Last year I read 179 books and I honestly thought that was the most I could possibly read in a year. Then, at the beginning of December 2017 I realized how close I was to reading 200 books…but it would take a Herculean effort to get there as I was at 172 books read at the end of November. Could I read 28 books in 31 days? Turns out, I could as I finished 2017 with 202 books read — I read 30 books in 31 days which seems a bit insane.  Of those books 74 were books of poetry. You can see most of the books I read here (not all are listed on Goodreads). Of the 202 books I read, below are my favorites. What books made your “best of 2017” list?

Poetry

~ Blue Yodel by Ansel Elkins

~ I Don’t Need to Make a Pretty Thing by Michelle S. Reed

~ Elegy/Elk River by Michael Schmeltzer

Fiction

~ At the Water’s Edge by Sara Groen

~ The Husband’s Secret by Laine Moriarty

~ The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

~ The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig

~ A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman

~ The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

~ Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

~ The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Reid Jenkins

~ Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Nonfiction

~ Happy by Alex Lemon

~ Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

~ The Going and Goodbye by Shuly Cawood

~ Hunger by Roxane Gay

~ Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton