New Year Tradition: My 2017 Reading List

I've been keeping a list of the books I read for years now. I have heard that Art Garfunkel has kept a similar list since he was sixteen, and I am envious that I didn't think to do this sooner. I record my finished books on my kitchen calendar and then transfer the list to my Book Woman notebook (and share here) at year's end.

In the coming days, I want to give some "best of" details--novels, poetry, and nonfiction, but for now, I'll share my list. I hope some of my reading friends will reciprocate.

1. Wally Lamb, I'll Take You There
2. Jessie Burton, The Muse
3. Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing
4. Regina Calcaterra, Etched in Sand
5. Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
6. Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10
7. John Lewis, et al., The March (Book 1)
8. Lauren Wolk, Wolf Hollow
9. Julia Glass, And the Dark Sacred Night
10. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
11. Paulette Jiles, News of the World
12. Ruth Reichel, Delicious
13. Kelly Demaegd, Wish and Spit (poetry)
14. Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star
15. Marie Semple, Today Will Be Different
16. E. L. Doctorow, Andrew's Brain
17. Susan Perabo, The Fall of Lisa Bellow
18. Lauren Dave, Hello, Sunshine
19. Camron Wright, The Orphan Keeper
20. Nancy Peacock, The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson
21. Archibald MacLeish, JB
22. J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
23. Zadie Smith, Swing Time
24. Peter Cooper, Johnny's Cash and Charley's Pride
25. Amy Greene, Long Man
26. Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (poetry)
27. Tiana Clark, Equilibrium (poetry)
28. Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things
29. Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife
30. Frank Conroy, Body and Soul
31. Bill Browder, Red Notice
32. Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
33. Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Unaccountable Weather (poetry)
34. Cathy Smith Bower, The Candle I Hold up to See You (poetry)
35. Noah Hawley, Before the Fall
36. Lily King, Euphoria
37. John Grisham, Camino Island
38. William Kuhn, Mrs. Queen Takes the Train
39. Ron Rash, Eureka Mill (poetry)
40. Hanna Tintt, The Twelve Live of Samuel Hawley
41. Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible
42. Kathleen Rooney, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
43. Graeme Simsion, The Best of Adam Sharpe
44. Carl Hiassen, Razon Girl
45. Nicole Yoon, Everything, Everything
46. Christine Baker Kline, A Piece of the World
47. Colum McCann, Letter to a Young Writer
48. Stephanie Powell Watts, No One Is Coming to Save Us
49. Joy Jordan-Lake, Tangled Mercy
50. Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom
51. Taylor Mali, The Whetting Stone (poetry)
52. Linda Sue Park, A Long Walk to Water
53. R.J. Palacio, Wonder
54. Beth Ann Fennelly, Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
55. Thomas Mullen, Last Town on Earth
56. Trevor Noah, Born a Crime
57. Anne LaMott, Hallelujah Anyway
58. Natalia Burian, Welcome to the Slipstream
59. Brian Selznick, Wonder Struck
60. Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior
61. Ann Hood, The Book That Mattered Most
62. Ben Winters, Underground Airlines
63. Gabriel Zevon, Young Jane Young
64. Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart
65. Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
66. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
67. Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach
68. Joseph Bathanti, Restoring Sacred Art

Some of the books were unforgettable, while others like Chinese food didn't stick. I took the time to re-read a few I love, and I picked up a couple of older books I had been waiting to read, and I was so glad I did. Many of the choices were dictated by my book groups. As a result, I discovered some thought-provoking books I might have missed otherwise.

As the year ended, I've been reading Walter Isaacson's biography Leonardo da Vinci with only about 400 page to go), and I'm listening to Ken Follett's Column of Fire, the third in the series that started many years ago with Pillars of the Earth, on my all-time favorites list. My to-read list is long, almost overwhelming, but I'm comforted to know I could be iced in and not lack for something good to read.

May 2018 bring many good books your way.

New Year Tradition: My 2017 Reading List