2017 Books in Review
This year I read 48 prose books and 32 graphic novels, with one poetry collection thrown in for good measure, for 81 in total. That's up substantially from last year's 68, but most of that growth came in comics. I actually read fewer prose novels than last year, and far more comics. A significant number (eleven) of those prose novels were management self-help books, so if you take those out the number looks still less impressive. With that said, I read a bunch of really good books in 2017.
* = Graphic Novels
^ = Poetry
& = Management Books (aka, books I read for work)
Italics - Favorites
Marc Reiser - Cadillac Desert - W 1/11
John Steinbeck - In Dubious Battle - T 1/17
Paolo Bacigalupi - The Water Knife - T 1/24
William Shakespeare - As You Like It - Su 1/29
Dava Sobel - Longitude - W 2/01
Hunter S. Thompson - Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - F 2/03
W.P. Kinsella - The Iowa Baseball Confederacy - W 2/08
Brady Carlson - Dead Presidents - M 2/13
&Atul Gawande - The Checklist Manifesto - F 2/17
&Charles Duhigg - The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - W 3/01
Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - W 3/08
*Howard Tayler - Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries - M 3/13
&Richard Sheridan - Joy, Inc. - F 3/17
Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper - F 3/17
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.1 - S 4/08
Bill Bryson - One Summer: America, 1927 - S 4/08
*Dave Kellett - Drive, V.1 - S 4/08
Jacques Leslie - Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People and the Environment - Su 4/09
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.2 - F 4/14
*Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart - The Sandman: Overtures - Su 4/16
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.3 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.4 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.5 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.6 - F 4/28
Michael Daly - Topsy - Su 4/30
Studs Terkel - P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening - S 5/06
Brandon Stanton - Humans of New York: Stories - S 5/06
Ben H. Winters - Underground Airlines - Su 5/07
&Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler - Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations and Bad Behavior - R 5/11
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.7 - R 5/11
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, Darik Robertson - The Boys, v.9: The Big Ride - Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker- Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, Keith Burns, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.11: Over the Hills With the Swords of a Thousand Men- Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.12: The Bloody Doors Off- Su 5/14
&J.B. Hood, Todd Hewlin, Thomas Lah - Consumption Economics - R 6/15
James W. Loewen - Lies My Teacher Told Me - F 6/16
Taylor Branch - Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 - W 6/21
David L. Robbins - War of the Rats - R 6/22
Anne Bishop - The Invisible Ring - S 6/24
Stephen Schlesinger & Stephen Kinzer - Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala - T 6/27
Michel Houellebecq - Submission - M 7/10
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises - S 7/15
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) - The Brothers Karamazov - R 8/10
William Shakespeare - Hamlet - R 8/17
*Various - Batman: War Games, Book One - Su 8/20
*Various - Batman: War Games, Book Two - Su 8/27
Andrew Nagorski - Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to The Nazi Rise to Power - T 8/29
&Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner, Nick Toman - The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results - F 9/01
Matthew Jacob & Mark Jacob - What the Great Ate - S 9/09
Kurt Vonnegut - Galapagos - Su 9/10
Haruki Murakami - Men Without Women - R 9/14
Margaret Atwood - The Heart Goes Last - S 9/23
Ferrett Steinmetz - The Uploaded - M 9/25
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.2: Tag - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.3: Fact v. Fiction - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.4: March to War - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.5: Smoke Smoke - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.6: Power Down - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.7: Ex Cathedra - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.8: Dirty Tricks - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.9: Ring Out the Old - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.10: Term Limits - Su 10/01
&Brian J. Robertson - Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World - W 10/04
John Reed - Ten Days That Shook the World - R 11/02
^Garrison Keillor - Good Poems, American Places - W 11/08
Robert Jackson Bennett - City of Miracles - F 11/17
*Harvey Pekar & JT Waldman - Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me - F 11/17
&Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia - Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family - T 11/21
*Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag - Strong Female Protagonist, v.1 - Su 12/03
*Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag - Strong Female Protagonist, v.2 - R 12/07
*Bill Willingham, Lan Medina, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Craig Hamilton - Fables, v.1 - W 12/13
&Jurgen Appelo - Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders - R 12/14
&Matthew Kelly - The Dream Manager - R 12/14
&Mary & Tom Poppendieck - Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit - W 12/20
Alex Haley - Roots - S 12/23
*Various - The Punisher: The Complete Collection v.5 - S 12/23
*Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Tom Palmer - The Punisher: Born - Su 12/24
*Various - The Punisher: The Complete Collection v.6 - M 12/25
Stephen King - Mr. Mercedes - T 12/26
Stephen King & Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Button Box - W 12/27
William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night - S 12/30
The single book that made the biggest impression on me this year was probably Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters. I'm certain that this was not the first book to propose a modern day America with slavery, but it certainly did a terrifying plausible job of it. I read Roots later in the year, and the future shown in Underground Airlines certainly seemed in line with the past shown in Roots.
