Best Books of 2017

I collected over 25 lists of the Best Books of 2017 from the Internet, newspapers and magazines and combined them into one meta-list.  Here are the results, every book on at least two of the original source list, organized by rank (that is, with the books on the most lists at the top).  The list is divided into three sections: (1) Fiction; (2) Non-Fiction; (3) Poetry.

NOTE: These are not my personal opinions and I have not read all these books.

FICTION 

On 25 lists
LINCOLN IN THE BARDOBy George Saunders.

On 20 lists
EXIT WESTBy Mohsin Hamid.

On 14 lists
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLEBy Elizabeth Strout.
MANHATTAN BEACHBy Jennifer Egan.

On 12 lists
HOME FIREBy Kamila Shamsie.
SING, UNBURIED, SINGBy Jesmyn Ward.
LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE. By Celeste Ng.

On 9 lists
THE BOOK OF DUST: Vol. 1 – La Belle Sauvage. By Philip Pullman.
THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS. By Arundhati Roy.
AMERICAN WARBy Omar El Akkad.

On 8 lists
DAYS WITHOUT END
. By Sebastian Barry.
CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS. By Sally Rooney.

On 7 lists
RESERVOIR 13
. By Jon McGregor.
WHITE TEARSBy Hari Kunzru.
HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES. By Carmen Maria Machado.
PACHINKOBy Min Jin Lee.

On 6 lists
TRANSITBy Rachel Cusk.
THE IDIOTBy Elif Batuman.
THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR. By Alan Hollinghurst.
THE NINTH HOURBy Alice McDermott.
THE ANSWERS. By Catherine Lacey.
ILL WILLBy Dan Chaon.
WHAT WE LOSE. By Zinzi Clemons.

On 5 lists
THE DINNER PARTY: And Other StoriesBy Joshua Ferris.
FOREST DARKBy Nicole Krauss.
SOUR HEART: Stories. By Jenny Zhang.
THE GOLDEN HOUSE. By Salman Rushdie.
A SEPARATIONBy Katie Kitamura.
THE POWERBy Naomi Alderman.
THE ESSEX SERPENTBy Sarah Perry.
THE DARK FLOOD RISESBy Margaret Drabble.

On 4 lists
AUTUMNBy Ali Smith.
NEW PEOPLEBy Danzy Senna.
SMILE. By Roddy Doyle.
FIRST LOVE. By Gwendoline Riley.
THE BOOK OF JOANBy Lidia Yuknavitch.
WINTER. By Ali Smith.
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Philip Gabriel.
HOUSE OF NAMES. By Colm Tóibín.
A HORSE WALKS INTO A BARBy David Grossman. Translated by Jessica Cohen.
CHEMISTRY. By Weike Wang.
4 3 2 1By Paul Auster.
HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLDBy Ottessa Moshfegh.
THE LONG DROP. By Denise Mina.
BORNE. By Jeff VanderMeer.
THE HATE U GIVE. By Angie Thomas.
A LEGACY OF SPIES. By John le Carré.
MRS. FLETCHER. By Tom Perrotta.
MIDWINTER BREAK. By Bernard MacLaverty.

On 3 lists
BEAUTIFUL ANIMALSBy Lawrence Osborne.
FRESH COMPLAINT: StoriesBy Jeffrey Eugenides.
THE CHANGELING. By Victor LaValle.
MADAME ZERO: 9 Stories. By Sarah Hall.
MAGPIE MURDERS. By Anthony Horowitz.
MARLENA. By Julie Buntin.
WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY. By Lesley Nneka Arimah.
ELMET. By Fiona Mozley.
MRS. OSMOND. By John Banville.
GOODBYE, VITAMIN. By Rachel Khong.

