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Kirsty Logan

Hello! I’m Kirsty Logan, a writer of novels and short stories. My latest book is Now She is Witch, a medieval witch revenge quest. My other books are Things We Say In The Dark, The Gloaming, The Gracekeepers, A Portable Shelter, and The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales.

Latest News

Kirsty Logan

Hello! I’m Kirsty Logan, a writer of novels and short stories. My latest book is Now She is Witch, a medieval witch revenge quest. My other books are Things We Say In The Dark, The Gloaming, The Gracekeepers, A Portable Shelter, and The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales.

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Best Books of 2017

29th Dec 2017 in Books

This year I read 220 books. As you may be able to tell, I really, really (really) fucking like books.

Here is a highly personal, not-very-scientifically-chosen list of my 50 favourites of 2017.

Books out in 2017:

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  • Best Book That Actually Made Me Have to Put it Down For a Moment and Close My Eyes Because it Was So Perfect: I Am, I Am, I Am, Maggie O’Farrell
  • Best Book I Loved So Much I Wanted to Eat It: A Pocketful of Crows, Joanne M. Harris
  • Best Believe-All-the-Hype-Because-It’s-Seriously-Bloody-Good Book: The Power, Naomi Alderman
  • Best Pregnancy Sci-Fi: The Growing Season, Helen Sedgwick
  • Best Horror Novel That Creeped Me Out So Much I Actually Said OH MY GOD Out Loud: The Silent Companions, Laura Purcell
  • Best Disturbing Book About a Call Centre: Oh Honey, Emily R. Austin


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  • Best Short Stories I Adored But Also Made Me Need to Have a Shower Because I Felt a Bit Grimy: The Doll’s Alphabet, Camilla Grudova
  • Best Fairytale-Inspired Short Stories: The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night, Jen Campbell
  • Best LGBT Heroine: Dark Asylum, E.S. Thomson
  • Best Thriller About a Writer: Based on a True Story, Delphine de Vigan
  • Best Sparse, Finely-Wrought Novella With a Complex Heroine: Flesh of the Peach, Helen McClory
  • Best Much-Anticipated Book: The Book of Dust #1: La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman

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  • Best Sci-Fi/Horror Novella: Final Girls, Mira Grant
  • Best Novella That I Still Sometimes Think About As I’m Falling Asleep: The Ghost Line, Andrew Neil Gray & J.S. Herbison
  • Best Novella About a Haunted House: You Should Have Left, Daniel Kehlmann
  • Best Start to a Series: WTF (Geek Actually Season 1 Episode 1), Cathy Yardley
  • Best Book About the Realities of Being a Writer: Scratch, Manjula Martin (ed.)
  • Best Anthology of Angry-Making Yet Inspiring Feminist Essays: Nasty Women, Various Authors

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  • Best Poetry by a Woman of Colour: peluda, Melissa Lozada-Oliva
  • Best Debut Book of Poetry By a Poet Whose Work I Have Adored For Years: The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate, Rachel McCrum
  • Best Poem About a Selkie: All the Prayers in the House, Miriam Nash
  • Best Poetry That Made Me Look at Myself and My Thoughts and My Actions So Closely I Felt Uncomfortable: In These Days of Prohibition, Caroline Bird
  • Best Book About Death: Past Mortems, Carla Valentine
  • Best Book About Ghosts That Wasn’t a Book of Ghost Stories: The Ghost: A Cultural History, Susan Owens

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  • Best Courtney Love Analysis: All the Lives I Want, Alana Massey
  • Best Advice Column by a Fairytale Witch: Ask Baba Yaga, Taisia Kitaiskaia
  • Best No-Bullshit Self-Help Book: This Is How, Augusten Burroughs
  • Best Book About Disastrous Medical History: Quackery, Lydia Kang
  • Best Creepy Graphic Novel About Oddly Specific Yet Terrifying Hypothetical Situations: The Creeps, Fran Krause
  • Best Graphic Novel About Giving Birth to the Devil: Babyteeth #1, Donny Cates

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  • Best Graphic Novel About Witches: Jim Henson’s Storyteller: Witches, Various Authors
  • Best LGBT Romance in a Graphic Novel: Taproot, Keezy Young
  • Best Graphic Novel About Norse Mythology and Queer Love: Heathen #1, Natasha Alterici

 

Books Out Before 2017:

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  • Best Love Poems: The Fire Eater’s Lover, Sophia Blackwell
  • Best Grief Poems: Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, Karen Finneyfrock
  • Best Short Stories That Got Under My Skin and Stayed There: Gutshot, Amelia Gray
  • Best Short Stories I Wish I’d Written: The Hair Wreath and Other Stories, Halli Villegas
  • Best Short Stories I Got For Free on Kindle and Couldn’t Believe They Were Free Because They Were Great: If I Were You, Graeme Keeton
  • Best Book I Really Enjoyed But Had to Hide the Cover of While Reading on the Bus: Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11, Aaron Michael Kerner

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  • Best Japanese Mystery: The Master Key, Masako Togawa
  • Best Queer Cuban Sci-Fi: Super Extra Grande, Yoss
  • Best Indonesian Feminist Spec-Fic: Spinner of Darkness and Other Tales, Intan Paramaditha
  • Best Scandinavian-Inspired Short Stories: Jagannath, Karin Tidbeck
  • Best Uplifting Book About Incorrect Paperwork: The Invoice, Jonas Karlsson
  • Best Book About the Sea: Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

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  • Best True Crime About a Crime I Didn’t Think I’d Ever Want to Read About: As If, Blake Morrison
  • Best Surreal, Disturbing Fables About WWII Japan: The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine, Akiyuki Nosaka
  • Best Disturbing Combination of 1970s Nostalgia and Graphic Design: Discovering Scarfolk, Richard Littler
  • Best Point Horror: Dream Date, Sinclair Smith
  • Best-Worst Point Horror: The Perfume, Caroline B. Cooney

 

How about you? What were your best reads of 2017?

One response to “Best Books of 2017”

  1. Elaine says:

    Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit; a discussion of the history of walking, in all of its forms from pilgrimage to flaneury, and the politics of walking

    Normal by Warren Ellis; people who stare too long at the future eventually end up at an asylum in the Pacific northwest.

    The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate by Rachel McCrum; sheer brilliance

    Metronome by Oliver Langmead; a beautifully written dream quest on a clockwork flying ship

    The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard; in a destroyed Paris after a magical world war, houses led by fallen angels vie for power

    Passing Strange by Ellen Klages; a sweet queer romance with a fantastical twist, set in 1920s San Francisco

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