The BEST BOOKS of 2017
The most thrilling, moving, fascinating reads of the last year picked by Post staffers
NONFICTION Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America Nancy MacLean (Viking) A fascinating academic look at the 60-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take over all branches of government. The book focuses on the architect of this movement, the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan.- MD Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Helene Cooper (Simon & Schuster) If you’ve never heard of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president and the first democratically elected female president in African history, you’re in for a treat. Her life story — and the tale of how she got elected, with the help of the Liberian market women who sometimes resorted to audacious measures — makes for a fast-paced and fascinating read. -MD Dream Hoarders Richard Reeves (Brookings Institution Press) Reeves takes on what he sees as one of the biggest problems in growing American inequality: not the 1 percent, but the top 20 percent, which, as he goes on to illustrate, does its darndest to hoard opportunities for themselves and their offspring.- MD Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto Jessa Crispin (Melville House) While the title might keep people from picking this slender volume up, what follows is a sharp and exciting critique of modern feminism and how it has sacrificed meaning in place of aiding and abetting the status quo.- MD Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town Brian Alexander (St. Martin’s) Lancaster, Ohio, was declared the All-American Town by Forbes in 1947; its Anchor Hocking Glass Company was the foundation of a healthy, booming community. The town began to crumble as the factory shut down, leaving its citizens dreaming of the good old days. -MD The Bowery: The Strange History of New York’s Oldest Street Stephen Paul DeVillo (Skyhorse Publishing) A far cry from the gentrified avenue we know today, historically the Bowery has been more “Gangs of New York”-brutal than New Museum cultured. This book tells the fascinating tale of the Bowery’s evolution.- LG Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America Steven J. Ross (Bloomsbury) The riveting tale of the Nazi movement in America just before World War II and the unknown Jewish lawyer who worked to take it down.- LG The Improv: An Oral History of The Comedy Club That Revolutionized Stand-Up Budd Friedman with Tripp Whetsell (BenBella Books) Comedy fans will devour this account of the life of one of comedy’s most important incubators and tales of the many stars who made their names there.- LG The Cooperstown Casebook: Who’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Who Should Be In, and Who Should Pack Their Plaques
Jay Jaffe (Thomas Dunne Books)
Baseball fans will love, and be enraged at, this book making the case for players who belong in the Hall and players who don’t. Providing an in-depth history of the perpetual use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball.- LG Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon Jeffrey Kluger (Henry Holt and Company) Nothing like a highstakes spaceflight to keep you on your toes. “Apollo 8” details the chaotic planning that went into that historic flight, plus the tense circumstances of the flight itself. -LG High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic Glenn Frankel (Bloomsbury) The story behind the making of the film classic “High Noon” is the story of America at a conflicted, beleaguered time in its history. “High Noon” became an allegory for the blacklist era, as the controversy around the blacklist enveloped everyone working on the film, then seeped into the on-screen narrative itself.- LG I’ll Have What She’s Having Erin Carlson (Hachette) As someone who grew up on romcoms, reading this meticulously reported book on late director Nora Ephron was a sweet treat. It’s a must read for fans of “When Harry Met Sally,” “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle.”- CG The Blood of Emmett Till Timothy B. Tyson (Simon & Schuster) Emmett Till was found dead in Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River in 1955. White store owner’s wife Carolyn Bryant said the 14-year-old black youth, who was visiting relatives in a Mississippi Delta town, had whistled at her. Soon after,Till was kidnapped, shot in the head and bludgeoned to death. The sight of young Till’s open casket helped galvanize the civil rights movement. In Tyson’s book on the case, Bryant broke her long silence, confessing to the author that she lied in her testimony.- BH
Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
Chast raised her kids in suburban Connecticut and when her daughter was heading to college in Manhattan, she made her a booklet with basic info (like when street numbers get bigger, that means you’re heading uptown); this book expands on that.
A must-read for real New Yorkers.- BH
Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC Reed Tucker (Da Capo Press)
This saga by Tucker (who, full disclosure, is a Post contributor) managed to capture my interest. The decades-long, Cold War-style competition between the two comic-book titans is a fascinating yarn, involving spies, stealing ideas, poaching top talent and price wars.- BH
Grant Ron Chernow (Penguin Press)
Fresh off “Hamilton” mania, historian Ron Chernow released another doorstopper biography this fall about a misunderstood American legend, this time tackling Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, a man so full of contradictions that his nickname was the butcher but he hated the sight of blood. “Grant” appealed to me, and I’m far from a history buff, because it not only provided a compelling portrait of a complicated man but also gave a layered primer about the Civil War and Reconstruction.- SC
No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America Ron Powers (Hachette)
This is the most powerful book I’ve read in years. Powers navigates the byzantine and broken mental-health system with his two sons, who were both diagnosed with schizophrenia. The title says it all — and if you read this and don’t walk away angry, I’d like to check you for a pulse. As Powers says, we’re subjecting people today with mental illness “to demonization of a scale and intensity not seen since the Dark Ages.”- SC
The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing Damion Searls (Crown)
Butterflies, bats, and a hunky German psychiatrist — this rich and engaging psychological history book proves that there’s so much more to the ubiquitous ten inkblots called the Rorschach test. Writer and translator Damion Searls did a phenomenal job of charting the evolution of the test by situating it in the history of how the world has changed its view on the human mind. Anyone who is at all interested in psychology needs to read this book.- SC
The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks’ Teeth to Frogs’ Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From Edward Dolnick (Basic Books)
Science writer Edward Dolnick traces the evolution of the question: Where do babies come from? It’s shocking how little we knew about sex just a century or so ago — and even more shocking that silk frog underwear got us closer to an answer. Not only is this book engaging, it’s also a great intro to the history of modern medicine.- SC
Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions Richard Harris (Basic Books)
I think about this book all the time. Every time a new study trumpets a diet fad or a cancer breakthrough a little voice in my head says, remember “Rigor Mortis.” NPR science correspondent Richard Harris unveils the seedy side of academic science, proving that when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Hopefully this book will help us all “curb our enthusiasm,” writes Harris, so that “scientists will be less likely to run headlong after dubious ideas.”- SC