On 2 lists
FIVE-CARAT SOULBy James McBride.
MY ABSOLUTE DARLINGBy Gabriel Tallent.
THE REFUGEESBy Viet Thanh Nguyen.
SELECTION DAYBy Aravind Adiga.
STAY WITH MEBy Ayobami Adebayo.
WHO IS RICH? By Matthew Klam. Illustrated by John Cuneo.
THE LOCALS. By Jonathan Dee.
THINGS THAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE. By Chiara Barzini.
LESSBy Andrew Sean Greer.
HEATHER, THE TOTALITY. By Matthew Weiner.
BAD DREAMS AND OTHER STORIESBy Tessa Hadley.
IMPROVEMENT. By Joan Silber.
FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GODBy Louise Erdrich.
WOMAN NO. 17. By Edan Lepucki.
A BOOK OF AMERICAN MARTYRS. By Joyce Carol Oates.
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. By Stephanie Powell Watts.
THE ARRANGEMENT. By Sarah Dunn.
HISTORY OF WOLVESBy Emily Fridlund.
DARK AT THE CROSSING. By Elliot Ackerman.
HOW TO BEHAVE IN A CROWD. By Camille Bordas.
UNIVERSAL HARVESTER. By John Darnielle.
THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY. By Hannah Tinti.
THE STONE SKY: The Broken Earth: Book ThreeBy N.K. Jemisin.
ALL GROWN UP. By Jami Attenberg.
THE DESTROYERS. By Christopher Bollen.
THE BURNING GIRL. By Claire Messud.
A STATE OF FREEDOM. By Neel Mukherjee.
THE WHITE BOOK. By Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith.
MISSING FAY. By Adam Thorpe.


NON-FICTION

On 14 lists
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBIBy David Grann.

On 13 lists
HUNGER: A Memoir of (My) Body. By Roxane Gay.

On 10 lists
PRIESTDADDY: A MemoirBy Patricia Lockwood.
THE RULES DO NOT APPLY: A Memoir. By Ariel Levy.
WHAT HAPPENEDBy Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On 8 lists
THE UNWOMANLY FACE OF WAR: An Oral History of Women in World War II. By Svetlana Alexievich. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER: An American TragedyBy Ta-Nehisi Coates.

On 6 lists
THEFT BY FINDING: Diaries (1977-2002).
By David Sedaris.
THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed RussiaBy Masha Gessen.
GRANTBy Ron Chernow.

On 5 lists
AMERICAN FIRE: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing LandBy Monica Hesse. 

On 4 lists
THE EVANGELICALS: The Struggle to Shape AmericaBy Frances FitzGerald.
AGE OF ANGER: A History of the PresentBy Pankaj Mishra.
THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILLBy Timothy B. Tyson.
SIX MINUTES IN MAY: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister. By Nicholas Shakespeare.
THE COLOR OF LAW: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated AmericaBy Richard Rothstein.
HOMO DEUS: A Brief History of Tomorrow. By Yuval Noah Harari.
BETWEEN THEM: Remembering My Parents. By Richard Ford.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME: A Memoir. By Sherman Alexie.
A LIFE OF MY OWN: A Biographer’s Life. By Claire Tomalin.
LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black AmericaBy James Forman Jr.

On 3 lists
THE LOST WORDS.
 By Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
JANESVILLE: An American StoryBy Amy Goldstein.
LETTERMAN: The Last Giant of Late NightBy Jason Zinoman.
YOU SAY TO BRICK: The Life of Louis KahnBy Wendy Lesser.
NOMADLAND: Surviving America in the Twenty-First CenturyBy Jessica Bruder.
THE GULF: The Making of an American SeaBy Jack E. Davis.
WHY I’M NO LONGER TALKING TO WHITE PEOPLE ABOUT RACE. By Reni Eddo-Lodge.
ALI: A Life. By Jonathan Eig.
RICHARD NIXON: The Life. By John A. Farrell.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America. By Ron Powers.
CHOKEHOLD: Policing Black Men. By Paul Butler.
GORBACHEV: His Life and Times. By William Taubman.
JONATHAN SWIFT: The Reluctant Rebel. By John Stubbs.
STORY OF THE JEWS: Belonging 1492-1900. By Simon Schama.
THE VACCINE RACE: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease. By Meredith Wadman.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A LifeBy Laura Dassow Walls.
HUE 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. By Mark Bowden.
AN ODYSSEY: A Father, A Son and an Epic. By Daniel Mendelsohn.
WE ARE NEVER MEETING IN REAL LIFE: Essays. By Samantha Irby.
BUNK: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake NewsBy Kevin Young.
CODE GIRLS: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. By Liza Mundy.
MR LEAR: A Life of Art and Nonsense. By Jenny Uglow.
BEHAVE: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst. By Robert Sapolsky.
STICKY FINGERS: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. By Joe Hagan.
THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and UsBy Richard O. Prum.

On 2 lists
FASTING AND FEASTING: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience GrayBy Adam Federman.
THE HOUSE OF GOVERNMENT: A Saga of the Russian RevolutionBy Yuri Slezkine.
THE NOVEL OF THE CENTURY: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables. By David Bellos.
SYRIA: Recipes from Home. By Itab Azzam and Dina Mousawi.
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKESBy Dan Egan.
FEAR CITY: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics. By Kim Phillips-Fein.
CHURCHILL AND ORWELL: The Fight for FreedomBy Thomas E. Ricks.
DESTINED FOR WAR: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? By Graham Allison.
HAMLET GLOBE TO GLOBE: Two Years, 190,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One PlayBy Dominic Dromgoole.
THE INVENTION OF ANGELA CARTER: A BiographyBy Edmund Gordon.
KRAZY: George Herriman, a Life in Black and WhiteBy Michael Tisserand.
THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD: A True StoryBy Douglas Preston.
HOURGLASS: Time, Memory, Marriage. By Dani Shapiro.
WOMEN AND POWER: A Manifesto. By Mary Beard.
THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir. By Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich.
THE BEST WE COULD DO: An Illustrated Memoir. By Thi Bui.
CUZ: The Life and Times of Michael A. By Danielle Allen.
AUTUMN. By Karl Ove Knausgaard.
AFTER KATHY ACKER: A Literary Biography.
By Chris Kraus.
TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: An Essay in Forty Questions. By Valeria Luiselli.
HE CALLS ME BY LIGHTNING: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty. By S. Jonathan Bass.
FROM HOLMES TO SHERLOCK: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon. By Mattias Bostrom. Translated by Michael Gallagher.
THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA PLATH: Volume 1: 1940-1956. By Sylvia Plath. Edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil.
DEVIL’S BARGAIN: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the PresidencyBy Joshua Green.
THE DRY: Who Really Killed the Hadler Family? By Jane Harper.
FIRST TIME EVER: A Memoir. By Peggy Seeger.
THE SECRET LIFE: Three True Stories of the Digital Age. By Andrew O’Hagen.
A COLONY IN A NATIONBy Chris Hayes.
WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House. By Alyssa Mastromonaco.
DAVID BOWIE: A Life. By Dylan Jones.
SOUTH AND WEST: From a Notebook. By Joan Didion.
WHY POETRY. By Matthew Zapruder.
HIGH NOON: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic. By Glenn Frankel.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A Biography. By Mary V. Dearborn.
PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. By Caroline Fraser.
WORLD WITHOUT MIND: The Existential Threat of Big Tech. By Franklin Foer.
RECKLESS DAUGHTER: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell. By David Yaffe.
MADAME PRESIDENT: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. By Helene Cooper.
FLÂNEUSE: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and LondonBy Lauren Elkin.
THE BUTCHERING ART: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine. By Lindsey Fitzharris.
THE GLASS UNIVERSE: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the StarsBy Dava Sobel.
THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES. By Tina Brown.
GHOSTS OF THE TSUNAMI: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone. By Richard Lloyd Parry.
MA’AM DARLING: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret. By Craig Brown.
DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. By Nancy MacLean.
NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY: An American Abroad in a Post-American WorldBy Suzy Hansen.
ANIMALS STRIKE CURIOUS POSES: EssaysBy Elena Passarello.
BORN A CRIME: Stories From a South African ChildhoodBy Trevor Noah.
TOO MUCH AND NOT IN THE MOOD. By Durga Chew-Bose.
LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Walter Isaacson.
ANTS AMONG ELEPHANTS: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India. By Sujatha Gidla.
I AM, I AM, I AM: Essays. By Maggie O’Farrell.
THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIBERAL: After Identity Politics. By Mark Lilla.
 

POETRY

On 5 lists
WHEREAS. By Layli Long Soldier.

On 4 lists
DON’T CALL US DEAD. By Danez Smith.

On 3 lists
KINGDOM OF GRAVITY. By Nick Makoha.
NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS. By Ocean Vuong.

On 2 lists
STRANGER, BABY. By Emily Berry.
KUMUKANDA. By Kayo Chingonyi.
THERE ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAN BEYONCÉ. By Morgan Parker.
FASTBy Jorie Graham.
ANGEL HILL. By Michael Longley.
THE UNACCOMPANIED. By Simon Armitage.
NATURE POEM. By Tommy Pico.
ON BALANCE. By Sinead Morrissey.
A NEW MAP OF WONDERS. By Caspar Henderson.