The Best Nonfiction Books of 2017 (A Year-End List Aggregation)
“What are the best Nonfiction books of 2017?” We aggregated 40 year-end lists and ranked the 518 unique titles by how many times they appeared in an attempt to answer that very question!
There are thousands of year-end lists released every year and like we do in our weekly Best Book articles, we wanted to see which books appear the most. The top 36 books, all of which appeared on 4 or more best Nonfiction lists, are ranked below with images, summaries, and links for more information or to purchase. The remaining 500+ books, as well as the top book lists, are at the bottom of the page.
Make sure to take a look at our other Best of 2017 book lists:
- The Best Fiction Books of 2017
- The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017
- The Best Science & Nature Books of 2017
- The Best Cookbooks of 2017
- The Best Graphic Novels & Comics Books of 2017
- The Best Art & Photography & Coffee Table Books of 2017
- The Best Books All Categories of 2017
- The Best Biography & Memoir Books of 2017
- The Best Poetry Books of 2017
- The Best History Books of 2017
- The Best Children’s Books of 2017
- The Best Audiobooks of 2017
You can also take a look at our Best Nonfiction books from last year as well as all the other Best 2016 articles!
Happy Scrolling!
Top 36 Nonfiction Books Of 2017
36 .) Abandon Me by Melissa Febos
Lists It Appears On:
- BookRiot
- Electric Lit
- Large Hearted Boy
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection — with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession — and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another.
35 .) Age Of Anger: A History Of the Present by Pankaj Mishra
Lists It Appears On:
- NPR Books
- The Globe
- The New York Times
- Zocalo
“How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world―from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism across the world to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century before leading us to the present.
He shows that as the world became modern, those who were unable to enjoy its promises―of freedom, stability, and prosperity―were increasingly susceptible to demagogues. The many who came late to this new world―or were left, or pushed, behind―reacted in horrifyingly similar ways: with intense hatred of invented enemies, attempts to re-create an imaginary golden age, and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. It was from among the ranks of the disaffected that the militants of the nineteenth century arose―angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally.”
34 .) Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Lists It Appears On:
- MPR News
- NPR Books
- The Washington Post
- Thrillist
“He was the wittiest, the prettiest, the strongest, the bravest, and, of course, the greatest (as he told us himself). Muhammad Ali was one of the twentieth century’s most fantastic figures and arguably the most famous man on the planet.
But until now, he has never been the subject of a complete, unauthorized biography. Jonathan Eig, hailed by Ken Burns as one of America’s master storytellers, radically reshapes our understanding of the complicated man who was Ali. Eig had access to all the key people in Ali’s life, including his three surviving wives and his managers. He conducted more than 500 interviews and uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI and Justice Department files, as well dozens of hours of newly discovered audiotaped interviews from the 1960s. Collectively, they tell Ali’s story like never before—the story of a man who was flawed and uncertain and brave beyond belief.”
33 .) Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello
Lists It Appears On:
- Large Hearted Boy
- Multnomah County
- Publishers Weekly
- The New York Times
Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000 year old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the 16 essays in Animals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalized by humans. Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whipsmart essays traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life.
32 .) Caca Dolce by Chelsea Martin
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- Large Hearted Boy
Funny, candid, and searchingly self-aware, this essay collection tells the story of Chelsea Martin’s coming of age as an artist. We are with Chelsea as an eleven-year-old atheist, trying to will an alien visitation to her neighborhood; fighting with her stepfather and grappling with a Tourette’s diagnosis as she becomes a teenager; falling under the sway of frenemies and crushes in high school; going into debt to afford what might be a meaningless education at an expensive art college; navigating the messy process of falling in love with a close friend; and struggling for independence from her emotionally manipulative father and from the family and friends in the dead-end California town that has defined her upbringing. This is a book about relationships, class, art, sex, money, and family―and about growing up weird, and poor, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
31 .) Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- Indigo
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
“A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie’s letter of response.
Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions–compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive–for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can “”allow”” women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.”
30 .) From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Goodreads
- MPR News
- NPR Books
“Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Here to Eternity is an immersive global journey that introduces compelling, powerful rituals almost entirely unknown in America.
In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather’s mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones’ bones from cremation ashes.
With boundless curiosity and gallows humor, Doughty vividly describes decomposed bodies and investigates the world’s funerary history. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico’s Días de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light.”
29 .) Greater Gotham: A History Of New York City From 1898 To 1919 by Mike Wallace
Lists It Appears On:
- Marginal Revolution
- NPR Books
- Publishers Weekly
- The New York Times
“In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers’ Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving from national to global prominence — an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed.
Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a newly consolidated New York grew exponentially. The city exploded into the air, with skyscrapers jostling for prominence, and dove deep into the bedrock where massive underground networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduits sprawled beneath the city to serve a surging population of New Yorkers from all walks of life. New York was transformed in these two decades as the world’s second-largest city and now its financial capital, thriving and sustained by the city’s seemingly unlimited potential. “
28 .) Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Indigo
- Publishers Weekly
- The Washington Post
“Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.
He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.
His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history’s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo’s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions.
“
27 .) Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
Lists It Appears On:
- King County Library
- NPR Books
- Publishers Weekly
- The New York Times
“In recent years, America’s criminal justice system has become the subject of an increasingly urgent debate. Critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. As James Forman, Jr., points out, however, the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand why.
Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness―and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods.”
26 .) Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth And Rock And Roll In New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman
Lists It Appears On:
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
- Paste
- The Portable Infinite
“Joining the ranks of the classics Please Kill Me, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, an intriguing oral history of the post-9/11 decline of the old-guard music industry and rebirth of the New York rock scene, led by a group of iconoclastic rock bands.
In the second half of the twentieth-century New York was the source of new sounds, including the Greenwich Village folk scene, punk and new wave, and hip-hop. But as the end of the millennium neared, cutting-edge bands began emerging from Seattle, Austin, and London, pushing New York further from the epicenter. The behemoth music industry, too, found itself in free fall, under siege from technology. Then 9/11/2001 plunged the country into a state of uncertainty and war—and a dozen New York City bands that had been honing their sound and style in relative obscurity suddenly became symbols of glamour for a young, web-savvy, forward-looking generation in need of an anthem.”
25 .) No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
Lists It Appears On:
- Entroopy
- King County Library
- Noted
- Publishers Weekly
Acclaimed journalist, activist, and bestselling author Naomi Klein has spent two decades studying political shocks, climate change, and “brand bullies.” From this unique perspective, she argues that Trump is not an aberration but a logical extension of the worst, most dangerous trends of the past half-century—the very conditions that have unleashed a rising tide of white nationalism the world over. It is not enough, she tells us, to merely resist, to say “no.” Our historical moment demands more: a credible and inspiring “yes,” a roadmap to reclaiming the populist ground from those who would divide us—one that sets a bold course for winning the fair and caring world we want and need.
24 .) Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli
Lists It Appears On:
- Island Books
- MPR News
- NPR Books
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
23 .) The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
Lists It Appears On:
- King County Library
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
- Shelf Awareness
“This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
At the heart of Bui’s story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent—the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.”
22 .) The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Lists It Appears On:
- Boston Globe
- NPR Books
- Publishers Weekly
- The New York Times
“In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as “”brilliant”” (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.
As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.”
21 .) The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich
Lists It Appears On:
- MPR News
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
- The Washington Post
“For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her invention of “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.”
In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women—more than a million in total—were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten.
