Doddy About Books

Here are the books I read in 2017. I didn’t read as much as I usually do this year. I was kind of on tour constantly and also life. But I read many excellent books this year and only one inexcusably bad book that I am still very angry about. 

My Favorite Book of the Year

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I cannot say enough about Pachinko. This novel was utterly absorbing. I knew nothing about it when I picked it up, and I couldn’t put it down. I read it voraciously and was so taken by the writing, by the elegance of the prose, the sweeping ambition and scope of the narrative, how much I learned without feeling lectured, how I wanted so very much for the characters and was very invested in their lives. I love this book.

My Second Favorite Book of the Year

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

A girl (woman obvi) I’m always trying to impress gave me this book so I of course read it and at first, I was like, hmm, this is just an uncomfortable read. As in literally, the prose is so weird that it was uncomfortable to read. But I kept reading. And I kept reading. And it was all so strange, so intensely committed to being what it was, no pretense, no bullshit, just incredibly stylistic storytelling about a young man who lives to wrestle. I loved all the details, the intense focus on the body, the obsession with ambition, the plainness of Stephen Florida’s wants and needs. I never knew what was going to happen next. I was always anxious about what might happen next. The execution of this novel is flawless. So many very good books are very good but unoriginal. This book is excellent and truly original.

The Other Best Books of the Year

What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby Spoiler Alert by xTx Eat Only When You Are Hungry by Lindsay Hunter The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi The Idiot by Elif Batuman I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On by Khadijah Queen

An Absolutely Delightful Novel That Was Thoroughly Imaginative and Strange and Charming

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

A Memoir that Was Really Very Extra but the Writing Was Fine and the Book Certainly Held My Prurient Interest

How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell

Gorgeous Collections of Poetry That Astonished Me And Opened The World Up To Me

Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith Blud by Rachel McKibbens Call a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar Bestiary by Donika Kelly Silencer by Marcus Wicker

A Really Creepy True Crime Book About an English Girl’s Disappearance in Japan

The People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry

An Utterly Underwhelming (and Often Annoying) but Very Competent Short Story Collection

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

An Ambitious Essay Collection From a Talented Writer Where I Wanted More Depth From Each Essay

All the Lives I want by Alanna Massey

The Celebrity Memoir I Absolutely Loved and Did Not Expect to Love About an Artist I Knew Nothing About and Now I Can’t Stop Listening to His Song “Lemonade” Which Is Not to Be Confused With God’s Album “Lemonade”

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane by Gucci Mane

The Book I Hated Most, For Excellent Reasons I Explain in My Goodreads Review and That I WIll Summarize by Saying NO NOPE NO Because For One the Protagonist Scoops Semen Out of Her Vagina With Alarming Frequency (WTF DUDE? COME ON)

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

A Book From My Childhood That I Adored and Found Again With the Help of Some Fans At An Event (It totally holds up)

Caroline by Willo Davis Roberts

An Amazing Dystopian Feminist Novel I Couldn’t Put Down

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

A Fun, Unexpectedly Interesting Book About the Worst Movie Ever

The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero with Tom Bissell

A Novel About Rich White Women That Was Okay And Very Readable But Also Very Predictable And Way Better Than the Dry Ass TV Adaptation With Bad Music

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

A Quintessential New Yorker’s New York Book That Is Wonderful

Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin

A Moving Novel About A Man Trying to Grapple WIth His Weight and His Grief and Keeping His Family Together

The Weight of Him by Ethel Rohan

A Book About Young Folk In the Big City Trying to Make It Work in Start Up World

Startup by Doree Shafrir

A Solid Memoir About Brain Trauma and A Woman Finding Her Way Back to Herself

Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee

A Book of Pictures Of Signs From the Women’s March (Literally)

Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope

A Hilarious Book by a Comedian Which Is Notable Because Most Comedian Books Are Neither Good Nor Funny

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by Kamau Bell

A Book by A Comedian That Was Fine But I Didn’t Love It

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

Unique Poetry Collections That Experimented With Form, Language, and Thought In Really Interesting Ways

Electric Arches by Eve Ewing Madness by Sam Sax My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet

A Book From A Writer I Love That I Wanted to Like But It Made Me Cringe A Lot, Particularly Where Race Is Concerned

The Force by Don Winslow

A Bad Romance Novel Where The Sex Metaphors Made Me Irate and Also The Woman Was Constantly Wetting Herself Over the Man’s Masculine Scent and Let’s Be Real In That Men Only Smell Good Once In A While DON’T AT ME

Deadly Rumors by Cheris Hodges

A Really Descriptive Novel Where Los Angeles and the California Desert Are More Vivid and Compelling As Characters Than the Human Characters

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda

The Essay Collection About Race in America I Am Still Grappling With

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

A Book Where the Very Last Scene Was the Strongest, And Still Haunts Me Months After First Reading It

New People by Danzy Senna

Books I Taught In My Fiction Workshops

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen On Writing by Stephen King Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Excellent Books I Blurbed