Best Books I read in 2017:
I read 67 books this year. These are the best from the list (in the order I read the books).
1.
A Man Called
Ove by Fredrik Backman (2014) Atria
Books
A curmudgeon
is retired from his job at the railroad.
His wife was disabled and has died.
He has no reason to go on, though he’s not very good at ending his own
life. Every attempt gets interrupted by
his new incompetent neighbors and the man he’s had a long-standing feud with is
no longer able to talk, much less do anything.
This is a
story about how people need other people.
How life is enriched by family,, including the people around you who don’t
have your experience or tenacity.
2.
The Truth is
a Cave in the Black Mountains
by Neil Gaiman (2015) William Morrow
A dazzlingly
tour-de-force – quite possibly the story masterpiece of one of the world's best
writers. A man wants to know what
happened to his little girl and travels on foot to find a guide to take him to
the Black Mountains. What he finds out
and how he deals with the knowledge will change the reader.
3.
The
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008) HarperCollins
A toddler
wanders away from his house through a door opened by a murderer and into a
graveyard where the murderer cannot find him. He is raised by the ghosts
and protected by a vampire and a werewolf who are members of the Honor Guard of
God. David Copperfield in a weird
universe. Winner of the 2009 Newbery Award.
4.
Indeh: A
Story of the Apache Wars
by Ethan Hawke, Illustrated by Greg Ruth (2016) Grand Central Publishing
Being the
true story of Goyahkla (Geronimo), whose chief, Cochise only wanted peace with
the white eyes. Indeh are the dead –
from a war that decimated the Apache and their enemies.
5.
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (2016) Ballentine Books
Three women
go through WWII with different experiences from both side - two women are in
Poland, one a doctor's sister who, along with her mother and sister, becomes a
POW because her mother was a Jew, one a doctor who is drafted into service at
Ravensbruk, the concentration camp for women, where her sense of right and
wrong is shattered, making her a war criminal, and a woman in New York who has
spent a decade helping French orphans.
6.
Side Jobs by Jim Butcher (2011) Roc
A
collection of short stories about Harry Dresden, proving Butcher is as skilled
with a short story as he is with novels.
·
“Restoration
of Faith” – from Jim-Butcher.com
·
“Publicity
and Advertising” – from Jim-Butcher.com
·
“Something
Borrowed” – from My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding
·
“It’s
My Birthday Too” – from Many Bloody Returns
·
“Heorot”
– from My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding
·
“Day
Off” – From Blood Lite
·
“Backup”
– new
·
“The
Warrior” – from Mean Streets
·
“Las
Call” – from Strange Brews
·
“Love
Hurts” – from Songs of Love and Death
·
“Aftermath”
– new
7.
The Girl in
the Spider's Web by David Lagercranz (2015) Knopf
A continuation
of Steig Larson's series about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I don’t usually read a book where the writer
has based it on someone else’s character, but this is so well done, it’s like
reading Larson himself.
Lizbeth
Salander and Michael Blonkvist join forces once more, to help him create a
scoop that will save his Millennium magazine and expose a web of spies and
cybercriminals.
8.
The Orphan
Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2012) Random House
A North
Korean orphan's life under the oppressive regime wherein the son is treated
no better than the orphans in spite of his efforts to get a loving response
from his father. He gets to visit the
United States and is offered a chance to defect. Instead, he returns to his homeland to find
it is no different than before. – winner
of the Pulitzer Prize.
9.
Raylan by Elmore Leonard (2012) Mariner Books
A trigger-happy
U.S. Marshall finds bad guys and dates a bad girl in Harlan County, Kentucky.