Alexievich traveled thousands of miles and visited more than a hundred towns to record these women’s stories. Together, this symphony of voices reveals a different aspect of the war—the everyday details of life in combat left out of the official histories.”
20 .) World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
Lists It Appears On:
- LA Times
- NPR Books
- The Globe
- The New York Times
“Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection—a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being coopted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success.
Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science—from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today’s Silicon Valley—Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide.”
19 .) Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Island Books
- The Washington Post
- Time
“Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.
What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.”
18 .) Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein
Lists It Appears On:
- Boston Globe
- MPR News
- NPR Books
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
“This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down—but it’s not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.
Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation’s oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America’s biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it’s so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class.”
17 .) Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Hudson Booksellers
- Indigo
- King County Library
- The Portable Infinite
- Thrillist
“What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.”
16 .) The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Goodreads
- North Shore News
- Publishers Weekly
- Shelf Awareness
- The New York Times
“Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.
Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.”
15 .) The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- Indigo
- King County Library
- Multnomah County
- Noted
- The Globe
Could you leave behind all that you know and live in solitude for three decades? This is the extraordinary story of the last true hermit – Christopher Knight. ‘This was a breath-taking book to read and many weeks later I am still thinking about the implications for our society and – by extension – for my own life’ Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of The Perfect Storm ‘A wry meditation on one man’s attempt to escape life’s distractions and look inwards, to find meaning not by doing, but by being’Martin Sixsmith, bestselling author of Philomena and Ayesha’s Gift ‘Not all heroes wear capes. My latest one is a man called Christopher Knight – a silent idol for anyone who has felt the urge to just sack it all off and live the life of a hermit’ Lucy Mangan, Stylist ‘An extraordinary story about solitude, community, identity and freedom’ Guardian In 1986, twenty-year-old Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the woods.He would not speak to another human being until three decades later when he was arrested for stealing food. Christopher survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store food and water in order to avoid freezing to death in his tent during the harsh Maine winters. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothes, reading material and other provisions, taking only what he needed. In the process, he unwittingly terrified a community unable to solve the mysterious burglaries. Myths abounded amongst the locals eager to find this legendary hermit. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life and the challenges he faced returning to the world. The Stranger in the Woods is a riveting story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude and what makes for a good life.Above all, this is a deeply moving portrait of a man determined to live life his own way.
14 .) They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
Lists It Appears On:
- Chicago Tribune
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- NPR Books
- Paste
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
“In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s is a voice that matters. Whether he’s attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Willis-Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.”
13 .) American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Boston Globe
- Island Books
- NPR Books
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- Thrillist
“The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn’t stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate―there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning.
The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie’s confession unspooled, it got deeper and weirder. He wasn’t lighting fires alone; his crimes were galvanized by a surprising love story. Over a year of investigating, Hesse uncovered the motives of Charlie and his accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick, a woman of steel-like strength and an inscrutable past. Theirs was a love built on impossibly tight budgets and simple pleasures. They were each other’s inspiration and escape…until they weren’t.”
12 .) One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Book Riot 2
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Electric Lit
- NPR Books
- Paste
- The Globe
In One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of color: where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision, or outright scorn; where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, leaving little room for a woman not solely focused on marriage and children to have a career (and a life) for herself.
11 .) Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- NPR Books
- Paste
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
“Sarah Gerard follows her breakout novel, Binary Star, with the dynamic essay collection Sunshine State, which explores Florida as a microcosm of the most pressing economic and environmental perils haunting our society.
In the collection’s title essay, Gerard volunteers at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a world renowned bird refuge. There she meets its founder, who once modeled with a pelican on his arm for a Dewar’s Scotch campaign but has since declined into a pit of fraud and madness. He becomes our embezzling protagonist whose tales about the birds he “rescues” never quite add up. Gerard’s personal stories are no less eerie or poignant: An essay that begins as a look at Gerard’s first relationship becomes a heart-wrenching exploration of acquaintance rape and consent. An account of intimate female friendship pivots midway through, morphing into a meditation on jealousy and class.”
10 .) The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
Lists It Appears On:
- Boston Globe
- King County Library
- LA Times
- NPR Books
- Paste
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Black students who called themselves “the Emmett Till generation” launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a mass movement. Till’s lynching became the most notorious hate crime in American history.
9 .) What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lists It Appears On:
- Boston Globe
- LA Times
- NPR Books
- The Globe
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- Time
“For the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. This is her most personal memoir yet.
In these pages, she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. With humor and candor, she tells readers what it took to get back on her feet—the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. She speaks about the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics.”
8 .) The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Boston Globe
- Chicago Tribune
- LA Times
- North Shore News
- Noted
- Paste
- The New York Times
“Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own–as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.
Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.”
7 .) Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, And Fake News by Kevin Young
Lists It Appears On:
- BookRiot
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Dallas News
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- LA Times
- NPR Books
- The New York Times
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
“Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers―from the humbug of P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and Donald J. Trump. Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution.
Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of “truthiness” where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.”
6 .) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Chicago Tribune
- Entroopy
- Hudson Booksellers
- King County Library
- Large Hearted Boy
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., “bitches gotta eat” blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette—she’s “35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something”—detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms—hang in there for the Costco loot—she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
5 .) Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot 2
- Boston Globe
- Chicago Tribune
- Electric Lit
- Multnomah County
- Paste
- Publishers Weekly
- Shelf Awareness
- The New York Times
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
“Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met—a man who lounges in boxer shorts, loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates “like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972.” His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the Church’s country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents’ rectory, their two worlds collide.
In Priestdaddy, Lockwood interweaves emblematic moments from her childhood and adolescence—from an ill-fated family hunting trip and an abortion clinic sit-in where her father was arrested to her involvement in a cultlike Catholic youth group—with scenes that chronicle the eight-month adventure she and her husband had in her parents’ household after a decade of living on their own. Lockwood details her education of a seminarian who is also living at the rectory, tries to explain Catholicism to her husband, who is mystified by its bloodthirstiness and arcane laws, and encounters a mysterious substance on a hotel bed with her mother. “
4 .) You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Book Riot 2
- Hudson Booksellers
- Island Books
- King County Library
- LA Times
- Multnomah County
- NPR Books
- Shelf Awareness
- The Washington Post
- Boston Globe
Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie’s bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most. She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth. She selflessly cared for strangers, but was often incapable of showering her children with the affection that they so desperately craved. She wanted a better life for her son, but it was only by leaving her behind that he could hope to achieve it. It’s these contradictions that made Lillian Alexie a beautiful, mercurial, abusive, intelligent, complicated, and very human woman.
3 .) We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Book Riot 2
- Boston Globe
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- Goodreads
- Island Books
- King County Library
- LA Times
- MPR News
- Multnomah County
- Paste
- The New York Times
- Time
But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period—and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.
2 .) Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot 2
- Electric Lit
- Entroopy
- Indigo
- King County Library
- LA Times
- Large Hearted Boy
- Multnomah County
- Noted
- NPR Books
- Paste
- Publishers Weekly
- Readings
- Shelf Awareness
- The Globe
- Time
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.
1 .) Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Lists It Appears On:
- Amazon
- Amber Sparks
- Barnes & Noble
- Boston Globe
- Electric Lit
- Hudson Booksellers
- Island Books
- King County Library
- LA Times
- MPR News
- North Shore News
- NPR Books
- Paste
- Publishers Weekly
- Readings
- Shelf Awareness
- The Globe
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- Time
- Vol.1 Brooklyn
“In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.”
