Best Books of the Year
Best Books of 2017
Other Years: 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017
The following are the best books of 2017, as determined by book review trade magazines, national newspapers, and popular arts and culture publications. The Top 20 listed below was compiled by tallying the number of Best Books of the Year lists from major outlets and websites. The parentheses following each book indicate the total number of lists on which the book was included.
Top 20
1. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (162)
2. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (144)
3. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (133)
4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (94)
5. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (82)
6. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (81)
6. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (81)
8. Her Body and Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado (79)
9. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (78)
10. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (76)
11. American War by Omar El Akkad (59)
12. We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates (58)
13. The Power by Naomi Alderman (55)
14. The Idiot by Elif Batuman (54)
14. Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood (54)
16. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (51)
17. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent (49)
18. Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (48)
18. Conversations with Friends by Salley Ronney (48)
20. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (47)
Other Books on 14 or more lists:
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (45), White Tears by Hari Kunzru (45), Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (44), The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (43), The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (42), The Leavers by Lisa Ko (42), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (41), Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong (41), What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons (41), Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (37), Autumn by Ali Smith (36), Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang (36), Marlena by Julie Buntin (34), What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah (34), We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samatha Irby (33), Homesick for Another World by Otessa Moshfegh (31), The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy (31), Grant by Ron Chernow (30), The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen (30), My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emily Ferris (30), Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (29), Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (29), A Separation by Katie Kitamura (29), The Answers by Catherine Lacey (28), The Changeling by Victor LaValle (28), Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (28), All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg (27), Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith (27), The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill (27), The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (26), Beartown by Fredrik Backman (26), The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (26), Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (26), A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carre (26), The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen (26), Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (26), What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton (26), Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich (25), Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (25)
