Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2017

I've gamed these last few polls with my own suggestions but these weren't all from me:

Elmet by Fiona Mozley - short, dramatic, ephemeral
Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders - I wouldn't exactly say it felt like a short story padded out to novel length, but it didn't have the depth or impact of a good novel.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - a very good multi generational saga, and educational about korean history and korea-japan relations.
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle - recommended for those who like their mysteries to remain somewhat mysterious
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie - probably contained some trenchant opinions on modern america ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - I remember reading this but not a single thing in the fantastically elaborate plot summary rings a bell.
Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley - didn't find this as magical as his best works.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
History Of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

first one reminded me of those films where they take the most interesting person and make her normal => happy. i dislike those.

history of wolves i don't remember much about, girl living in a cabin by a lake, something disappeared. i'd make a joke about a famous wolverhampton wanderers player here but i don't know any off the top of my head.

Universal Harvester the only one I've read, it is most enjoyable and I will vote for it happily. Listened to an audio adaptation of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine but I didn't like it and never finished it and I'm not sure that would count as having 'read' it anyway (difference between an audio drama version and an audiobook, I guess).

Universal Harvester is probably my favourite novel of the last decade--a statement that probably makes me sound like a drooling fanboy, but I've lent it out to a couple people who know nothing about Darnielle or The Mountain Goats, and they loved it too.

Voted for this, and agree w ledge: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle - recommended for those who like their mysteries to remain somewhat mysterious. But what he said about the Crowley also applies to UH: didn't find this as magical as his best works. Nevertheless, it has its own fascinations, the author's, transferred to me, for the duration of reading experience anyway---also, there's a lingering effect I associate more with music, very rarely---most recently in a Dec. 2020 Bandcamp post of a live Arthur Russell trio set, with his voice down among the microtones of his cello bow and effects: the sense of someone, incl. me, finding purchase (?) among the grains of a silo, slipping a litte up, little down, second to second---and this was before an actual damn silo showed up in the book. Really must re-read, but I know I enjoyed it, voted accordingly (and as w many of these year-by-year poll options, have only read the one).

Have only read Universal Harvester which I liked even though I felt there were elements of it that I just wasn’t grasping. Gotta say this list has more titles that I find vaguely irritating than usual.

Universal Harvester. Didn’t read anything else on the list.

(Not as good as WIWV but casts a dark, scary mood that still sticks with me.)

The Idiot. Funny and warm and plotless.

i'd make a joke about a famous wolverhampton wanderers player here but i don't know any off the top of my head.

― koogs, Tuesday, 4 January 2022 16:03 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

FPed

I read Elmet and Little Fires for two separate book groups and thought they were shockingly dire, like badly written YA novels. Expressing this opinion made me realise why I can't take part in book groups.

Any novel that has the missing chunk of a Hepworth sculpture as a central character gets my vote.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I've only read Elinor Oliphant from this year's list, and while it was okay I can't call it a favorite.

Need to read The Idiot…loved both Pachinko and The Sparsholt Affair

At the risk of being belatedly tiresome, I pounced on the first copy of Conversations with Friends because Kazuo Ishiguro praised it to the skies in the NYT Book Review. I…could not for the life of me understand the big whoop and am still sort of mad at Ishiguro about it. Like Austen praising some YA author or something.

*first copy of Conversations with Friends I could find

Really enjoyed The Stone Sky, too

WHAT THE HELL, KAZUO ISHIGURO

tbh that’s been my reaction to Ishiguro about 75% of the time.

But he has my eternal gratitude for The Remains of the Day

I've read three and I'll be damned if I'm voting for Rooney. The Magnus Mills was one of the last books I read last year and my local pub has a vinyl night that I am desperate to attend as a result. Not his best, but full of his characteristically matter-of-fact uncanny, and a cuddly satire of stubborn music listeners.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2018