A very belated 2017 year in books

In 2016, I declared I would write something brief about every book I read -- resulting in my most prolific year of blogging by far. In 2017, I gave myself a break from writing about every book and, as it turns out, that turned into a break from posting basically at all. Now we're more than halfway into 2018 and I haven't posted in 18 months. Looking back over my brief notes on books I read, I think it was a good habit and I'm going to try to get back to it - though not retroactively. But I will retroactively post about my 2017 reading material. It wasn't quite as good a year as 2016, or even 2015, but I read 25 books (I've listed 26 below - I started Your Face Tomorrow vol. 3 in 2017 and didn't finish it until a couple weeks into 2018, but felt it should be included on the list with the other Your Face Tomorrow books):

• Your Face Tomorrow Vol. 1: Fever and Spear, by Javier Marías
• The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
• The Polish Boxer, by Eduardo Halfon
• Your Face Tomorrow Vol. 2: Dance and Dream, by Javier Marías
• The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
• Embassytown, by China Miéville
• A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
• Curfew, by José Donoso
• By Night in Chile, by Roberto Bolaño
• The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Kintu, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
• The Scar, by China Miéville
• We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby
• A Perfect Spy, by John Le Carré
• Jakob Von Gunten, by Robert Wallser
• The Queen of the Night, by Alexander Chee
• Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
• The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy
• Rich and Pretty, by Rumaan Alam
• Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig
• A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson
• The Group, by Mary McCarthy
• Call Me By Your Name, by Andre Aciman
• Your Face Tomorrow Vol. 3: Poison, Shadow, and Farewell, by Javier Marías

For my favorite book of the year, I'd say it's a tie (isn't it always!) between Your Face Tomorrow Vol. 1 and Curfew.

I've recommended Curfew to several people and I decided to take a trip to Chile last November, largely because of Donoso. I visited La Chascona, Pablo Neruda's home in Santiago, which plays a major part in the book (visiting this place I had read about in a book I loved so much was a rather strange and amazing experience) and also the island of Chiloé, which I only knew of because of the book. So... you could say Curfew had a pretty significant effect on my year.

Your Face Tomorrow was different. As I felt when I read The Infatuations (the first Marías book I read), the writing just spoke to me-- it felt like me. I loved all 3 books in the trilogy, but the first book especially. A huge chunk of the first book consists of the narrator getting very drunk and going through an Oxford don's library chasing down tangential details of the Spanish Civil War and it's just incredible. I haven't recommended Your Face Tomorrow to anyone because I honestly have no idea who else might enjoy it, but the whole time I was reading the books I really wished I knew someone else who had read them because I would love to talk about them. (I have recommended The Infatuations to a couple people always with the caveat that you will know within a couple pages whether you'll enjoy the book. Marías' writing is so specific, has such a distinct voice -- I imagine it's not for everyone, but it is definitely for me. The one star reviews of book 3 crack me up... like how do you get to book 3 before you decide you don't like these books?)

Other books I really enjoyed: The Polish Boxer, Kintu, The Group, Beware of Pity. (And also The Underground Railroad and The Sympathizer, but as those each won multiple prestigious awards, I hardly feel I need to recommend them.)