I started a book list for December and then gave it up. December is just not a normal month in publishing. Readers, writers, publishers, editors and reviewers tend to look back over the year and give us their best-books-lists, or they sometimes have their experts pick the book/s they read or reread in the past year that they thought was/were best for any number of different reasons. I like “best of” lists, especially when folks explain why these were the best choices, in this case, the best books. So in January my list will include mostly books published in December and November. Amazon gives us titles that are out now and ready to buy. The Indies give us, as usual, books purchased most often in December in their shops. Publisher’s Weekly goes European on us for the most part, and the New York Times was more impressed with nonfiction than fiction this time. For what it’s worth, here is my January 2017 book list, prepared for me and by me, but shared with you just in case you are interested.

Amazon

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World Class Performers by Tim Ferriss (NF)

Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos (political humor) (NF)

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis (NF)

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Doug Preston (NF)

History of Wolves: A Novel by Emily Fridlund

The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel by Katherine Arden

The Dry: A Novel by Jane Harper

Lillian Boxfish takes a Walk: A Novel by Kathleen Rooney

This is How it Always is: A Novel by Laurie Frankel

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society by Cordelia Fine

Human Acts: A Novel by Han King

Idaho: A Novel by Emily Rushkovitch

Indelible by Adelia Saunders

Huck Out West: A Novel by Robert Coover

The Midnight Cool by Lydia Peelie

Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense

Idaho by Emily Ruskovitch

Her Every Fear: A Novel by Peter Swanson

The Girl Before: A Novel by J. P. Delaney

The Sleepwalker: A Novel by Chris Bonjalian

The Dry: A Novel by Jane Harper

Human Acts: A Novel by Han King

The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller

Fever Dream: A Novel by Samantha Schwelsin and Megan McDowell

The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today’s America by Mark Sundeen (NF)

Independent Booksellers

The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

The Muralist by B A Shapiro

The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly

Nutshell by Ian McEwan

The Seventh Plague by James Rollins

Turbo Twenty-Three by Janet Evanovitch

The Chemist by Stephanie Meyer

Publishers Weekly

Merrow by Ananda Braxton Smith

The Thieves of Threadneedle Street: The Incredible True Story of the American Forgers who nearly Broke the Bank of England by Nicholas Booth

Under the Midnight Sun by Kiego Higashino (whodunit)

An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy by Marc Levinson (NF)

The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything by D A Mishane (police procedural)

These are the Names by Tommy Wieringa (trans. from the Dutch by Sam Garett)

The Gentleman form Japan: An Inspector O Novel by James Church Minotaur

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg (graphic novel)

A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind by Siri Hustvelt (NF)

The Garden of Consolation by Parisa Reza (trans.from French by Adriana Hunter) (Iran)

Kill the Next One: A Novel by Federico Axat (trans. from the Spanish by David Frye)

The Return of Münchausen by Segizmund Zzhizhanovshy (trans. from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull)

The Hollow Man: A Novel by Rob McCarthy

Best Books Read by PW staff in 2016

The Gentleman by Forrest Leo

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

The ABC’s of Socialism edited by Bhaskar Sunkara, illustrated by Phil Wrigglesworth (NF)

We Want Everything by Anne Baletrini, trans by Matt Holden

The Obelisk Gate by N K Jemisin, (Volume 2) (Volume 1 published earlier, The Fifth Season)

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy (trans. by Tim Parks)

Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister (not out until March)(read in galleys)

A Beam of Light by Andrea Camilleri (trans. by Stephen Sartarelli)

Bluets by Maggie Nelson

The North Water by Ian McGuire

NYT Book Review

How to Survive a Plague by David Franco (NF)

Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada

Thus Bad Begins by Javier Márias

Judas by Amos Oz

Nonstop Metropolis, A New York City Atlas edited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro (a most unusual atlas)

The Revolutionaries Try Again by Mauro Javier Cardenas

Colonel Lágrimas by Carlos Fonesca (trans. by Megan McDowell)

Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jiménez (trans. by Elizabeth Bryer)

Divorce is in the Air by Gonzalo Torné (trans. by Megan McDowell)

The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma by Ratika Kapur

A Want of Kindness by Joanne Limburg (Queen Anne)

The Country of the Blind by Edward Hoagland

Crime

Kill the Next One by Federico Axat

Out of Bounds by Val McDermid

Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson

Plaid and Plagiarism by Molly MacRae

Melt by Helen Hardt

The Moravian Night by Peter Handke