Every year, I keep a list of the books I’ve read between January 1st and December 31st. Mostly it’s for my own reference, but I know some people enjoy talking about books so I post it every year, too. The list does not include magazines, short stories, or individual comic-book issues, but it does include things like chapbooks and graphic novels/trade comic-book collections. So, without further ado, here is the list of books I read in 2017, in the order I read them:
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky
Weird Detective by Fred Van Lente
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1: The Crucible by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
It by Stephen King
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
By Way of the Swine by Lee Thomas
Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis
The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith
Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Legion by William Peter Blatty
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
In Search of Lost Time by Karen Heuler
That’s eighteen books, far short of my usual goal of reading thirty books a year. In my defense, though, a lot of the novels were very long but rewarded careful reading: House of Leaves, American Gods, The Sky Is Yours. Stephen King’s It alone took me two full months to read!
As you can see from some of the titles, in 2017 I continued my mission to read novels that have been on my shelf forever but that for some reason I never got around to, like House of Leaves and American Gods, as well as classic novels I should have read ages ago but somehow didn’t, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Lord of the Flies. There’s a noticeable absence of short story collections on this year’s list, so I think I’ll make an effort to read more of them in 2018.
That’s it for the 2017 list, folks! Here’s wishing you a happy new year filled with lots of great books!
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