All the books I read in 2017 and five of my favorites

Funny enough, I didn't read books until I started working at Buffer four years ago. I read a lot of magazines (and still secretly want to start my own someday), but books never quite held the same allure for me. I guess I have a lot of ground to make up. This year I read 85 books.Here are a few of my favorites, as well as a full list of everything I read.If you're ever curious to see what I'm reading, I keep track of everything on Tumblr and in my Amazon wishlist.

Goodbye, Vitamin (Amazon)

This is a story about a thirtysomething woman who returns home to help care for her father who is going through the early stages of dementia / Alzheimer's. Yes, it's definitely a sad story, but there are so many sweet moments between the family and I found a lot of it resonating with my own experience of grief and loss --- and that funny in-between when you're grieving in the midst of losing.Here is one example of a sweet moment between father and daughter:

Today I looked glum, I guess, and you told me it was perfectly normal. “It’s called ‘the fall,’ my love,” you said.

Salt Fat Acid Heat (Amazon)

Is it weird to put a cooking book on a Best Books list? Probably. That's precisely what this book is, but I couldn't help myself: I enjoyed it so much and learned so much from the author's simple and straightforward explanation of cooking concepts. I honestly felt like I had just been through an intro to culinary school in only a few hours. For instance:

Incorporating ingredients delicately is important for the same reason – if you go to great lengths to whip air into your fat, then carelessly combine the cake’s dry and wet ingredients, all at once, you’ll lose all of the air you whipped up.

I always carelessly combine those ingredients, and now I know why I shouldn't!The first half of the book is explaining the "why" about cooking (all the things that no one ever tells you, that they just expect you to follow the rules) and the second half is all recipes. I liked the book so much, I'm going to buy a hard copy just so I always have the recipes on hand.

On Death & Dying (Amazon)

Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body. Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment.

To the Bright Edge of the World (Amazon)

This was the first book I read in 2017, back in January, and it remains one that I've loved all year. It's been hard to top. It's a story about the Alaska wilderness back in the 1800s when the U.S. was just starting to chart the territory. The story is told from two perspectives: 1) the man who blazes the trail through the wilderness and 2) the wife who stays behind.

It is something I love very much about him. He goes not in search of obstacles, only the paths around them. Anything seems possible.

Days Without End (Amazon)

Just like in the story above, Days Without End is based in the late 1800s. It's told from the perspective of a U.S. soldier and details the life he lives in and around the Civil War. One of the things I loved most is the way it's written: the author wrote in the unique, consistent dialect of a semi-educated man in the 1800s. Wonderful.

You could expect a child that has seen all that to wake in the night sweating and she does. Then John Cole is obliged to hold her trembling form against him and soothe her with lullabies. Well he only knows one and he does that over and over. He holds her softly and sings her the lullaby. Where he got that no man knows not even hisself. Like a stray bird from some distant country. Then he lies on her bed and she pushes in tight against him like you might imagine bear cubs do in the winter hide or maybe even wolves. Tight in, like John Cole was that bit of safety she is trying to reach. A harbour. Then her breathing slowly lengthens and then she is snoring a little. Time to come back to bed and in the darkness or the helpful dim of the candle he looks at me and nods his head. Got her sleeping, he says. You sure do, I say. Not much more than that needed to make men happy.

Everything I read in 2017, by category

(I hesitate to list all the books I read because, above, I listed my favorites. It is such a huge accomplishment to write a book --- such a labor of love, effort, time, energy --- that I feel awful speaking ill of anyone's writing, even if the ill being spoken of is insinuated by my leaving a book off my "favorites" list. Nevertheless, I'm pushing through the awkwardness in hopes that maybe you and I will have both read one of the same books and we can talk about it. Besides, I really really loved several on this list, too, and I won't say which ones so that I don't hurt anyone's feelings any more than I have already.)

Fiction

A Gambler's AnatomyLife After LifePondHappy All the TimeLincoln in the BardoUnder Major Domo MinorBluebeardSum: Forty Tales from the AfterlivesWorld, Chase Me Down

Sci-fi and fantasy

The Obelisk GateAll the Birds in the SkyDark MatterStar Wars: Aftermath: Life DebtDark Tower: The GunslingerThe Machine StopsBorneEinstein's Dreams

Children's books

The Purloining of Prince OleomargarineWinnie the Pooh

Non-fiction

The Song MachineBlood, Sweat, and PixelsNomadlandBarking Up the Wrong TreeHistory and politicsThe Real American DreamWho Thought This Was a Good Idea?Strangers in Their Own LandThe Elephant in the Room

Faith and inspiration

Proof of HeavenHallelujah AnywayTill We Have FacesInspirationHope in the DarkThe Four AgreementsDear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen SuggestionsThings Are What You Make of Them

Business & Management

BusinessThe Signal and the NoiseThe Only Rule Is It Has to WorkThe 4 Disciplines of ExecutionCrossing the ChasmShoe DogThe Hard Thing About Hard ThingsThe San Francisco FallacySticky Steps to Creating Killer PresentationsDeep WorkThe Road to RecognitionMonetizing InnovationYour Strategy Needs a StrategyTools of TitansManagementYes to the MessHeadwayThe Coaching Habit

Biography and memoir

Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being AloneOn the Move: A LifeJesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil WarThe Accidental Life: An Editor's Notes on Writing and WritersGrinding It Out: The Making of McDonald'sElon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic FutureGenghis Khan and the Making of the Modern WorldJesus: A Biography From a BelieverBorn Standing Up

Essays

But What if We're Wrong?Ninety-nine Stories of GodFine Fine Fine Fine FineSome Possible SolutionsUpstreamAgainst EverythingThe Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is DeadCivilwarland in Bad Decline

Comics

MooncopEl DeafoRobocop vs. TerminatorCoffeetable booksClassic Penguin, Cover to CoverStephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions

Science

Time TravelI Contain Multitudes

I don't even know

The Interrogative Mood

Writing

EtymologiconThis Book Will Teach You How to Write BetterBrevity

Sports

The Perfect Pass

Poetry

The Book of Endings