In late October, nine LJ editors gathered at New York’s gothic Jefferson Market Library to select this year’s top ten best books. Our nominee list consisted of 23 carefully selected fiction and nonfiction titles. After many weeks of reading and much deliberation, the winning titles are evenly split: five works of fiction and five nonfiction; five women authors and five men. If there is a “winner among winners,” it would be Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, for which every editor voted. Certain themes leapt out: Prepub Alert Editor Barbara Hoffert noted a strong thread of “community” among the titles, both fiction and nonfiction. Irish American nuns in early 20th-century New York, “new nomads” on the fringes of society, Osage Indians under attack, politically diverse justice seekers, ghostly beings in a Washington, DC, cemetery, and Muslims in London—all contend with living, dying, and surviving in this world (no space travel titles this year). Another strong theme is parents, specifically mothers. In You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie grieves for his difficult mom; foster parents and biological mothers figure in both Shanthi Sekaran’s Lucky Boy and Benjamin Ludwig’s Ginny Moon; Roxane Gay keeps a huge secret from her loving but concerned parents in Hunger.
Check out the full list at http://lj.libraryjournal.com/bestbooks2017/.
