Best Books of 2017

I read a total of 96 books in 2017, out of which a major portion were graphic novels and comics. I will do a separate best graphic novels/comics list. This list just has full length novels. I loved way too many books this year but I am narrowing the list to include 12 books only.

1. My most favorite read of this year and one of my now all time favorite book is “Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte”. I had no idea I would end up loving this book so much. I read Jane Eyre and even though I liked it, it did not end up becoming a favorite. This book was amazing with its dark plot and unlikeable characters. I was so desperate to know what was going to happen that I kept turning pages which hardly happens with classics. This is probably my most favorite classic and one which I plan to reread soon. It is a book about revenge and unrequited love.
   
2. The most fun read of this year was “The Gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue by Mackenzi Lee”. This is not a great piece of literature but it was entertaining and fun which is why this is one of my most favorite reads of this year. The cover and the premise sounded interesting which is why I picked it up. It is about a Europe trip on which our main protagonist embarks on with his best friend and sister. Everything that could go wrong on that trip goes wrong.
3. My most favorite science book of this year was “Interstellar Age by Jim Bell”. It talks about the voyager missions launched by NASA and the discoveries made by those spacecrafts.
   
4. My second favorite science book of this year was “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli“. He talks about all the scientific discoveries made in the last 100 years or so and he explains them in a very simple language without throwing too many jargons and terms. This is a great book for beginners too.
   
5. My favorite fantasy read of this year was the “Temeraire” seriesby Naomi Novik – especially the first two books in the series as I did not quite like the third one. The second part was slightly better than the first part. This is a fantasy series where dragons are used to fight Napoleon wars and there are these dragon riders who form an aerial combat team. This series focuses on one such dragon and its rider.
   
   
6. My other favorite fantasy read of this year was “Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan” which is part of his Riyria Revelations series and this book is a bind up of first two books in the series. It is a fun sword and sorcery book with two thieves as main protagonists. It was a lot of fun and not too dark or gritty but with plenty of fantasy elements from wizards to elves. If you like Lord of the rings, you should definitely check this series out.
   
7. I love tragedies written by Shakespeare so I was bound to like this one too. I have seen various adaptations of Hamlet, read abridged versions but I finally read the book in its original form this year and absolutely loved it. It is definitely one of his best plays ever.
   
8. Another book on dragon that became my favorite this year – Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C Wrede. This is a perfect feminist fantasy novel which turns all the fairy tale tropes on their head. In this series, the princess does not want to be rescued from the dragon and prefers to stay with the dragon instead of getting married to some prince. It reminded me of the Disney movie “Brave” a lot. It’s hilarious and amazing.
   
9. I was a fan of this author’s other book last year and this year I read “Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick” and this was again a very heartwarming fiction with some real historical events/places embedded and with great artwork.
   
10. My favorite biography of this year has to be “The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot”. This was one of the best biographies I have ever read. It is about a woman whose cells were used for medical research without her knowledge and how the family had to deal with this fact, the legal implications etc. This book also has a lot of information about cell culture research, cancer research and so many things.
    
11. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin Manuel Miranda and others – I did not get the opportunity to watch the performance of this play so I just read the book that had the play. I loved every single song and Hamilton is indeed a great personality.
    
12. Dear Ijeawele or A Feminist manifesto in fifteen suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie– Just like her other book on feminism “We should all be feminists”, I loved this book a lot. It’s a letter that she wrote for her friend’s daughter but I feel everyone should read this book.
    Even though I read plenty of sci-fi this year, none of them ended up becoming my favorites. They were all on the verge of getting 4 or 4.5 stars and nothing got 5/5,  which is sad. Hoping that this changes in 2018.