Reading Envy 105: Best Reads of 2017

Jenny, previous and future guests of the podcast, and a few other readers come together to share their best reads of the year. In typical Reading Envy fashion, these are not necessarily books that were published in 2017. What was your best read of the year? Feel free to share at the end of this post.

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Jason Roland (Episodes 14, 25, 42, 54, 73, 80, 104)
Autumn by Karl Ove Knaussgard

Julie Davis (3, 55, 83)
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Jenny's top short story collections
Things to do when You're Goth in the Country: and Other Stories by Chavisa Woods (88)
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (101)

Reggie
Kindred by Octavia Butler
(also mentioned The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas)

Jenny's top genre reads
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (87)
The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe (91)
After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones (98)

Lark Benobi, author of The Book of Dog
The Eternal Zero by Naoki Hyakuta

Lauren (97)
China in Ten Words by Yu Hua
An Arrangement of Skin by Anna Journey
Vulgar Remedies: Poems by Anna Journey
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
Annie Muktuk and other Stories by Norma Dunning

Elizabeth of Silver’s Reviews
The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

Jenny's top readalongs
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (90)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (99)

Scott (most of the first 25, then 52, 58, 71, 82)
Dracula by Bram Stoker

Bianca
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire.

Jeff Koeppen (90, 93, 99)
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

Jenny's top non-fiction reads
Island Home: A Landscape Memoir by Tim Winton (86)
Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel (97)
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

Tracy (63, 64, 91)
Penny Reid, everything she's written

Karen Acosta (4, 15, 51, 66, 101)
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

RealBooks4Ever
Lincoln in The Bardo by George Saunders (particularly audio)

Jenny's top audiobook reads
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn (97 by Lauren)
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Bryan Alexander (2, 11, 30, 65, 84)
Red Calvary by Isaac Babel

Casey
The Complete Butcher's Tales by Rikki Ducornet
The Box Man by Kobe Abe
The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

Amanda from BookClubSocial (87)
Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal al-Sharif (also mentioned on 96)
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa

Grace from BookClubSocial (87)
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

Lindy (95)
The Ghost Orchard by Helen Humphries

Jenny's top reads in poetry
A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom
Sorry for Your Troubles by Padraig O' Tuoma
Readings from the Book of Exile by Padraig O' Tuoma (not featured)
The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutkzy (88)
When I Grow Up I Want To Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen (97)

Luke (17, 32, 44, 69
Nine Fox Gambit by Yun Ha Lee

Juliane (37, 69)
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Jenny's top reads in fiction
Black Wave by Michelle Tea (80 and 102)
Plainsong by Kent Haruf (82) (also Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, 103)
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (96)
Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger (96)
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyn

Elizabeth (33, 61)
The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

Jenny's List of Reading Envy for 2017
(aka books I haven't gotten to)

Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
The Break by Katherina Vermette
The Dry by Jane Harper
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson
White Tears by Hanri Kunzru
Maggie O’Farrell
Tim Winton
Eve Babitz

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