Of the thirteen authors called out in my new book tactic of pulling one of these authors each time I went to the library, I read at least one book by ten of them. This didn't make much of an impact on my total numbers, but the composition was shifted in ways that I like. I held to that tactic for perhaps 2/3 of my library visits.
As far as comics go, after my April summary where I talked about Saga, I finished off The Boys five years after I started it. I also read all of Ex Machina after picking up several volumes at a used book sale. Ex Machina was pretty good, but in some ways it peaked in the first trade that I read years ago. I also supported some of my favorite webcomics by acquiring and reading material from Strong Female Protagonist, Drive and Schlock Mercenary.
I knocked off a few notably long books this year. The best of them was the first volume of the Civil Rights history America in the King Years. I had gotten my father a copy for his birthday and after he finished it I read "Parting the Waters" at, appropriately enough, Boundary Waters weighed in at more than 800 densely written pages. I feel like I know a lot more about the Civil Rights moment than I did previously, and will read the other two volumes at some point.
My other major long book was another one of the great Russian novels. Regrettably, The Brothers Karamazov was not nearly as good as the other famous Russian novels I've read. It was a slog in every way, and only toward the end did I start to enjoy it. Give me War & Peace any day.
I also knocked off three more by Shakespeare, taking (by pages at least) past the halfway point in reading the complete works. Of course, it only took nine years, but at least I'm moving in the correct direction. This year I read two comedies, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, as well as the big one: Hamlet.
Other highlights:
- One of John Steinbeck's less famous novels, In Dubious Battle, is a slim, fast moving novel that focus exclusively on the politics referenced in the more famous Grapes of Wrath.
- Cadillac Desert is the definitive history of how California, particularly Southern California, gets its water, and the sorts of underhanded shenanigans that were necessary to make the whole system work. It's actually referenced in The Water Knife, which is scifi set in a future where that water runs out.
- Bill Bryson is one of my favorites, and his One Summer: America, 1927 has him in top form as he dissects the history of one year, with heavy focuses on Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. I'd happily read a history of any year that was as entertaining as this one.
- Submission is a French novel about a future where Muslim parties take over France via the ballot box that gained some notoriety because it was released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. I found it to be an entertaining, albeit depressing, satire, but the real targets are faux-intellectualism, not Islam, which comes off rather well in comparison.
- When I read The Sun Also Rises, I could see why Hemingway became a literary sensation after it was published. I could really feel the places his characters were in.
- Late in the year I finished the third of Garrison Keillor's poetry compilations for The Writer's Almanac. Given his recent firing, it's unlikely that more are forthcoming, which is unfortunate in that Good Poems, American Places was very much to my taste and now has many post-it notes marking favorite poems.
- Late in December I started my biennial stroll through all the new Stephen King novels that have come out since the last time around. So far, the class of the current batch is a collaboration he did with Richard Chizmar called Gwendy's Button Box, which returns to that strangest of towns, Castle Rock.
