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Year consensus · 2017

The Most Recommended Books of 2017

We counted 5,234 entries from 141 sources in 2017. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid appeared on 27, tied for the most of any book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2017 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

27 sources

  1. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

  2. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

22 sources

  1. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

20 sources

  1. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

16 sources

  1. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

15 sources

  1. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

  2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

  3. The Power by Naomi Alderman

14 sources

  1. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

13 sources

  1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

  2. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

  3. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen

12 sources

  1. Grant by Ron Chernow

  2. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

  3. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

  4. The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald

  5. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  6. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

11 sources

  1. American War by Omar El Akkad

  2. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

  3. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

  4. The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

  5. White Tears by Hari Kunzru

10 sources

  1. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

  2. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

  3. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

  4. The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson

  5. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

9 sources

  1. Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig

  2. Autumn by Ali Smith

  3. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

  4. What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

8 sources

  1. 4 3 2 1: A Novel by Paul Auster

  2. A Different Pond by Bao Phi

  3. Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk

  4. Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young

  5. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

  6. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

  7. Ill Will by Dan Chaon

  8. Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

  9. The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui

  10. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

  11. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

  12. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

  13. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman

7 sources

  1. After the Fall by Dan Santat

  2. American Fire: Love, Arson and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

  3. Borne by Jeff Vandermeer

  4. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

  5. Five-carat Soul by James McBride

  6. Grand Canyon by Jason Chin

  7. Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

  8. Marlena by Julie Buntin

  9. My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

  10. The Changeling by Victor LaValle

  11. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

  12. The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty

  13. The Dry by Jane Harper

  14. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

  15. The Gulf by Jack E. Davis

  16. The Idiot by Elif Batuman

  17. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

  18. Town Is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith

  19. Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin

  20. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

  21. Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell

6 sources

  1. American Street by Ibi Zoboi

  2. Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia

  3. Dodgers by Bill Beverly

  4. Far from the Tree by Robin Benway

  5. Glass Houses by Louise Penny

  6. Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls

  7. Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein

  8. La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One by Philip Pullman

  9. Landscape with Invisible Hand by MT Anderson

  10. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.

  11. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

  12. Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

  13. Refugee by Alan Gratz

  14. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

  15. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang

  16. The Burning Girl by Claire Messud

  17. The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez

  18. The Leavers by Lisa Ko

  19. The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! by Carmen Agra Deedy

  20. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

  21. The Wolf, the Duck & the Mouse by Mac Barnett

  22. What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons

  23. When's My Birthday? by Julie Fogliano

5 sources

  1. An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn

  2. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

  3. Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

  4. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky

  5. Between Them by Richard Ford

  6. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy

  7. Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes

  8. Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

  9. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

  10. Everything is Flammable by Gabrielle Bell

  11. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

  12. Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism by Marc Aronson

  13. Fault Lines in the Constitution by Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson

  14. Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

  15. Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

  16. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

  17. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

  18. How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France

  19. Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden

  20. I Was Told to Come Alone by Souad Mekhennet

  21. I'm Just No Good At Rhyming: And Other Nonsense For Mischievous Kids And Immature Grown-Ups by Chris Harris and Lane Smith

  22. IQ by Joe Ide

  23. It All Comes Down to This by Karen English

  24. New People by Danzy Senna

  25. Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

  26. Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder

  27. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

  28. Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen

  29. One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes

  30. Real Friends by Shannon Hale

  31. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

  32. Sourdough by Robin Sloan

  33. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli

  34. The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

  35. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

  36. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

  37. The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

  38. The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors by Drew Daywalt

  39. The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South by John T. Edge

  40. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

  41. The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

  42. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

  43. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby

  44. What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold

  45. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

  46. Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman

  47. Whereas by Layli Long Soldier

  48. Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

  49. You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

4 sources

  1. A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

  2. A Greyhound, a Groundhog by Emily Jenkins

  3. A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman

  4. A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carré

  5. A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

  6. Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

  7. Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

  8. Amina's Voice by Hena Khan

  9. An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal

  10. An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

  11. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

  12. Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome

  13. Belonging: The Story of the Jews, 1492-1900 by Simon Schama

  14. Boundless by Jillian Tamaki

  15. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

  16. Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman

  17. Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean

  18. Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing

  19. First Love by Gwendoline Riley

  20. Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

  21. Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides

  22. Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

  23. Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag

  24. Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

  25. Greater Gotham: A History Of New York City From 1898 To 1919 by Mike Wallace

  26. Heart of Stone by James W. Ziskin

  27. Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris

  28. Hostage by Guy Delisle

  29. House Of Names: A Novel by Colm Tóibín

  30. How to Be An Elephant: Growing up in the African Wild by Katherine Roy

  31. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

  32. Little Deaths by Emma Flint

  33. March: Book Three by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

  34. Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin

  35. Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense by Jenny Uglow

  36. Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

  37. One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

  38. Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander

  39. Patina by Jason Reynolds

  40. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

  41. Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell

  42. Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

  43. Spinning by Tillie Walden

  44. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

  45. Strange Weather by Joe Hill

  46. Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City by Julia Wertz

  47. The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker

  48. The Answers by Catherine Lacey

  49. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

  50. The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch

  51. The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken

  52. The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs

  53. The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World by Maya Jasanoff

  54. The Drifter by Nicholas Petrie

  55. The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars by Daniel Beer

  56. The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography by Edmund Gordon

  57. The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (the Hard Way) by Patrick McDonnell

  58. The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill

  59. The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

  60. The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius

  61. The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

  62. The Quilts of Gee's Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin

  63. The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar

  64. The Sport of Kings by C. E. Morgan

  65. The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer by Kate Summerscale

  66. Theft by Finding by David Sedaris

  67. They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib

  68. Transit by Rachel Cusk

  69. Walk with Me by Jairo Buitrago and Rafael Yockteng

  70. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

  71. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

  72. Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore

  73. World Without Mind: The Existential Threat Of Big Tech by Franklin Foer

  74. Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

3 sources

  1. A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates

  2. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

  3. A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

  4. A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg

  5. A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

  6. A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

  7. A Separation: A Novel by Katie Kitamura

  8. Accident! by Andrea Tsurumi

  9. All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg

  10. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

  11. An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire

  12. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

  13. Artemis by Andy Weir

  14. Augustown by Kei Miller

  15. Autonomous: A Novel by Annalee Newitz

  16. Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

  17. Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection Of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated by Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres

  18. Beartown by Fredrik Backman

  19. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

  20. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

  21. Bertolt by Jacques Goldstyn

  22. Big Cat, Little Cat by Elisha Cooper

  23. Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

  24. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

  25. Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

  26. Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova

  27. Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan and Meilo So

  28. Brother by David Chariandy

  29. Bull by David Elliott

  30. Calder by Jed Perl

  31. Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

  32. Charlie & Mouse by Laurel Snyder

  33. Chester B. Himes: A Biography by Lawrence Patrick Jackson

  34. Churchill and Orwell by Thomas E. Ricks

  35. Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker

  36. Design for Dying by Renee Patrick

  37. Devil's Bargain by Joshua Green

  38. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

  39. Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr

  40. Dreadnought by April Daniels

  41. Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor

  42. Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly

  43. Everfair by Nisi Shawl

  44. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

  45. Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

  46. Fierce Kingdom: A Novel by Gin Phillips

  47. Flying Lessons & Other Stories by Ellen Oh

  48. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek

  49. Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan

  50. From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty

  51. Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig

  52. Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land

  53. Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman

  54. Hate To Want You: Forbidden Hearts by Alisha Rai

  55. Here We Are: Notes For Living On Planet Earth by Oliver Jeffers

  56. Home in the Rain by Bob Graham

  57. Homesick For Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

  58. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte

  59. Human Acts by Han Kang

  60. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

  61. I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi

  62. Improvement by Joan Silber

  63. In Praise of Defeat: Poems by Abdellatif Laâbi

  64. Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd by Mary Losure

  65. Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall

  66. Jonathan Swift by John Stubbs

  67. Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi

  68. Let's Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out!: Games, Songs & Stories From An African American Childhood by Pat McKissack

  69. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

  70. Lilli de Jong by Janet Benton

  71. Little Fox in the Forest by Stephanie Graegin

  72. Lucía the Luchadora by Cynthia Leonor Garza

  73. Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet by Lyndal Roper

  74. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel

  75. Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada

  76. Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

  77. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors

  78. Montpelier Parade by Karl Geary

  79. Moonglow by Michael Chabon

  80. Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta

  81. Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters by Michael Mahin

  82. Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez

  83. No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein

  84. No One Cares about Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America by Ron Powers

  85. Now by Antoinette Portis

  86. Olio by Tyehimba Jess

  87. On Balance by Sinéad Morrissey

  88. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

  89. Out in the Open by Jesús Carrasco

  90. Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes

  91. Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett

  92. Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty

  93. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

  94. Rise Of The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

  95. Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character by Kay Redfield Jamison

  96. Saints & Misfits by S. K. Ali

  97. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

  98. Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford

  99. Selection Day: A Novel by Aravind Adiga

  100. Six Minutes In May by Nicholas Shakespeare

  101. Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King

  102. Smile: A Novel by Roddy Doyle

  103. Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

  104. Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula by David J. Skal

  105. Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  106. Standard Deviation: A Novel by Katherine Heiny

  107. Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi

  108. Swing Time by Zadie Smith

  109. Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson

  110. The Bone Mother by David Demchuk

  111. The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

  112. The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (volume 1) by Philip Pullman

  113. The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick by Elizabeth Hardwick

  114. The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt

  115. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson

  116. The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

  117. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya

  118. The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman

  119. The Evolution of Beauty by Richard O. Prum

  120. The Force by Don Winslow

  121. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

  122. The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel

  123. The Golden Legend by Nadeem Aslam

  124. The Harlem Charade by Natasha Tarpley

  125. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

  126. The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  127. The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz

  128. The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel

  129. The King Is Always Above the People: Stories by Daniel Alarcón

  130. The Late Show by Michael Connelly

  131. The Locals by Jonathan Dee

  132. The Lotterys Plus One by Emma Donoghue

  133. The Mountain: Stories by Paul Yoon

  134. The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed

  135. The Radio by Leontia Flynn

  136. The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

  137. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  138. The Seventh Function Of Language: A Novel by Laurent Binet

  139. The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby

  140. The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore

  141. The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Jerry Pinkney

  142. The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx by Tara Bergin

  143. The Twelve Lives Of Samuel Hawley: A Novel by Hannah Tinti

  144. The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

  145. The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

  146. The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease by Meredith Wadman

  147. The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  148. The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

  149. The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter

  150. Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams

  151. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

  152. This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids From Around the World by Matt Lamothe

  153. To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O'Connell

  154. Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry

  155. Universal Harvester: A Novel by John Darnielle

  156. Warcross by Marie Lu

  157. We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night by Joel Thomas Hynes

  158. What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

  159. What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories by Laura Shapiro

  160. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

  161. When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

  162. Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam

  163. Why Am I Me? by Paige Britt

  164. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

  165. Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman

  166. Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda

  167. Word by Word by Kory Stamper

  168. You Say to Brick by Wendy Lesser

  169. You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

  170. Yours Sincerely, Giraffe by Megumi Iwasa

Sources counted in 2017