2017 NBAs
Nance’s Book Awards
Last year I read 33 books. I’m hoping to increase that to 50 this year. Jason has the same goal so we’re hoping to spur each other on. Yesterday we realized, though, that we’ll need to read roughly one book per week to reach our goal. We’re already feeling pretty daunted and we’re only on day 5 of the new year. We’ll see how this goes!
2017 had some great reads so without further ado, I give you…
Best in Show
CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
by Alan Paton
I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.
Most Fun
A MAN CALLED OVE
by Fredrik Backman
“Ove feels an instinctive skepticism towards all people taller than six feet; the blood can’t quite make it all the way up to the brain.”
Best on Audio
BORN A CRIME
by Trevor Noah
People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.
Best Memoir
LOVE WARRIOR
by Glennon Doyle Melton
Being human in a world with no tolerance for humanity felt like a setup, a game I couldn’t win. But instead of understanding that there might be something wrong with the world, I decided there was something wrong with me.
Best Theology
HONEST TO GOD
by John A.T. Robinson
Can God be rehabilitated or is the whole conception of that sort of a God – “up there,” “out there,” or however one likes to put it, a projection, an idol, that can and should be torn down?
Taught Me The Most
HOMEGOING
by Yaa Gyasi
We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.
Honorable Mentions
01.
SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
by David Guterson
He hoped it would snow recklessly and bring to the island the impossible winter purity, so rare and precious, he remembered fondly from his youth.
02.
SING, UNBURIED, SING
by Jesmyn Ward
Some days later, I understood what he was trying to say, that getting grown means learning how to work that current: learning when to hold fast, when to drop anchor, when to let it sweep you up.
03.
ROAD BACK TO YOU
by Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
04.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
by Colson Whitehead
And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes–believes with all its heart–that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.
The Complete 2017 List
December 2017
Beloved Poison
by E.S. Thomson
3.4/5
November 2017
Goodbye, Vitamin
by
Rachel Khong
3.9/5
Before We Were Yours
by Lisa Wingate
3.4/5
Hunger
by Roxane Gay
4.2/5
October 2017
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
4.4/5
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
4.6/5
Cry, The Beloved Country
by Alan Paton
4.7/5
September 2017
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (with the boys)
by CS Lewis
4.1/5
The Child Finder
by Rene Denfeld
3.8/5
Honest to God
by John A. T. Robinson
4.7/5
A Life in Parts
by Bryan Cranston
3.6/5
The Magician’s Nephew (with the boys)
by C.S. Lewis
4.4/5
August 2017
The Untold
by Courtney Collins
4/5
Between Them – Remembering My Parents
by Richard Ford
3.5/5
The Rules Do Not Apply
by Ariel Levy
3.4/5
Career of Evil
by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
3.9/5
July 2017
Moonglow
by Michael Chabon
3.4/5
Belong to Me
by Marisa de los Santos
3.2/5
June 2017
Snow Falling on Cedars
by David Guterson
4.4/5
May 2017
The Silkworm
by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
3.9/5
April 2017
Underground Airlines
by Ben Winters
3.7/5
Love Warrior
by Glennon Melton
4.2/5
Born a Crime
by Trevor Noah
4/5
March 2017
Hillbilly Elegy
by J.D. Vance
3.5/5
The Art of Racing in the Rain
by Garth Stein
3.5/5
The Road Back to You
by Cron & Stabile
4.2/5
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley
3.5/5
February 2017
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
4.4/5
The Weight of Water
by Anita Shreve
3.5/5
God Laughs and Plays
by David James Duncan
4.7/5
Shrill — Notes from a Loud Woman
by Lindy West
3.9/5
January 2017
A Man Called Ove
by Fredrik Backman
4.1/5
Green Island
by Shawna Yang Ryan
3.9/5