The 500+ Additional Best Nonfiction Books Of 2017
| # | Books | Author | Lists |
| (Titles Appear On 3 Lists Each) | |||
| 37 | 300 Arguments | Sarah Manguso | BookRiot |
| Electric Lit | |||
| Entroopy | |||
| 38 | After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography | Chris Kraus | Entroopy |
| NPR Books | |||
| The Portable Infinite | |||
| 39 | Afterglow (a dog memoir) | Eileen Myles | Entroopy |
| The Globe | |||
| Thrillist | |||
| 40 | American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road | Nick Bilton | Amazon |
| Sit Tableside | |||
| The Globe | |||
| 41 | Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India | Sujatha Gidla | Publishers Weekly |
| Shelf Awareness | |||
| Marginal Revolution | |||
| 42 | Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone | Brené Brown | Amazon |
| Indigo | |||
| Sit Tableside | |||
| 43 | Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II | Liza Mundy | Barnes & Noble |
| King County Library | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 44 | Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story Of One Band And The Whole World | Rob Sheffield | Marginal Revolution |
| Multnomah County | |||
| NPR Books | |||
| 45 | Ghost Of The Innocent Man: A True Story Of Trial And Redemption | Benjamin Rachlin | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| Shelf Awareness | |||
| 46 | Gorbachev: His Life And Times | William Taubmann | Marginal Revolution |
| NPR Books | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 47 | Grant | Ron Chernow | Barnes & Noble |
| Boston Globe | |||
| The New York Times | |||
| 48 | High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic | Glenn Frankel | Dallas News |
| LA Times | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 49 | Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century | Jessica Bruder | King County Library |
| Multnomah County | |||
| The New York Times | |||
| 50 | Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy | Sheryl Sandberg | Barnes & Noble |
| Goodreads | |||
| Indigo | |||
| 51 | Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life | Jonathan Gould | North Shore News |
| NPR Books | |||
| Paste | |||
| 52 | Somebody With A Little Hammer: Essays | Mary Gaitskill | Electric Lit |
| Marginal Revolution | |||
| The Portable Infinite | |||
| 53 | Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine | Joe Hagan | The Spinoff |
| North Shore News | |||
| Thrillist | |||
| 54 | Tenements, Towers and Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History Of New York City | Julia Wertz | Chicago Tribune |
| NPR Books | |||
| The New York Times | |||
| 55 | The Death and Life of the Great Lakes | Dan Egan | MPR News |
| Multnomah County | |||
| The New York Times | |||
| 56 | The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America | Frances FitzGerald | The New York Times |
| The Washington Post | |||
| Time | |||
| 57 | The Invention of Angela Carter | Edmund Gordon | Amber Sparks |
| The New York Times | |||
| The Portable Infinite | |||
| 58 | The Potlikker Papers: A Food History Of The Modern South | John T. Edge | NPR Books |
| Paste | |||
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| 59 | The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America’s Shining Women | Kate Moore | Barnes & Noble |
| King County Library | |||
| NPR Books | |||
| 60 | The Retreat of Western Liberalism | Edward Luce | Amazon |
| Noted | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 61 | Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) | David Sedaris | Barnes & Noble |
| NPR Books | |||
| The Spinoff | |||
| 62 | Too Much And Not The Mood: Essays | Durga Chew-Bose | Chicago Review Of Books |
| NPR Books | |||
| The Globe | |||
| 63 | What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories | Laura Shapiro | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 64 | Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race | Reni Eddo-Lodge | NPR Books |
| Readings | |||
| Shelf Awareness | |||
| 65 | Why Poetry | Matthew Zapruder | Entroopy |
| LA Times | |||
| The Washington Post | |||
| 66 | Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries | Kory Stamper | Amazon |
| Goodreads | |||
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| (Titles Appear On 2 Lists Each) | |||
| 67 | A Woman is a Woman Until She is a Mother | Anna Prushinskaya | Amber Sparks |
| Entroopy | |||
| 68 | Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World Of The Bushmen | James Suzman | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 69 | An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business And How You Can Take It Back | Elisabeth Rosenthal | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 70 | Autumn | Karl Ove Knausgaard | Entroopy |
| NPR Books | |||
| 71 | Basketball | Shea Serrano | Barnes & Noble |
| NPR Books | |||
| 72 | Between Them: Remembering My Parents | Richard Ford | NPR Books |
| The Globe | |||
| 73 | Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation | Kyo Maclear | Entroopy |
| The Globe | |||
| 74 | Blind Spot | Teju Cole | Entroopy |
| Time | |||
| 75 | Body Horror | Anne Elizabeth Moore | BookRiot |
| 1 | Chicago Review Of Books | ||
| 76 | Book of Mutter | Kate Zambreno | Electric Lit |
| Entroopy | |||
| 77 | Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe | Kapka Kassabova | BookRiot |
| Noted | |||
| 78 | Born a Crime | Trevor Noah | Multnomah County |
| The New York Times | |||
| 79 | Calder: The Conquest of Time: The Early Years, 1898-1940 | Jed Perl | Boston Globe |
| LA Times | |||
| 80 | Chester B. Himes: A Biography | Lawrence P. Jackson | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 81 | Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom | Thomas E. Ricks | Barnes & Noble |
| The New York Times | |||
| 82 | Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among The Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, And Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me To Live For Taste | Bianca Bosker | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| 83 | Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. | Danielle Allen | Shelf Awareness |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 84 | Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life | Yiyun Li | Amber Sparks |
| Entroopy | |||
| 85 | Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, And The Storming Of The Presidency | Joshua Green | NPR Books |
| The New York Times | |||
| 86 | Draft No. 4: On The Writing Process | John McPhee | Amazon |
| NPR Books | |||
| 87 | Dying: A Memoir | Cory Taylor | Amber Sparks |
| Entroopy | |||
| 88 | Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast | Megan Marshall | Boston Globe |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 89 | Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics | Kim Phillips-Fein | Amazon |
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| 90 | Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life | Robert Dallek | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 91 | Ghosts of Seattle Past: An Anthology of Lost Seattle Places | Jaimee Garbacik | King County Library |
| Multnomah County | |||
| 92 | Ghosts Of The Tsunami: Death And Life In Japan’s Disaster Zone | Richard Lloyd Parry | Amazon |
| NPR Books | |||
| 93 | Good Booty: Love And Sex, Black And White, Body And Soul In American Music | Ann Powers | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| NPR Books | |||
| 94 | Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 | Daniel Wolff | Paste |
| Thrillist | |||
| 95 | Henry David Thoreau: A Life | Laura Dassow Walls | Publishers Weekly |
| The New York Times | |||
| 96 | Hostage | Guy Delisle | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| 97 | How to Murder Your Life | Cat Marnell | Paste |
| The Spinoff | |||
| 98 | Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam | Mark Bowden | Hudson Booksellers |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 99 | I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad | Souad Mekhennet | MPR News |
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| 100 | Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me | Bill Hayes | Readings |
| Shelf Awareness | |||
| 101 | Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel | John Stubbs | LA Times |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 102 | Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right | Angela Nagle | NPR Books |
