The 10 Best Books of 2017
The year’s best books, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
Highlights
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CreditPatricia Wall/The New York Times Books of The Times
The Story of How Surgeons Cleaned Up Their Act
“The Butchering Art,” by the medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris, recounts how Joseph Lister and others introduced antiseptic practices to medicine.
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CreditIllustration by Jillian Tamaki By the Book
John Hodgman: By the Book
The author of, most recently, “Vacationland,” doesn’t like to talk about writing with other writers. “We mostly talk about TV.”
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CreditOlimpia Zagnoli 100 Notable Books of 2017
The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
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Roundup
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CreditOlimpia Zagnoli From Politics to Scandals, Sports Seem to Speak to Our Times
Half a dozen books on sports range from champion athletes to the fans who adore them.
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Nonfiction
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CreditThe Library of Congress The Sun Never Set on the British Empire, or Its Food
Lizzie Collingham’s “The Taste of Empire” and Erika Rappaport’s “A Thirst for Empire” explore the worldwide influence of Britain’s culinary heritage.
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Nonfiction
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CreditBettman/Getty Images The Licentious Life and Times of Jann Wenner
In “Sticky Fingers,” the first biography of the Rolling Stone co-founder and editor, Joe Hagan holds nothing back.
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The Book Review Podcast
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Credit O Pioneers!
Caroline Fraser talks about “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” and Tiya Miles discusses “The Dawn of Detroit.”
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Best Sellers
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Credit Best-Seller Lists for Dec. 3, 2017
All the lists: print, e-books, fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and more.
Books of The Times
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Books of The Times
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Credit ‘Elmet’ Backs a Brawny Man Into a Dangerous Corner
Fiona Mozley’s debut novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is about a radically self-sufficient family headed toward a reckoning with the society it has renounced.
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Books of The Times
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Credit Not if the Seas Rise, but When and How High
Jeff Goodell’s “The Water Will Come” reports on climate change and contemplates the future fates of coastal cities.
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Books of The Times
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Credit Marguerite Duras’s ‘The Lover,’ and Notebooks That Enrich It
Duras’s best-known novel has been reissued in an Everyman’s Library edition, alongside her “Wartime Notebooks” and “Practicalities,” a collection of essays.
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Books of The Times
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Credit The Story of Appalachia, With Plenty of Villains
Steven Stoll’s “Ramp Hollow” is a powerful and outrage-making analysis of the forces, over centuries, that have shaped the region.
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Books of The Times
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Credit Shades of Atwood and Vonnegut in Louise Erdrich’s Dystopian Novel
“Future Home of the Living God,” in the form of a 26-year-old woman’s diary, depicts a future when glitches in evolution are joined by widespread social deterioration.