- And lastly, theferrett published his fourth novel, The Uploaded. His dystopian future where everybody is uploaded into computers upon death, but they forgot to deny the dead the vote is by far his best book thus far.
* = Graphic Novels
^ = Poetry
& = Management Books (aka, books I read for work)
Italics - Favorites
Marc Reiser - Cadillac Desert - W 1/11
John Steinbeck - In Dubious Battle - T 1/17
Paolo Bacigalupi - The Water Knife - T 1/24
William Shakespeare - As You Like It - Su 1/29
Dava Sobel - Longitude - W 2/01
Hunter S. Thompson - Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - F 2/03
W.P. Kinsella - The Iowa Baseball Confederacy - W 2/08
Brady Carlson - Dead Presidents - M 2/13
&Atul Gawande - The Checklist Manifesto - F 2/17
&Charles Duhigg - The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - W 3/01
Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - W 3/08
*Howard Tayler - Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries - M 3/13
&Richard Sheridan - Joy, Inc. - F 3/17
Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper - F 3/17
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.1 - S 4/08
Bill Bryson - One Summer: America, 1927 - S 4/08
*Dave Kellett - Drive, V.1 - S 4/08
Jacques Leslie - Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People and the Environment - Su 4/09
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.2 - F 4/14
*Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart - The Sandman: Overtures - Su 4/16
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.3 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.4 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.5 - F 4/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.6 - F 4/28
Michael Daly - Topsy - Su 4/30
Studs Terkel - P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening - S 5/06
Brandon Stanton - Humans of New York: Stories - S 5/06
Ben H. Winters - Underground Airlines - Su 5/07
&Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler - Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations and Bad Behavior - R 5/11
*Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Saga, V.7 - R 5/11
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, Darik Robertson - The Boys, v.9: The Big Ride - Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker- Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, John McCrea, Keith Burns, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.11: Over the Hills With the Swords of a Thousand Men- Su 5/14
*Garth Ennis, Russ Braun, Darick Robertson - The Boys, v.12: The Bloody Doors Off- Su 5/14
&J.B. Hood, Todd Hewlin, Thomas Lah - Consumption Economics - R 6/15
James W. Loewen - Lies My Teacher Told Me - F 6/16
Taylor Branch - Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 - W 6/21
David L. Robbins - War of the Rats - R 6/22
Anne Bishop - The Invisible Ring - S 6/24
Stephen Schlesinger & Stephen Kinzer - Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala - T 6/27
Michel Houellebecq - Submission - M 7/10
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises - S 7/15
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) - The Brothers Karamazov - R 8/10
William Shakespeare - Hamlet - R 8/17
*Various - Batman: War Games, Book One - Su 8/20
*Various - Batman: War Games, Book Two - Su 8/27
Andrew Nagorski - Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to The Nazi Rise to Power - T 8/29
&Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner, Nick Toman - The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results - F 9/01
Matthew Jacob & Mark Jacob - What the Great Ate - S 9/09
Kurt Vonnegut - Galapagos - Su 9/10
Haruki Murakami - Men Without Women - R 9/14
Margaret Atwood - The Heart Goes Last - S 9/23
Ferrett Steinmetz - The Uploaded - M 9/25
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.2: Tag - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.3: Fact v. Fiction - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.4: March to War - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.5: Smoke Smoke - R 9/28
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.6: Power Down - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.7: Ex Cathedra - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.8: Dirty Tricks - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.9: Ring Out the Old - Su 10/01
*Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris - Ex Machina v.10: Term Limits - Su 10/01
&Brian J. Robertson - Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World - W 10/04
John Reed - Ten Days That Shook the World - R 11/02
^Garrison Keillor - Good Poems, American Places - W 11/08
Robert Jackson Bennett - City of Miracles - F 11/17
*Harvey Pekar & JT Waldman - Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me - F 11/17
&Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia - Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family - T 11/21
*Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag - Strong Female Protagonist, v.1 - Su 12/03
*Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag - Strong Female Protagonist, v.2 - R 12/07
*Bill Willingham, Lan Medina, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Craig Hamilton - Fables, v.1 - W 12/13
&Jurgen Appelo - Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders - R 12/14
&Matthew Kelly - The Dream Manager - R 12/14
&Mary & Tom Poppendieck - Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit - W 12/20
Alex Haley - Roots - S 12/23
*Various - The Punisher: The Complete Collection v.5 - S 12/23
*Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Tom Palmer - The Punisher: Born - Su 12/24
*Various - The Punisher: The Complete Collection v.6 - M 12/25
Stephen King - Mr. Mercedes - T 12/26
Stephen King & Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Button Box - W 12/27
William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night - S 12/30
The single book that made the biggest impression on me this year was probably Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters. I'm certain that this was not the first book to propose a modern day America with slavery, but it certainly did a terrifying plausible job of it. I read Roots later in the year, and the future shown in Underground Airlines certainly seemed in line with the past shown in Roots.