| The Spinoff | |||
| 103 | Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night | Jason Zinoman | The New York Times |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 104 | Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey Of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf | Helene Cooper | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 105 | Mozart’s Starling | Lyanda Lynn Haupt | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| 106 | No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America | Ron Powers | The Washington Post |
| Shelf Awareness | |||
| 107 | October: The Story of the Russian Revolution | China Mieville | Multnomah County |
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| 108 | On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century | Timothy Snyder | Indigo |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 109 | Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder | Caroline Fraser | Boston Globe |
| The New York Times | |||
| 110 | Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan | Elaine M. Hayes | Publishers Weekly |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 111 | Ranger Games | Ben Blum | MPR News |
| Indigo | |||
| 112 | Richard Nixon: The Life | John A. Farrell | NPR Books |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 113 | Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama | David Garrow | Zocalo |
| Marginal Revolution | |||
| 114 | Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A study of Genius, Mania, and Character | Kay Redfield Jamison | Boston Globe |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 115 | South and West: From a Notebook | Joan Didion | North Shore News |
| NPR Books | |||
| 116 | Sting-Ray Afternoons: A memoir | Steve Rushin | MPR News |
| Multnomah County | |||
| 117 | The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, And The Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost | Peter Manseau | NPR Books |
| Publishers Weekly | |||
| 118 | The Bright Hour: A Memoir Of Living And Dying | Nina Riggs | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| 119 | The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick’ | Darryl Pinckney | The New York Times |
| Boston Globe | |||
| 120 | The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History In The Old South | Michael W. Twitty | NPR Books |
| Paste | |||
| 121 | THE DAWN WATCH: Joseph Conrad in a Global World | Maya Jasanoff | Dallas News |
| The New York Times | |||
| 122 | The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — And Us. | Richard O. Prum | Marginal Revolution |
| The New York Times | |||
| 123 | The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea | Jack E. Davis | NPR Books |
| The New York Times | |||
| 124 | The High Road: A Journey to the New Frontier of Cannabis | Colin Hogg | Noted |
| The Spinoff | |||
| 125 | The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume 1: 1940-1956 | Sylvia Plath. Edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil | Entroopy |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 126 | The Misfit’s Manifesto | Lidia Yuknavitch | Multnomah County |
| Entroopy | |||
| 127 | The Mother Of All Questions | Rebecca Solnit | NPR Books |
| 1 | The Spinoff | ||
| 128 | The New Analog: Listening And Reconnecting In A Digital World | Damon Krukowski | NPR Books |
| The Portable Infinite | |||
| 129 | The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir | Ariel Levy | NPR Books |
| Time | |||
| 130 | The Undoing Project | Michael Lewis | Hudson Booksellers |
| The New York Times | |||
| 131 | The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease | Meredith Wadman | Publishers Weekly |
| The Washington Post | |||
| 132 | The Vanity Fair Diaries | Tina Brown | Time |
| Paste | |||
| 133 | The Wrong Way to Save Your Life | Megan Stielstra | Chicago Review Of Books |
| Vol.1 Brooklyn | |||
| 134 | Who Thought This Was A Good Idea? | Alyssa Mastromonaco | King County Library |
| Multnomah County | |||
| 135 | Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams | Matthew Walker | Multnomah County |
| NPR Books | |||
| 136 | Wild Things: The Joy Of Reading Children’s Literature As An Adult | Bruce Handy | King County Library |
| NPR Books | |||
| 137 | You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages | Carina Chocano | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| Amazon | |||
| 138 | You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn | Wendy Lesser | The New York Times |
| The Washington Post | |||
| (Titles Appear On 1 Lists Each) | |||
| 139 | 18 And Life On Skid Row | Sebastian Bach | NPR Books |
| 140 | A Cage of Shadows | Turnaround | |
| 141 | A COLONY IN A NATION | Chris Hayes | The New York Times |
| 142 | A Disappearance in Damascus: Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War | Deborah Campbell | Paste |
| 143 | A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa | Alexis Okeowo | Thrillist |
| 144 | A Passion for China | Turnaround | |
| 145 | A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand | Jim Harrison | Shelf Awareness |
| 146 | A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun | Angela Jackson | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 147 | A TransPacific Poetics Edited | Lisa Samuels & Sawako Nakayasu | Entroopy |
| 148 | A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work | Bernadette Brennan | Readings |
| 149 | A Year in the Wilderness: Bearing Witness in the Boundary Waters | Amy and Dave Freeman | Multnomah County |
| 150 | About to Happen | Cecilia Vicuña | Entroopy |
| 151 | Acker | Douglas A. Martin | The Portable Infinite |
| 152 | Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon | Henry Marsh | Thrillist |
| 153 | Adult Fantasy | Briohny Doyle | Readings |
| 154 | Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. | James C. Scott | Marginal Revolution |
| 155 | Al Franken Giant of the Senate | Hudson Booksellers | |
| 156 | American Wolf | Nate Blakeslee | King County Library |
| 157 | An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, And An Epic | Daniel Mendelsohn | NPR Books |
| 158 | And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Stories From The Byways Of American Women And Religion | Adrian Shirk | NPR Books |
| 159 | Apollo in the Age of Aquarius. | Neil M. Maher | Marginal Revolution |
| 160 | Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition Of 1761-1767 | Thorkild Hansen, translated | NPR Books |
| 161 | Arrival: The Story of CanLit, | Nick Mount | The Globe |
| 162 | ARS BOTANICA | TIM TARANTO | BookRiot |
| 163 | Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene | Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan and Nils Bubandt | Shelf Awareness |
| 164 | At The Lightning Field | Laura Raicovich | NPR Books |
| 165 | Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game That Saved Me, | Stacey May Fowles | The Globe |
| 166 | Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst | Robert M. Sapolsky | Barnes & Noble |
| 167 | Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide | Charles Foster | Entroopy |
| 168 | Being Elvis: A Lonely Life | Ray Connolly | The Portable Infinite |
| 169 | Bellevue: Three Centuries Of Medicine And Mayhem At America’s Most Storied Hospital | David Oshinsky | NPR Books |
| 170 | Big Capital | Anna Minton | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 171 | Birding Without Borders | Noah Strycker | Multnomah County |
| 172 | Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street, | Sheelah Kolhatkar | The Globe |
| 173 | Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator | Eve Lazarus | North Shore News |
| 174 | Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty | Melissa del Bosque | Thrillist |
| 175 | Bobby Kennedy | Chris Matthews | Barnes & Noble |
| 176 | Botox Nation: Changing The Face Of America | Dana Berkowitz | NPR Books |
| 177 | Brolliology | Turnaround | |
| 178 | Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy. | Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake | Marginal Revolution |
| 179 | Carole Boston Weatherford | Carole Boston Weatherford, illus. by Eric Velasquez. Candlewick | School Library Journal |
| 180 | Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker | A N Wilson | The Spinoff |
