Thanks to GoodReads, I’m able to check in at year’s end and discover I read — or, to be more accurate about it, tried to read — over 76 books in 2017. Some I rolled my eyes at and abandoned (THE NAME OF THE ROSE, JANE STEELE). Others I responded to but put down to pick up again when I’m more able to give them the focus they deserve (GEEK LOVE, THE IDIOT).

This was a big genre year for me: I enjoyed some popcorn-y novels way more than I expected to, like FANGIRL, CARRY ON and BIG LITTLE LIES, which were skillfully plotted and propulsive, while I tired quickly of some much-hyped fancy stuff like THE RESURRECTION OF JOAN ASHBY. Not sure where THE NEST falls in that rubric but it was the book for which I invented a new GoodReads category called, “I refuse to feel sorry for these people.”

I also thoroughly appreciated some highbrow material, including Galchen’s LITTLE LABORS, Levy’s searing memoir THE RULES DO NOT APPLY, Atwood’s tart, feminist THE PENELOPIAD and Bill Bryson’s playful, informative history of the English language THE MOTHER TONGUE. For the most part, though, it was not my most impressively intellectual year, reading-wise. But fuck it: I needed solace, and I had fun.

WHAT HOLDS MY ATTENTION? IT’S A MYSTERY

In a state of foggy winter despair, I started reading books in which smart, competent, moral people restore some semblance of order and justice to the universe. First I turned to my old friend Dorothy Sayers for comfort. Then I branched out, both to some contemporary literary options (MAGPIE MURDERS, UNDER THE HARROW) and also to some older ones I had never tried (Agatha Christie). I ended up reading every Miss Marple novel in order, which was an endeavor I highly recommend: Those stories hold up.

Then I decided to try, once more, the work of the much praised Canadian writer Louise Penny, whose Three Pines series I had dipped into briefly before but found shallow and unsatisfying. This time, with a little prodding, I got fully immersed in the pool, starting swimming and didn’t want to get out. Now that I’m done, I’m bobbing here feeling bereft, kind of like I did after I read the last installment of OUTLANDER and GAME OF THRONES.

Also, anyone who likes crime/detective fiction should consider the 80s classic about Soviet corruption and American collusion GORKY PARK, which I found much more impressive, and lingered with me much longer, than the more recent gritty NYC police thriller THE FORCE.

YES, I READ SOME LITERARY FICTION

Highlights include LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE (exciting, insightful, as good as you’ve heard), MANHATTAN BEACH (immersive historical fiction with a knock-you-out ending) and THE MOTHERS (devastating, though the end doesn’t quite live up to the greatness of what comes before), all of which I realize now are about parents and kids.

ALSO SOME LITERARY NON-FICTION

HUNGER sustained me.

WEDDING TOASTS I’LL NEVER GIVE was like doing shots with the smartest woman at the party who stops making you laugh or reflect only to make you cry.

And MAN OF THE YEAR, Lou Cove’s stranger-than-fiction coming-of-age memoir, is like the hole-in-the-wall lunch spot you happen into and then urge everyone you know to try.

I’m also still working my leisurely way through the dense (in a good way!) and thought-provoking MISBEHAVING by Nobel laureate economist Richard Thaler.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS

Turns out I can’t stand either Jeeves or Auntie Mame.

BEST SURPRISES

I’d never tried Megan Abbott but after the thrill of YOU WILL KNOW ME, I’ll be back for more. Also, I wasn’t sure any companion volume could live up to the glory of HIS DARK MATERIALS, which I’d choose over LOTR for Best British Fantasy Series that Isn’t ‘Harry Potter’ any day of the week. But Pullman managed to turn THE BOOK OF DUST into an epic journey in its own right and a great lead into Lyra’s adventures. I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy.

My top three reads of 2014 were, coincidentally, books published in 2014; I did a lot of contemporary reading, perhaps more than usual, this year because I got to write lots of reviews. I really appreciated that opportunity, because it led me to books like Life Drawing, A Highly Unlikely Scenario, and The Secret History of Wonder Woman that I might not have encountered otherwise.

TOTAL BOOKS READ: 47, plus at least four begun and, through no fault of their own, put aside for later; and lots of rereading of old favorites for comfort
BY ROXANE GAY: 2, both impressively good
BY DIANA GABALDON: 8, for an estimated total of 50,000 pages. These basically took over my life.
GRAPHIC NOVELS: 3, all remarkable
GENRE NOVELS: Kind of a lot
THEMES: Sexual violence, feminism, high-brow sequels, the Midwest

An Untamed State (Gay) – A
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Chast) – A
Lila (Robinson) – A

A Bintel Brief (Finck) – A-
A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Gabaldon) – A-
Americanah (Adichie) – A-
Bad Feminist (Gay) – A-
Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel (Ulinich) – A-
Life Drawing (Black) – A-
The Flamethrowers (Kushner) – A-
The Magician’s Land (Grossman) – A-
Voyager (Gabaldon) – A-
Written In My Own Heart’s Blood (Gabaldon) – A-

