Book List: Books Read in 2017

 

Somehow, 2017 was the year in books that almost never was. Every year in January, I make a book list of the book I read the prior year. But I forgot to do that in January 2018. A look at my work calendar tells me I wasn't gearing up for a trial (which is my usual attention-sucker), but my law partner and I were up to our eyeballs in a couple of Boy Scout sex abuse cases in Idaho and Montana. I spent most of January 2018 in regional PNW airports waiting for cancelled flights to get to depositions and court hearings.

I only realized the 2017 list was missing when I went to post the 2020 list. Better late then never. We want to remember all the books of Auld Lang Sine!

BOOKS READ IN 2017

• The Panther by Nelson DeMille 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bech at Bay by John Updike 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great by Karen Karbo 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Women's Prize winner)

• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Amarcord: Marcella Remembers by Marcella Hazan 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered by Tod Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese by Kathe Lison 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Drowning Pool by Ross Macdonald 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Biographer's Moustache by Kingsley Amis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 🌹🌹🌹

• Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier by Peter Stark 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Fifth Business by Robertson Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Manticore by Robertson Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Original Sin by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Heartburn by Nora Ephron 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• World of Wonders by Robertson Davis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• When You Lunch With the Emperor by Ludwig Bemelmans 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Make Me by Lee Child 🌹🌹🌹

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Ultimate Prizes by Susan Howatch 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Spotted Dick S'il Vous Plait: An English Restaurant in France by Tom Higgins 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Little Nugget by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• But Enough About You by Christopher Buckley 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Booker Prize winner)

• Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Architecture Pack : A Unique, Three-Dimensional Tour of Architecture over the Centuries : What Architects Do, How They Do It by Ron Van Der Meer 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slay Ride by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Road to Burgundy: The Unlikely Story of an American Making Wine and a New Life in France by Ray Walker 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• An Oxford Tragedy by J. C. Masterman 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Story of a New Name by Elana Ferrante 🌹🌹

• Black and Blue by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Wait for Me!: Memoirs by Deborah Mitford 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Nix by Nathan Hill 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town By Susan Herrmann Loomis 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Blue Angel by Francine Prose 🌹🌹🌹🌹 (my Campus Novels list)

• Bandits by Elmore Leonard 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• About a Boy by Nick Hornby 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Any Human Heart by William Boyd 🌹🌹🌹

• Temperance Creek: A Memoir by Pamela Royes 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Blue Heaven by C. J. Box 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Edgar Award winner)

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan 🌹🌹🌹1/2 (Booker Prize winner)

• Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste by Bianca Bosker 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Any Woman's Blues by Erica Jong 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Heirs by Susan Rieger 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Question of Max by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Rocks by Peter Nichols 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do by Sarah Knight 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff's Revolution by David Ball 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Group by Mary McCarthy 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson 🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Pulitzer Prize winner)

• Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Glorious Heresies by  Lisa McInerney 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2 (Women's Prize winner)

• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks 🌹🌹🌹 (BBC Big Read)

• I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays by Eleanor Lipman 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Ancient Minstrel by Jim Harrison 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Vipers' Tangle by Mauriac Francois 🌹🌹 (Nobel Laureates)

• The Journalist and the Murder by Janet Malcolm 🌹🌹🌹

• The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• A Certain Justice by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY RATING SYSTEM

I have a loosy goosy and always changing rating system. I used to use stars, but since my four or five stars didn't mean what four or five stars might mean on amazon or goodreads, I switched to roses, keeping with my Rose City Reader theme. I rate a book based on how much I like it, if I would recommend it to others, and what type of reader I would recommend it to.  

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 Books I love, recommend to most readers, or I think of as classics or must reads. 

🌹🌹🌹🌹 Books I really enjoy and/or recommend to readers of that type of book. Lots of Mysteries or food memoirs, for example, might get four roses from me instead of five because I really like them, but would only recommend them to people who read mysteries or food books.

🌹🌹🌹 Books I'm lukewarm about, liked so-so, or maybe was glad I read but wouldn't recommend to other people. 

🌹🌹 Books I didn't like, but understand that other readers do like.

🌹 Books I really don't like and am surprised to find other readers who do. I don't have many one-rose books.

I use half roses for books that fall between categories.

In years past, I used a slightly different star system. Here is a link to it.