| 181 | Cheech Is Not My Real Name … But Don’t Call Me Chong! | Zocalo | |
| 182 | Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name: The Change of Worlds for the Native People and Settlers on Puget Sound | David M. Buerge | Island Books |
| 183 | Chokehold: Policing Black Men | Paul Butler | The Washington Post |
| 184 | Chris Harris | Chris Harris, illus. by Lane Smith. Little, Brown | School Library Journal |
| 185 | Chuck D presents This day in rap and hip-hop history | Chuck D | Multnomah County |
| 186 | Cinemaps: An Atlas Of 35 Great Movies | Andrew DeGraff, with essays | NPR Books |
| 187 | Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy. | Douglas Irwin | Marginal Revolution |
| 188 | Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50 Year Relationship on and off the Court | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | LA Times |
| 189 | Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook | Alice Waters | Publishers Weekly |
| 190 | Conversation With Edwidge Danticat | Maxine Lavon Montgomery (editor) | The Portable Infinite |
| 191 | Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate | Zoe Quinn | Paste |
| 192 | Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race, | Naben Ruthnum | The Globe |
| 193 | Cynthia Levinson & Sanford Levinson | Cynthia Levinson & Sanford Levinson. Peachtree | School Library Journal |
| 194 | Dadland | Keggie Carew | NPR Books |
| 195 | Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years | Nelson Mandela and Mandla Langa | NPR Books |
| 196 | Daring to Drive | Manal Sharif | King County Library |
| 197 | Dashka Slater | Dashka Slater. Farrar | School Library Journal |
| 198 | Dave Eggers | Dave Eggers, illus. by Shawn Harris. Chronicle | School Library Journal |
| 199 | David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LBGT Music | Darryl W. Bullock | Thrillist |
| 200 | David Bowie: A Life | Dylan Jones | Multnomah County |
| 201 | Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion | Chris Barton | Multnomah County |
| 202 | Deborah Heiligman | Deborah Heiligman. Holt | School Library Journal |
| 203 | Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America | Nancy MacLean | Publishers Weekly |
| 204 | Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom | Condoleezza Rice | Barnes & Noble |
| 205 | DESTINED FOR WAR: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? | Graham Allison | The New York Times |
| 206 | Dinner: Changing the Game | Melissa Clark | Multnomah County |
| 207 | Dishing Up the Dirt: Simple Recipes for Cooking Through the Seasons | Andrea Bemis | Multnomah County |
| 208 | Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters | Harold Evans | NPR Books |
| 209 | Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West | Tom Clavin | Barnes & Noble |
| 210 | Draw Your Weapons | Turnaround | |
| 211 | Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit | Aisha Sabatini Sloan | Entroopy |
| 212 | Driving to Treblinka | Diana Wichtel | The Spinoff |
| 213 | Easternization: Asia’s Rise And America’s Decline From Obama To Trump And Beyond | Gideon Rachman | NPR Books |
| 214 | editor | Ken Gormley | Marginal Revolution |
| 215 | editor. A New Literary History of Modern China. | David Der-Wei Wang | Marginal Revolution |
| 216 | Elizabeth Rusch | Elizabeth Rusch, photos by Karin Anderson. HMH | School Library Journal |
| 217 | Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds | Adrienne Maree Brown | Entroopy |
| 218 | Emma Otheguy | Emma Otheguy, illus. by Beatriz Vidal. Children’s Pr./Lee & Low | School Library Journal |
| 219 | Empty Branch, Finding Hope Through Lament | Marilyn Weisenburg | Multnomah County |
| 220 | Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery | Scott Kelly | Barnes & Noble |
| 221 | Ernest Hemingway: A Biography | Mary V. Dearborn | The Washington Post |
| 222 | Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem | Bill Nye | Barnes & Noble |
| 223 | Everything Is Combustible | Richard Lloyd | The Portable Infinite |
| 224 | Everything Is Flammable | Gabrielle Bell | NPR Books |
| 225 | Extreme Cities: The Perils and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change | Ashley Dawson | Publishers Weekly |
| 226 | F*ck Love | Michael and Sarah Bennett | Multnomah County |
| 227 | False River | Paula Morris | The Spinoff |
| 228 | Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History | Kurt Andersen | Noted |
| 229 | Farewell To The Muse: Love, War, and the Women of Surrealism | Whitney Chadwick | The Portable Infinite |
| 230 | Fashion Jewelry: A beginner’s guide to jewelry making | Courtney Legenhausen | Multnomah County |
| 231 | FASTING AND FEASTING: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray | Adam Federman | The New York Times |
| 232 | Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy. | Tim Harford | Marginal Revolution |
| 233 | Final Fantasy V | Chris Kohler | Entroopy |
| 234 | Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story | Peter Bagge | NPR Books |
| 235 | FLÂNEUSE: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London | Lauren Elkin | The New York Times |
| 236 | Flying Machines: How the Wright Brothers Soared | Alison Wilgus | Multnomah County |
| 237 | Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years | Turnaround | |
| 238 | Fred Korematsu Speaks Up | Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi | Multnomah County |
| 239 | FRIENDS DIVIDED: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson | Gordon S. Wood | The New York Times |
| 240 | From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon | Mattias Bostrom. Translated from the Swedish by Michael Gallagher | The Washington Post |
| 241 | From Our Hearts to Yours: New Narrative as Contemporary Practice Edited | Rob Halpern & Robin Tremblay-McGaw | Entroopy |
| 242 | Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador, and the Future of Hockey, | Ken Dryden | The Globe |
| 243 | GENERATION REVOLUTION: On the Front Line Between Tradition and Change in the Middle East | Rachel Aspden | The New York Times |
| 244 | Generation Wealth | Lauren Greenfield | Multnomah County |
| 245 | Get well soon: History’s worst plagues and the heroes who fought them | Jennifer Wright | Multnomah County |
| 246 | Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats | Turnaround | |
| 247 | Give a Girl a Knife | Amy Thielen | Shelf Awareness |
| 248 | Goethe: Life as a Work of Art | Rudiger Safranski | The Portable Infinite |
| 249 | Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York | Roz Chast | Multnomah County |
| 250 | Good-bye Maoriland: The Songs and Sounds of New Zealand’s Great War | Chris Bourke | The Spinoff |
| 251 | Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code | Laurie Wallmark | Multnomah County |
| 252 | Gutenberg’s Fingerprint: Paper, Pixels and the Lasting Impression of Books, | Merilyn Simonds | The Globe |
| 253 | Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy | Anne Lamott | Goodreads |
| 254 | HAMLET GLOBE TO GLOBE: Two Years, 190,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play | Dominic Dromgoole | The New York Times |
| 255 | He Calls Me by Lightning: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty | S. Jonathan Bass | The Washington Post |
| 256 | Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. | Peter H. Wilson | Marginal Revolution |
| 257 | HEATING & COOLING: 52 MICRO-MEMOIRS | BETH ANN FENNELLY | BookRiot |
| 258 | Hello! My Name is Tasty: Global Diner Favorites from Portland’s Tasty Restaurants | Liz Crain and John Gorham | Multnomah County |
| 259 | Hit So Hard: A Memoir | Patty Schemel | The Portable Infinite |
| 260 | Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekeland | MPR News |
| 261 | Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, | Kenneth Whyte | The Globe |
| 262 | Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage | Dani Shapiro | MPR News |
| 263 | How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life | Lilly Singh | Goodreads |
| 264 | How To Be an Elephant | Katherine Roy | Multnomah County |
| 265 | How To Keep You Alive | Ella Longpre | Entroopy |
| 266 | How to Read a Dress | Lydia Edwards | Multnomah County |
| 267 | I Am The Wolf: Lyrics and Writings | Mark Lanegan | The Portable Infinite |
| 268 | I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks Against the Students of Ayotzinapa | John Gibler | Publishers Weekly |
