What are the BEST BOOKS you've read in 2017?

[hermetic]

In keeping with tradition here:
This is a thread for you to list the most outstanding books you've read during the year of 2017. They don't have to be books that were published in 2017, just whatever books you've read in 2017 that struck you as particularly noteworthy - the kind of book that will stick in your mind for a long time to come.

You start.

[northoftheborder]

1. Do you mean 2016?

[japple]

2. No. The "Best of" is a running thread throughout the year. Best books

of 2016 is this thread.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/11938201

[spin]

3. Back in the later 1950s when I was in my early teens I remember my father reading ...

the Horatio Hornblower book series by C. S. Forester about a fictional Napoleonic Wars era Royal Navy officer. I'm about halfway through the series and it is indeed excellent. Hornblower rises from midshipman to Admiral of the British Fleet though the series. Hornblower is definitely intelligent, brave and highly skilled but he suffers from self doubt and is a lonely and often unhappy individual. It's fascinating to follow his rise through the ranks.

My father also read a novel called No Blade of Grass in the Saturday Evening Post. It finally came out in digital form on Amazon.com so I decided to read it. Originally the novel was titled The Death of Grass and was written by a British author Samuel Youd under the pen name John Christopher. In the novel a virus strain infects and kills off all forms of grass including rice, wheat and barley. This leads to a total breakdown in civilization. What I found most interesting was how fast the main characters and the group of people they are traveling with lose their sense of morality in order to survive.

[getting old in mke]

4. I went through the Hornblower stories/novels again

about five years ago. Still a rollicking good time.

If you haven't seen them, look for the Ioan Gruffudd's Hornblower TV movies from the early 2000's. You'll have fun with them too. As I remember, they mixed and matched stories from Midshipman, Atropos, and Lieutenant.

Truly, though, I enjoy Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series better. Also Napoleonic naval. Thoroughly different writing styles. Plus, Aubrey LIKES music and Hornblower HATES music, so there's that

[spin]

5. I'll have to check those out in the future. ...

Thanks.

[japple]

6. My first entry for 2017 is Louise Erdrich's book, LaRose.

Last edited Thu Sep 14, 2017, 08:17 AM - Edit history (1)

Hope I'll find more good ones this year. Thanks for the thread, hermetic!!

Sept. 14, 2016- Adding Nathan Hill's sprawling work, The Nix. It's a great trip down memory lane for anyone who was alive in 1968--the year Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and of the violent confrontations between police and (mostly)student protesters during the Democratic National Convention.

[mnhtnbb]

7. small great things by Jodi Picoult

I was blown away by Picoult's story of a white supremacist family that requests a black nurse not be allowed to touch their
infant after it is delivered in a New Haven, CT hospital. The baby dies--the nurse was there--and she is charged with murder.

It's a terrific story of the problem of racism in this country. Viola Davis was recently signed to play the nurse and Julia
Roberts is also attached to the project. If the movie is done right, it will be a Best Movie nominee and generate a lot of discussion
about a topic that needs serious discussion.

[mainstreetonce]

8. Going to read this one soon

Thanks for the review.

[iamateacher]

9. Lincoln in the Bardo

In Lincoln in the Bardo, Lincoln mourns his 10 year son Willie, who is welcomed into the afterlife by the other souls in his cemetery. They help father and son find peace.
Bardo is a Tibetan word for the "in-between" between this world and the afterlife.

[japple]

10. Adding Nathan Hill's book, The Nix to my list.

eom

[Ohiya]

11. So far...

A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

[walterhpdx]

12. Starship Mine by Peter Cawdron

New to DU, and thought I'd start out in a thread that I love - reading.

I came across a wonderful book called "Starship Mine" by Peter Cawdron. It's about first contact with an alien species, and how a gay Midwest guy is one of three people who manage to make that first contact. But Cawdron doesn't leave it there; he takes you through uncertainty and heartbreak after the visit that absolutely tears you apart - and then manages to put you back together in the final pages. It's a short work, but is absolutely amazing.

[MuseRider]

13. I would second

A Man Called Ove I loved that book. I have not seen the movie but the book really moved me.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman Another unexpected like for me. I saw the book and decided to try it. I hear there is a movie about this on too.