The Best Books I Read in 2017
If you're curious what I read all throughout 2017, though, here you go: JANUARY // FEBRUARY // MARCH // APRIL // MAY // JUNE // JULY // AUGUST // SEPTEMBER // OCTOBER // NOVEMBER // DECEMBER (coming soon!)
This year, I'm sharing favorites I read this year (not necessarily published this year!) in a variety of my favorite genres and categories! These are ones I highly recommend and will gladly share with you if you're local. Most of these are ones I'm still thinking about weeks or months later, ones that made a lasting impact on me, but there are definitely many, many other great books I read this year that aren't included here.
A quick note: there are affiliate links throughout this post-- they won't cost you any more money at all, but will throw a few cents my way to support my endless book-buying habits! It's much appreciated. :)
Favorite book about faith:
Whole: Restoring What Is Broken in Me, You, and the Entire World by Steve Wiens
Honorable mentions:
Dance, Stand, Run: The God-Inspired Moves of a Woman on Holy Ground by Jess Connolly
Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants by Louie Giglio
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer
Favorite memoir:
What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Honorable mentions:
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending by Esther Fleece
Favorite nonfiction:
Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times by Carolina de Robertis and many others
Honorable mentions:
The Myth of Equality by Ken Wytsma
Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path by Erin Loechner
Favorite collection of essays/stories:
Favorite book about food:
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Favorite fiction:
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Honorable mentions:
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
Favorite young adult:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Honorable mentions:
What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
The Radius of Us by Marie Marquardt
Favorite middlegrade:
Wildwood by Colin Meloy
Favorite thriller:
I See You by Clare Mackintosh
Favorite book of poetry:
New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2 by Mary Oliver
Honorable mentions:
A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver
I Heard God Laughing by Hafez
A Small Porch: Sabbath Poems 2014 by Wendell Berry
Favorite self-discovery book:
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
Favorite personality type book:
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr
Honorable mentions:
The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (And Other People's Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin
Enneagram Transformations by Don Richard Riso
Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything by Anne Bogel
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron
Favorite classic:
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston