 pages of Atlas Shrugged.  The round-up:

 

I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Strangers in their own Land by Arlie Russel

City of Thieves by David Benioff

Dark Money by Jane Mayer

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

The Magic of Motherhood by Ashlee Gadd

 

Best books of 2017:

City of Thieves was brilliant and beautiful and tragic and funny.  Damn, Benioff can write.  (From the comfort of my couch) I was in World War II Russia – I felt the cold of the frozen forests, the hunger pangs of a completely empty stomach, the desolation of streets lined with bombed, looted buildings.  And I felt all the warmth of friendship and camaraderie and hard-fought victory.

I also loved Homegoing, which was fiction very much grounded in truth.  It’s a story of horrific injustice and unfathomable fortitude, beautifully and cleverly woven.  Read it.

Honorable mentions to Born A Crime (I liked Trevor Noah before I read his memoir but loved him afterward) and Love Warrior (Glennon Doyle Melton’s love revolution is real, folks!).

 

On the docket for 2018: 

So many good things!  I’ve been soliciting recommendations from some of my most trusted confidantes and am feeling pretty pumped about my queue:

For fun:  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

For introspection:  Practicing Resurrection by Nora Gallagher

For understanding:  Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

For a dose of “classic”:  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

For rainy, quiet Friday nights:  Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson