2017 Reading Round-Up

Happy new year, devoted blog readers! While 2017 was a total disaster in a lot of ways, it was, at least for me, a great year for books. Here’s the breakdown of what I read this past year, my top 17 books that were published 2017, plus some of my reading resolutions for 2018.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 110 books, by 96 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 11
• Nonfiction: 29
• Graphic novels/comics: 5
• Graphic memoirs: 9
• Poetry: 8
• Drama: 2
• Young adult/middle grade: 6
• Picture books: 40*

*Most of these were for research purposes. There are a lot of kids’ books out there about how to cope with pet death, FYI.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 22
• Books by white women: 56
• Books by men of color: 4
• Books by white men: 28
• Books by LGBTQ folks: 18

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for research purposes: 52
• Books for the Nobles 9th grade English curriculum: 4
• Books for fun: 54

E.B.’s TOP 17 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2017:

I would just like to say that a lot of really great books were published in 2017. Narrowing it down to 17 was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. This list could have easily been twice as long, but “34 books published in 2017” didn’t have quite the same ring to it. But, ugh! Making choices is so hard! Sigh. Anyway, let me present to you, my top 17 books published in 2017, in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

1. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
2. How To Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron
3. From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
4. Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly
5. Hunger by Roxane Gay
6. Fetch by Nicole J. Georges
7. Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett
8. Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
9. Alfie (The Turtle that Disappeared) by Thyra Heder
10. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
11. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
12. Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo
13. Yawn: Adventures in Boredom by Mary Mann
14. A Surprise for Mrs. Tortoise by Paula Merlán
15. Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello
16. A Girl Walks into a Book by Miranda K. Pennington
17. After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2018:

• I need to pay more attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and try to diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing. (Turns out there are a lot of white ladies who like to write picture books about pets dying.)
• I need to continue to read more books by people of color and LGBTQ folks. (Especially men of color. That 2017 statistic was shameful.)
• I didn’t tally the exact numbers, but I know that most of the books I read this year were by American writers (Scaachi Koul was one of the most “exotic” as she is, gasp, Canadian) and I want to try to read more work by international authors.
• And I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it. I’m going to die before I get to read everything on my To Read list on GoodReads, so, live it up. Life is short. Read what you want to be reading.

Here’s to a 2018 full of even more great books!