Of the thirteen authors called out in my new book tactic of pulling one of these authors each time I went to the library, I read at least one book by ten of them. This didn't make much of an impact on my total numbers, but the composition was shifted in ways that I like. I held to that tactic for perhaps 2/3 of my library visits.
As far as comics go, after my April summary where I talked about Saga, I finished off The Boys five years after I started it. I also read all of Ex Machina after picking up several volumes at a used book sale. Ex Machina was pretty good, but in some ways it peaked in the first trade that I read years ago. I also supported some of my favorite webcomics by acquiring and reading material from Strong Female Protagonist, Drive and Schlock Mercenary.
I knocked off a few notably long books this year. The best of them was the first volume of the Civil Rights history America in the King Years. I had gotten my father a copy for his birthday and after he finished it I read "Parting the Waters" at, appropriately enough, Boundary Waters weighed in at more than 800 densely written pages. I feel like I know a lot more about the Civil Rights moment than I did previously, and will read the other two volumes at some point.
My other major long book was another one of the great Russian novels. Regrettably, The Brothers Karamazov was not nearly as good as the other famous Russian novels I've read. It was a slog in every way, and only toward the end did I start to enjoy it. Give me War & Peace any day.
I also knocked off three more by Shakespeare, taking (by pages at least) past the halfway point in reading the complete works. Of course, it only took nine years, but at least I'm moving in the correct direction. This year I read two comedies, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, as well as the big one: Hamlet.
Other highlights:
- One of John Steinbeck's less famous novels, In Dubious Battle, is a slim, fast moving novel that focus exclusively on the politics referenced in the more famous Grapes of Wrath.
- Cadillac Desert is the definitive history of how California, particularly Southern California, gets its water, and the sorts of underhanded shenanigans that were necessary to make the whole system work. It's actually referenced in The Water Knife, which is scifi set in a future where that water runs out.
- Bill Bryson is one of my favorites, and his One Summer: America, 1927 has him in top form as he dissects the history of one year, with heavy focuses on Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. I'd happily read a history of any year that was as entertaining as this one.
- Submission is a French novel about a future where Muslim parties take over France via the ballot box that gained some notoriety because it was released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. I found it to be an entertaining, albeit depressing, satire, but the real targets are faux-intellectualism, not Islam, which comes off rather well in comparison.
- When I read The Sun Also Rises, I could see why Hemingway became a literary sensation after it was published. I could really feel the places his characters were in.
- Late in the year I finished the third of Garrison Keillor's poetry compilations for The Writer's Almanac. Given his recent firing, it's unlikely that more are forthcoming, which is unfortunate in that Good Poems, American Places was very much to my taste and now has many post-it notes marking favorite poems.
- Late in December I started my biennial stroll through all the new Stephen King novels that have come out since the last time around. So far, the class of the current batch is a collaboration he did with Richard Chizmar called Gwendy's Button Box, which returns to that strangest of towns, Castle Rock.
- And lastly, theferrett published his fourth novel, The Uploaded. His dystopian future where everybody is uploaded into computers upon death, but they forgot to deny the dead the vote is by far his best book thus far.