This is my community service to book-bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on all of the lists (32 of them) I listed on Best Books of 2017 – A List of Lists.
So here it is, the 2017 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2017-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 47 books.
Books that made five lists –
01. The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
02. Winter by Ali Smith
03. Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
04. Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong
05. The Answers: A Novel by Catherine Lacey
06. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
07. The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris
08. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin
09. The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
10. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
11. The Locals by Jonathan Dee
12. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah
13. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
14. Five Carat Soul by James McBride
15. A Separation by Katie Kitamura
16. Hunger by Roxanne Gay
17. Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
18. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Books that made six lists –
19. Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
20. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
21. The Idiot by Elif Batuman
22. All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
23. The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
24. What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
Books that made seven lists –
25. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
26. Reservoir 13: A Novel by Jon McGregor
27. 4321 by Paul Auster
28. White Tears by Hari Kunzru
29. Ill Will by Dan Chaon
30. Borne by Jeff Vandermeer
31. The Leavers by Lisa Ko
32. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
Books that made eight lists –
33. Autumn by Ali Smith
34. Marlena by Julie Buntin
35. The Power by Naomi Alderman
Books that made nine lists –
36. Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss
37. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Books that made ten lists –
38. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
39. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
Books that made eleven lists –
40. American War by Omar El Akkad
Books that made twelve lists –
41. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Books that made thirteen lists –
42. Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Books that made fourteen lists –
43. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
44. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Books that made 15 – 19 lists –
45. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
46. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesym Ward
The book that made 23 lists (!) –
47. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
I’ve read three (Strout, Rooney and Hamid) and own a further nine (Egan, Saunders, Ward, Lee, Ko, Batuman, Attenberg, Nguyen and Adebayo).
Do you agree with the critics – will any of these titles make your ‘Best of 2017’ list?