| 269 | I Hear She’s A Real Bitch, | Jen Agg | The Globe |
| 270 | I’m Just No Good at Rhyming | Chris Harris | Multnomah County |
| 271 | Ideal Suggestions: Essays in Divinatory Poetics | Selah Saterstrom | Entroopy |
| 272 | iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious | Jean M. Twenge | Marginal Revolution |
| 273 | Imagine Wanting Only This | Kristen Radtke | Electric Lit |
| 274 | Insane Clown President | Matt Taibbi | The Spinoff |
| 275 | Inside Studio 54 | Mark Fleischman | NPR Books |
| 276 | Instant Pot Obsession | Janet Zimmerman | Multnomah County |
| 277 | Irradiated Cities | Mariko Nagai | Entroopy |
| 278 | Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked | Adam Alter | Amazon |
| 279 | Jason Chin | Jason Chin, illus. by author. Roaring Brook/Neal Porter Bks. | School Library Journal |
| 280 | Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty | John B. Boles | The Washington Post |
| 281 | Joni: The Anthology Edited | Barney Hoskyns | North Shore News |
| 282 | Juliet’s Answer: One Man’s Search for Love and the Elusive Cure for Heartbreak, | Glenn Dixon | The Globe |
| 283 | Kadian Journal | Thomas Harding | MPR News |
| 284 | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld. Little, Brown | School Library Journal |
| 285 | Katherine Roy | Katherine Roy, illus. by author. Roaring Brook/David Macaulay Studio | School Library Journal |
| 286 | Keeping On Keeping On | Alan Bennett | NPR Books |
| 287 | Kelly Jensen | Kelly Jensen, ed, illus. by Laura Palese. Algonquin | School Library Journal |
| 288 | Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights | Steven Levingston | The Washington Post |
| 289 | Koh-I-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond | William Dalrymple and Anita Anand | Multnomah County |
| 290 | KRAZY: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White | Michael Tisserand | The New York Times |
| 291 | L’Appart: The Delights And Disasters Of Making My Paris Home | David Lebovitz | NPR Books |
| 292 | Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History | Tori Telfer | NPR Books |
| 293 | Late Essays | JM Coetzee | The Spinoff |
| 294 | LENIN: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror | Victor Sebestyen | The New York Times |
| 295 | Lesa Cline-Ransome | Lesa Cline-Ransome, illus. by James E. Ransome. Holiday House | School Library Journal |
| 296 | Life on the Ground Floor, | James Maskalyk | The Globe |
| 297 | Light the Dark | Turnaround | |
| 298 | Like a Solid to a Shadow | Janice Lobo Sapigao | Entroopy |
| 299 | Lisa Charleyhorse & Mary Beth Leatherdale | Lisa Charleyhorse & Mary Beth Leatherdale, eds. Annick | School Library Journal |
| 300 | Literary Witches: A Celebration Of Magical Women Writers | Taisia Kitaiskaia, illustrated | NPR Books |
| 301 | Literature Class, Berkeley 1980 | Julio Cortázar , translated | NPR Books |
| 302 | Living a Feminist Life | Sara Ahmed | Entroopy |
| 303 | Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. | John F. Pfaff | Marginal Revolution |
| 304 | Lonely Boy | Steve Jones | The Portable Infinite |
| 305 | Long Shot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter | Craig Hodges | Entroopy |
| 306 | LOOKING FOR “THE STRANGER”: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic | Alice Kaplan | The New York Times |
| 307 | Loree Griffin Burns | Loree Griffin Burns. HMH | School Library Journal |
| 308 | Lou Reed: A Life | Anthony DeCurtis | The Portable Infinite |
| 309 | Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning | Claire Dederer | Island Books |
| 310 | Make Trouble | John Waters | King County Library |
| 311 | Māori at Home: An Everyday Guide to Learning the Māori Language | Scotty & Stacey Morrison | The Spinoff |
| 312 | Marc Aronson & Marina Budhos | Marc Aronson & Marina Budhos. Holt | School Library Journal |
| 313 | Margarita Engle | Margarita Engle, illus. by Rafael López. Holt | School Library Journal |
| 314 | Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet | Lyndal Roper | Multnomah County |
| 315 | Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World | Eric Metaxas | Barnes & Noble |
| 316 | Martin W. Sandler | Martin W. Sandler. Candlewick | School Library Journal |
| 317 | Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights | Paulo Lemos Horta | North Shore News |
| 318 | Mary Losure | Mary Losure. Candlewick | School Library Journal |
| 319 | MEAN | MYRIAM GURBA | BookRiot |
| 320 | Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame | Michael Kodas | Amazon |
| 321 | Memory’s Last Breath: Field Notes On My Dementia | Gerda Saunders | NPR Books |
| 322 | Mid-Life Ex-Wife | Stella Grey | Multnomah County |
| 323 | Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters | Michael Mahin | Multnomah County |
| 324 | MUTE: A Visual Document | Terry Burrows | The Portable Infinite |
| 325 | My Back Pages | Steven Moore | Multnomah County |
| 326 | My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness | Nagata Kabi | NPR Books |
| 327 | My Life | Louis Kenoyer | Multnomah County |
| 328 | My Life With Bob | Pamela Paul | Multnomah County |
| 329 | My Life, My Love, My Legacy | Coretta Scott King, as told to Barbara Reynolds | NPR Books |
| 330 | My Soul Looks Back | Jessica B. Harris | MPR News |
| 331 | My Soul Looks Back | Jessica B. Harris | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| 332 | Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: What The Numbers Reveal About The Classics, Bestsellers, And Our Own Writing | Ben Blatt | NPR Books |
| 333 | Narrow River, Wide Sky | Jenny Forrester | Multnomah County |
| 334 | Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America edited | Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding | Paste |
| 335 | New Zealand’s Prime Ministers: From Dick Seddon to John Key | Michael Bassett | Noted |
| 336 | Night Thoughts | Wallace Shawn | Publishers Weekly |
| 337 | Nikau Café Cookbook | Kelda Hains & Paul Schrader | The Spinoff |
| 338 | Nikki Grimes | Nikki Grimes, illus. by various. Bloomsbury | School Library Journal |
| 339 | Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China | Xiaolu Guo | Boston Globe |
| 340 | Norse Mythology | Neil Gaiman | King County Library |
| 341 | NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY: An American Abroad in a Post-American World | Suzy Hansen | The New York Times |
| 342 | Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life | Jen Hatmaker | Goodreads |
| 343 | Of Spheres | Karla Kelsey | Entroopy |
| 344 | Once We Were Sisters | Sheila Kohler | Multnomah County |
| 345 | One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps | Zocalo | |
| 346 | One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported | E.J. Dionne Jr., Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann | The Washington Post |
| 347 | One, Two, Three, More | Helen Levitt | NPR Books |
| 348 | Out Standing in the Field: A Memoir | Canada’s First Female Infantry Officer, | The Globe |
| 349 | Over and Under the Pond | Kate Messner | Multnomah County |
| 350 | Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World | Zocalo | |
| 351 | Patricia McKissack | Patricia McKissack, illus. by Brian Pinkney. Random/Schwartz & Wade | School Library Journal |
| 352 | Playing With Fire | Lawrence O’Donnell | King County Library |
| 353 | Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose | Joe Biden | Barnes & Noble |
| 354 | Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It | Zocalo | |
| 355 | Qatar: Securing the Global Ambitions of a City-State. | David B. Roberts | Marginal Revolution |
| 356 | Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat | Patricia Williams with Jeannine Amber | Multnomah County |
| 357 | Radical Candor | Hudson Booksellers | |
| 358 | Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell | David Yaffe | The Washington Post |
| 359 | Rose City Vice: Portland in the ’70s–dirty cops and dirty robbers | Phil Stanford | Multnomah County |
| 360 | Run For It: Stories Of Slaves Who Fought For Their Freedom | Marcelo D’Salete | NPR Books |
| 361 | Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, | Pauline Dakin | The Globe |
| 362 | Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. Vs. Inequality | Jonah Winter | Multnomah County |
| 363 | Saga Land | Richard Fidler & Kári Gíslason | Readings |
