I read 88 books in 2017. A lot of them were great. Many of them were less so. I was actually surprised by how easy it was for me to narrow down to my favorites of the year, because I thought I read a lot of great books. The ones that stood out are all for different reasons; they made me question my own behavior, or I enjoyed the writing, or they just made me laugh. I ended up with 3 self-help books, 3 memoirs, and 4 fiction. I read a lot more fiction than anything else, which means the fiction especially has to be stellar to be memorable for me. Memoirs are fairly new to me, but I really fell in love with them this year. Self-help is not really my favorite to read, but it is very...well...helpful. So I read it anyway.
There are some caveats here: I may have loved them because they spoke to me at a particular time, or maybe they stood out because I read a lot of crappy books that month, or who knows. But these books are the memorable ones.
Top 10 in 2017
The Fiction Books
1. Middlemarch by George Eliot
I read it for book club, but I'll love it forever. I could read this over and over and continue to get more out of it. I love a book where the community becomes a character of its own and this does that really well. I thought her comments on humanity were so poignant and applicable to my life. Too many of my favorite quotes:
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
“And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.”
“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.”
“And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.”
“People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.”
“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.”
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.”
“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.”
“You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is—I wouldn’t give twopence for him’— here Caleb’s mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers— ‘whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do.”
“Blameless people are always the most exasperating.”
“People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.”
"But, my dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Mr. Fairbrother, smiling gently at her ardor, "character is not cut in marble--it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." "Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea.
Sorry. I couldn't stop. Moving right along:
2. Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais
The publisher's blurb says, "Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing."
I was amazed by how seamlessly the author alternated points of view from chapter to chapter. This is a deeply sad book, but worth it every step of the way.
3. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
I am so excited to read this aloud to Amelia and Tommy some day. This is a beautiful middle-grade fantasy about a deeply troubled town and the magical girl who saves it. Somehow, this book manages to be whimsical and have depth. I've seen others write negative reviews, complaining that it was too slow, but I thought it was just right.
4. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
This book has a cast of loveable characters, a vibrant setting, and bonus: one of the characters is a musician. I have also read Towles' other novel, which I hated, even though I thought it was well-written. This had his amazing writing, but with hope, and character development. (Not quite as much screaming at the page because of poor life choices.) So no one reads it and then judges me: there is a little bit of content a sensitive reader might dislike.
The Memoirs
1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Brad, Lauren, and I watched the movie last week. Hard pass on that, strong win on this book. I love her writing style, and her portrayal of how a dysfunctional family can still really love each other. There is alcoholism, abuse of many different kinds, wretched poverty, and mental illness. Her writing weaves it together into something beautiful.
2. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
I got through The Glass Castle in a few days, this took me more than a month of chipping away. It is heavy and slow-going, but worth it. Helen MacDonald intertwines her grief over her father's death, the training of her goshawk, and her research on the author T.H. White. This was a great one to talk about with my bird-loving husband.
3. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
If you want to read a comedic memoir, please let it be this one. Her voice is strong, her family is delightful; I would read anything she wrote.
The Self-help
1. Simplicity Parenting by Kim Payne and Lisa Ross
I want to say this book reflects my parenting style. More like it reflects what I want my parenting style to become. It was a good reminder that children prefer fewer, more open-ended toys, a quiet peaceful atmosphere, and parents who want to spend time with them. I should probably revisit this every couple years as my children go through different stages. Much of this is more geared towards older kids.
2. Grit by Angela Duckworth
Reading this was life-changing for me. I read Mindset by Carol Dweck last year. I really enjoyed it, but felt like it was missing something crucial. I found those missing pieces here. I took a lot of notes, which I shouldn't share here, because this post is already long. My biggest takeaways; you don't have to be smarter or more talented than everyone to be successful, you have to have determination and direction. You have to simplify your number of goals and doggedly pursue one. Be more interested in negative feedback than positive feedback. Develop your passion instead of finding it. Music and the arts are a great way to teach grit to children. The best way to teach grit is to model it.
3. Drive by Daniel H. Pink
I wish that I had read it instead of listened to it because then I would have taken more notes. The fact that I remember so little from reading it last March should either tell me, it really wasn't that great, or I need to go reread it right away! Maybe both. But, when I read it, I loved it.