Demon Camp (Percy) — B+/A-

The Goldfinch (Tartt) – B+/A-
The Secret History of Wonder Woman (Lepore) – B+/A-
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (Patchett) – B+/A-
We Were All Completely Beside Ourselves (Fowler) – B+/A-

A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Cantor) – B+
An Unnecessary Woman (Alameddine) – B+
Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway (Gran) – B+
Not That Kind of Girl (Dunham) – B+
Small Victories (Lamott) – B+
Some Luck (Smiley) – B+
The Fault in our Stars (Green) – B+

Half Bad (Green) – B/B+
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Bradley) – B/B+
Lay It On My Heart (Pneuman) – B/B+
The Fiery Cross (Gabaldon) – B/B+
Outlander (Gabaldon) – B/B+
The Frangipani Hotel (Kupersmith) – B/B+
The Quick (Owen) – B/B+

A Dragonfly in Amber (Gabaldon) – B
A Dual Inheritance (Hershon) – B
Bone Clocks (Mitchell) – B
California (Lepucki) – B
Can’t and Won’t (Davis) – B
Drums of Autumn (Gabaldon) – B
How Should a Person Be? (Heti) – B
The Price of Salt (Highsmith) – B
We Are Called to Rise (McBride) – B

An Echo In The Bone (Gabaldon) – B/B-

Frog Music (Donoghue) – C+
Good In Bed (Weiner) – C+

Too Hard to Be Objective
Cutting Teeth (Fierro) – N/A
Tender (Rikhter) – N/A
When I First Held You (Gresko) – N/A

Lovely But Unfinished — Will Return
A Fine Old Conflict (Mitford)
Cold Mountain (Frazier)
One Summer (Bryson)
The Paying Guests (Waters)

Not my best year for reading. What with the craziness of gestating, birthing, and then caring for an infant, I did lots of re-reading for comfort instead of seeking out the new and exciting. Still, any year in which I made it through both Moby Dick and David Copperfield is not worth erasing from the historical record entirely.

Thanks, Em, for reminding & inspiring me to do this compilation!

Currently finishing:

Bringing Up Bebe (Druckerman) – B-
French moms don’t get frazzled. They manage stay sane and calm, thanks in large part to fantastic Nanny State programs and benefits that makes childbearing and child-rearing as easy as possible, and also to cultural differences that don’t turn women into “mommies” — child-obsessed, compulsive, as well as chubby, shlubby, and self-denying — the way American society does. Unfortunately the narrator is the kind of woman who compares herself to Carrie Bradshaw, which makes her hard to take seriously, and she paints a kind of ridiculous Goofus and Gallant contrast between the countries.

Telegraph Avenue (Chabon) – B-
Come on, dude! Stop overwriting, over-plotting, and over-filling your narratives with characters. You’re not penning a 19th-century Russian epic. If TA weren’t by Mr. Kavalier & Clay, I’d have put the book down before now, but I’m holding out hope it gets better as MC hits his stride and stops trying so hard.

Also finished (or abandoned) before the year’s end:

• Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble (Ephron) – B+ Oh, Nora. So witty, so wise.
• Divergent (Roth) – B- Pretty good trash, as trash goes. Entertaining. Definitely not a contender for next Hunger Games.
• Insurgent (Roth) – C+ Sloppy and haphazard. Still reasonably entertaining. Strong female protagonists always earn some leeway from me.
• The Bad Girl (Llosa) – B. Unfinished. Well-written and interesting, but the narrative loses steam and starts meandering halfway through.
• The End of Men (Rosin) – C+ Some good thinking; lots of bad editing; and a terrible title that eclipses her more measured arguments. The thesis that seems to hold for some chapters has no relevance to other chapters, some of which are downright contradictory. Altogether a frustrating read. (Though funny to hold on the subway when 9 months pregnant.)
• The Middlesteins (Attenberg) – B Starts strong, becomes conventional, ends up in a way I doubt I’ll recall in a month. Would have made one killer short story.

Here’s the rest of the round-up in alphabetical order, featuring a couple of classics, lots of memoir, Cramming for Motherhood manuals, history delivered in exciting & memorable ways (Bringing Up the Bodies, 11/22/63, Hark! A Vagrant), some solid genre fiction (Devil in a Blue Dress, Maltese Falcon, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The Comedians), some disappointing literary fiction (1Q84, The Marriage Plot, Sense of an Ending, Open City) and the unforgettably bizarre 50 Shades of Grey, without which I would never have been invited to appear on Geraldo.

Best surprise: Suite Francaise, which I didn’t expect to like, let alone be ravished by.

Best non-surprise: Tiny Beautiful Things, which was exactly as moving and profound, witty and wry as I expected. A more rewarding experience than Wild, leading me to the odd conclusion that I may prefer Strayed-as-Sugar to Strayed-as-Strayed.

NOTE: I’m still fiddling with the grades, since when I’ve just finished a book, I’m usually too kind to it, being either relieved to be done or still basking in its glow. Only in retrospect can I more accurately judge whether the reading experience holds up.