| 364 | Scars of Independence | Holger Hoock | Dallas News |
| 365 | Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making A Living | Manjula Martin, ed. | Multnomah County |
| 366 | Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City | David B. Williams | Island Books |
| 367 | Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us | Will Storr | Noted |
| 368 | Shana Corey | Shana Corey, illus. by R. Gregory Christie. NorthSouth | School Library Journal |
| 369 | Shannon Hale | Shannon Hale, illus. by LeUyen Pham. First Second | School Library Journal |
| 370 | Shark Drunk | Morten Stroksnes | MPR News |
| 371 | Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign | Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes | NPR Books |
| 372 | Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life | Ruth Franklin | LA Times |
| 373 | Shopping Mall | Matthew Newton | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| 374 | Sin Bravely: A Memoir Of Spiritual Disobedience | Maggie Rowe | NPR Books |
| 375 | Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables | Joshua McFadden | Multnomah County |
| 376 | So Much Things To Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley | Roger Steffans | The Portable Infinite |
| 377 | Sons And Soldiers | Hudson Booksellers | |
| 378 | Sorry to Disrupt the Peace | Patty Yumi Cottrell | Amber Sparks |
| 379 | Spineless | Juli Berwald | Multnomah County |
| 380 | Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies | Michael Ausiello | Electric Lit |
| 381 | Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary | Walter Stahr | NPR Books |
| 382 | Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington 1888-1903 | Redmer Yska | The Spinoff |
| 383 | Street of Eternal Happiness | Rob Schmitz | Noted |
| 384 | Substance: Inside New Order | Peter Hook | The Portable Infinite |
| 385 | Susan Goldman Rubin | Susan Goldman Rubin. Abrams | School Library Journal |
| 386 | Swallow the Fish | Gabrielle Civil | Entroopy |
| 387 | Tale As Old As Time | Turnaround | |
| 388 | Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation | John Freeman, ed. | Multnomah County |
| 389 | Tales of Wonder: Retelling Fairy Tales through Picture Postcards | Jack Zipes | MPR News |
| 390 | Teeth: The Story Of Beauty, Inequality, And The Struggle For Oral Health In America | Mary Otto | NPR Books |
| 391 | The 57 Bus | Dashka Slater | Multnomah County |
| 392 | The Acid Watchers’ Diet: A 28-day Reflux Prevention Program | Jonathan Aviv | Multnomah County |
| 393 | The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For | David McCullough | Barnes & Noble |
| 394 | The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story | Edwidge Dandicat | Entroopy |
| 395 | The Art of Misdiagnosis | Gayle Brandeis | Large Hearted Boy |
| 396 | The Beautiful Country And The Middle Kingdom: America And China, 1776 To The Present | John Pomfret | NPR Books |
| 397 | The Best of Us: A Memoir | Joyce Maynard | Island Books |
| 398 | The Bettencourt Affair: The World’s Richest Woman And The Scandal That Rocked Paris | Tom Sancton | NPR Books |
| 399 | The Big Push | Turnaround | |
| 400 | The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories | Ilan Pappe | Publishers Weekly |
| 401 | The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition | Fernando Pessoa | Entroopy |
| 402 | The Book of Mutter | Kate Zambreno | Amber Sparks |
| 403 | The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine | Lindsey Fitzharris | NPR Books |
| 404 | The Card Catalog | King County Library | |
| 405 | The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money. | Bryan Caplan | Marginal Revolution |
| 406 | The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse | Rich Cohen | Amazon |
| 407 | The Clitoral Truth | Turnaround | |
| 408 | The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest For The Perfect Dish To Mend A Broken Heart | Emily Nunn | NPR Books |
| 409 | THE CRISIS OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS CONSTITUTION: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic | Ganesh Sitaraman | The New York Times |
| 410 | The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President | Bandy X. Lee | The Washington Post |
| 411 | The Dawn of Eurasia. Technically this doesn’t come out until January | Bruno Maçães | Marginal Revolution |
| 412 | The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters | Thomas M. Nichols | Amazon |
| 413 | The Doubles | Scott Esposito | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| 414 | The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan-American Highway | Teresa Bruce | Multnomah County |
| 415 | The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight | Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy | Publishers Weekly |
| 416 | The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It | Joanna Scutts | Boston Globe |
| 417 | THE FACT OF A BODY: A MURDER AND A MEMOIR | Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich | Book Riot 2 |
| 418 | The Family Imprint: A Daughter’s Portrait Of Love And Loss | Nancy Borowick | NPR Books |
| 419 | The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Betweenby Abigail Marsh | Paste | |
| 420 | The Ghost: A Cultural History | Zocalo | |
| 421 | THE GLASS UNIVERSE: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars | Dava Sobel | The New York Times |
| 422 | The Gourmands’ Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy | Justin Spring | Publishers Weekly |
| 423 | The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera | Adam Begley | North Shore News |
| 424 | The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet | Henry Fountain | LA Times |
| 425 | The Handover: How Bigwigs and Bureaucrats Transferred Canada’s Best Publisher and the Best Part of Our Literary Heritage to a Foreign Multinational, | Elaine Dewar | The Globe |
| 426 | The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers | Zocalo | |
| 427 | The Hero’s Body | Turnaround | |
| 428 | THE HOUSE OF GOVERNMENT: A Saga of the Russian Revolution | Yuri Slezkine | The New York Times |
| 429 | The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists | Daniel W. Drezner | Marginal Revolution |
| 430 | The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy. | Yassin Al-Haj Saleh | Marginal Revolution |
| 431 | The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume | Dennis C. Rasmussen | Marginal Revolution |
| 432 | The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, And The Power Of Seeing | Damion Searls | NPR Books |
| 433 | The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek | Howard Markel | Boston Globe |
| 434 | The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home | Denise Kiernan | Amazon |
| 435 | The Last Word: Reviving the Dying Art of Eulogy, | Julia Cooper | The Globe |
| 436 | The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road | Finn Murphy | Island Books |
| 437 | The Madeleine Project | Turnaround | |
| 438 | The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road | Steve Braunias | The Spinoff |
| 439 | The Meaning of Michelle | Veronica Chambers | Time |
| 440 | The Music of Life: Bartolomeo Cristofori & the Invention of the Piano | Elizabeth Rusch | Multnomah County |
| 441 | The New Odyssey: The Story Of The Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis | Patrick Kingsley | NPR Books |
| 442 | The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. | Brian Merchant | Marginal Revolution |
| 443 | The Other Side of Impossible: Ordinary People Who Faced Daunting Medical Challenges and Refused to Give Up | Susannah Meadows | Multnomah County |
| 444 | The Perils of ‘Privilege’: Why Injustice Can’t Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage | Phoebe Maltz Bovy | The Washington Post |
| 445 | The Photo Ark | Joel Sartore | King County Library |
| 446 | The Poetry of Pop | Adam Bradley | The Washington Post |
| 447 | The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers | Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (editors) | NPR Books |
| 448 | The President’s Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma In Power And Out Of Prison | Jacques Pauw | NPR Books |
| 449 | The Push: A climber’s journey of endurance, risk, and going beyond limits | Tommy Caldwell | Multnomah County |
| 450 | The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon | Greg Pizzoli | Multnomah County |
| 451 | The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy, | Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson | The Globe |
| 452 | The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age | Richard White | Marginal Revolution |
| 453 | The River of Consciousness | Oliver Sacks | The Globe |
| 454 | The Road to Jonestown | Jeff Guinn | Dallas News |
| 455 | The Robin: A Biography | Stephen Moss | The Spinoff |
| 456 | The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando | Paul Kix | Thrillist |
| 457 | The Sarah Book | Scott McClanahan | Entroopy |
| 458 | The Scent Of Jasmine: Coming Of Age In Jerusalem And Damascus | Anan Ameri | NPR Books |
| 459 | The Science of Orphan Black | Turnaround | |
| 460 | The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won. | Victor Davis Hanson | Marginal Revolution |
| 461 | The Secret Life of Fat | Sylvia Tara | Multnomah County |
| 462 | The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age | Andrew O’Hagan | Publishers Weekly |
| 463 | The Secret Lives Of Color | Kassia St. Clair | NPR Books |
| 464 | The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale | James Atlas | Publishers Weekly |
| 465 | The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home | Abigail Williams | The Washington Post |
| 466 | THE SONGS WE KNOW BEST: John Ashbery’s Early Life | Karin Roffman | The New York Times |
| 467 | The State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity | Esther Perel | NPR Books |
| 468 | The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning Of The End Of The Roman Republic | Mike Duncan | NPR Books |
| 469 | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life | Mark Manson | The Spinoff |
| 470 | THE SUN AND HER FLOWERS | Rupi Kaur | Indigo |
| 471 | The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness | Paula Poundstone | NPR Books |
| 472 | The Trauma Cleaner | Sarah Krasnostein | Readings |
| 473 | The Unfinished Dollhouse: A Memoir of Gender and Identity, | Michelle Alfano | The Globe |
| 474 | The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World | Jeff Goodell | The Washington Post |
| 475 | The Way Of The Hare | Marianne Taylor | NPR Books |
| 476 | The Whisky King: The Remarkable True Story of Canada’s Most Infamous Bootlegger and the Undercover Mountie on his Trail, | Trevor Cole | The Globe |
| 477 | The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story Of Love, Spies, And The Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies | Jason Fagone | NPR Books |
| 478 | The World Broke In Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, And The Year That Changed Literature | Bill Goldstein | NPR Books |
| 479 | The Written Word: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization unpacks | Zocalo | |
| 480 | The Year I Was Peter The Great: 1956 – Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia | Marvin Kalb | NPR Books |
| 481 | These Two Hands | Renée | The Spinoff |
| 482 | This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class | Elizabeth Warren | Multnomah County |
| 483 | This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare | Gabourey Sidibe | NPR Books |
| 484 | Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas | Zocalo | |
| 485 | Tinderbox | Turnaround | |
| 486 | TO SIRI WITH LOVE: A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of Machines | Judith Newman | The New York Times |
| 487 | Tonya Bolden | Tonya Bolden. Abrams | School Library Journal |
| 488 | Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise And Reign Of The Unruly Woman | Anne Helen Petersen | NPR Books |
| 489 | Tracker | Alexis Wright | Readings |
| 490 | Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest | Zeynep Tufekci | The Washington Post |
| 491 | Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me | Rafe Bartholomew | Thrillist |
| 492 | Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History | Katy Tur | Thrillist |
| 493 | Unfuck Your Brain | Turnaround | |
| 494 | Unseen London | Turnaround | |
| 495 | Utopia for Realists | Rutger Bregman | Readings |
| 496 | Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches | John Hodgman | Multnomah County |
| 497 | Vanishing New York | Jeremiah Moss | Vol.1 Brooklyn |
| 498 | Vinyl, album, cover, art: The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue | Aubrey Powell | The Portable Infinite |
| 499 | Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal | Historylink, David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott | Island Books |
| 500 | We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter | Celeste Headlee | NPR Books |
| 501 | We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True | Gabrielle Union | Barnes & Noble |
| 502 | What Customers Crave | Nicholas J. Webb | Multnomah County |
| 503 | What Does This Button Do? | Bruce Dickinson | Thrillist |
| 504 | What Makes a Monster? | Jess Keating | Multnomah County |
| 505 | When A Bully Is President | Maya Gonzalez | Multnomah County |
| 506 | When the Heart Waits | Sit Tableside | |
| 507 | Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets | Diane Coffey and Dean Spears | Marginal Revolution |
| 508 | Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir | Amy Tan | Barnes & Noble |
| 509 | Where The Water Goes: Life And Death Along The Colorado River | David Owen | NPR Books |
| 510 | Who Reads Poetry | Don Share and Fred Sasaki | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 511 | Why We March | King County Library | |
| 512 | Women & Power: A Manifesto | Mary Beard | The Spinoff |
| 513 | Wrestling with His Angel: The Political Life of Lincoln, Vol. II | Sidney Blumenthal | LA Times |
| 514 | Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors | Mika Yoshitake, ed. | Multnomah County |
| 515 | You & A Bike & A Road | Eleanor Davis | NPR Books |
| 516 | You Are A Badass At Making Money | Jen Sincero | Multnomah County |
| 517 | You, Me, and the Violence | Catherine Taylor | Entroopy |
| 518 | You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships | Deborah Tannen | The Washington Post |
40 Best Nonfiction Book Sources/Lists Of 2017
| Source | Article |
| Amazon | Best nonfiction of 2017 |
| Amber Sparks | Best (Subjective) Books of 2017 |
| Barnes & Noble | The Best Books of 2017: Nonfiction |
| Book Riot 2 | THEFOLLOWINGAREBOOKRIOT’SBESTBOOKSOF2017. |
| BookRiot | THE BEST GENRE-BENDING NONFICTION OF 2017 |
| Boston Globe | The best books of 2017 |
| Chicago Review Of Books | The Best Nonfiction Books of 2017 |
| Chicago Tribune | Best books of 2017: Fiction and nonfiction that moved literature forward |
| Dallas News | From East Texas to Jonestown and beyond: Our culture critic names his 10 favorite books of 2017 |
| Electric Lit | Electric Literature’s 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2017 |
| Entroopy | BEST OF 2017: NON-FICTION BOOKS |
| Goodreads | Best Nonfiction |
| Hudson Booksellers | Best Books of 2017 |
| Indigo | TOP 10 NON-FICTION OF 2017 |
| Island Books | Our Best of the Year 2017: Nonfiction |
| King County Library | Best Nonfiction 2017 |
| LA Times | Best books of 2017: The best nonfiction |
| Large Hearted Boy | Favorite Nonfiction of 2017 |
| Marginal Revolution | Best non-fiction books of 2017 |
| MPR News | The best books to give and get: Nonfiction picks of 2017 |
| Multnomah County | The Best Books of 2017 |
| North Shore News | Best books of 2017 |
| Noted | The 100 Best Books of 2017 |
| NPR Books | NPR’s Book Concierge Our Guide To 2017’s Great Reads |
| Paste | The 20 Best Nonfiction Books of 2017 |
| Publishers Weekly | Best Nonfiction |
| Readings | The best non-fiction books of 2017 |
| School Library Journal | Best Of 2017 – Nonfiction |
| Shelf Awareness | Our Best Adult Books of 2017 |
| Sit Tableside | Favorite Books of 2017 |
| The Globe | The Globe 100 |
| The New York Times | 100 Notable Books of 2017 |
| The Portable Infinite | Best Books of 2017 |
| The Spinoff | The best books of 2017: the 20 best non-fiction books |
| The Washington Post | 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2017 |
| Thrillist | THE BEST BOOKS OF 2017 TO GIVE TO ANYONE ON YOUR LIST |
| Time | The Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2017 |
| Turnaround | 2017 Non-Fiction Favourites |
| Vol.1 Brooklyn | Vol.1 Brooklyn’s 2017 Favorites: Nonfiction |
| Zocalo | Ten Illuminating Books for Confusing Times |
