As 2017 comes to a close, we’d like to celebrate some of the accolades our speakers’ books received this year. From New York Times-bestselling fiction to National Book Award-winning nonfiction, these books are truly some of the best published this year, and we couldn’t be prouder to represent the authors that penned them.
Best Books of the Year
National Book Award winner, Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction, Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction, Washington Post Top Ten “Fascinating and deeply felt.” —The New York Times Book Review
The Future Is History - Masha Gessen
Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction, NPR Best Books of the Year, Washington Post Best Fiction, Publishers Weekly Best of 2017, Amazon Most Read Book “Powerful . . . Chaon is one of America’s best and most dependable writers, and in the end, Ill Will is a ruthlessly ‘realistic’ piece of fiction about the unrealistic beliefs people entertain about their world.” —Los Angeles Times
Ill Will - Dan Chaon
New York Times Top Ten, New York Times 100 Notable Books “Marvelous…. Chernow’s biography gives us a deep look into this complicated but straightforward man, and into a troubled time in our history that still echoes today.” —Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy
Grant - Ron Chernow
The Midnight Line - Lee Child
New York Times Critics Pick, New York Times 100 Notable Books, Amazon Most Read
“Each year Lee Child comes up with another Reacher. . . . . I don’t know another author so skilled at making me turn the page, at putting me in the thick of it all.” —The Times Of London
Audible Editors Pick, Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction, Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction “Essential . . . Coates’s probing essays about race, politics, and history became necessary ballast for this nation’s gravity-defying moment.” —The Boston Globe
We Were Eight Years in Power - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan
Longlisted for the National Book Award, NPR’s Best Books of the Year, New York Times 100 Notable Books
“Tremendously assured and rich, moving from depictions of violence and crime to deep tenderness. The book’s emotional power once again demonstrates Egan’s extraordinary gifts.” —Publishers Weekly
New York Times 100 Notable Books, NPR Best Books of the Year, Washington Post Best Fiction “El Akkad . . . has an innate (and depressingly timely) feel for the textural details of dystopia; if only his grim near-future fantasy didn’t feel so much like a crystal ball.” —Leah Greenblat, Entertainment Weekly
American War - Omar El Akkad
NPR Best Books of the Year, Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction ” . . . a searing take, a polemic packed with urgency and desperation that, for all its erudition and eloquence, is not afraid to roll up its sleeves and make things personal.” —NPR.org
World Without Mind - Franklin Foer
New York Times 100 Notable Books, New York Times Critics Pick, NPR Best Books of the Year “Green finds the language to describe the indescribable. . . . A must-read for those struggling with mental illness, or for their friends and family.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Turtles All the Way Down - John Green
New York Times Critics Pick “You should read The Far Away Brothers. We all should.” —NPR
The Far Away Brothers - Lauren Markham
Audible Editor’s Pick, Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year, NPR‘s Best Books of the Year, Goodreads Readers’ Choice, Washington Post Best Fiction, Amazon Most Read Book “Witty, wise, and tender. It’s a marvel.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water 
Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction, NPR Best Books of the Year, Washington Post Best Nonfiction “An eye opening discussion . . . [An] important book. . . .” —The New York Times Book Review
An American Sickness - Elisabeth Rosenthal
Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction, NPR Best Books of the Year “[A] cutting take on race and class…part dark comedy, part surreal morality tale. Disturbing and delicious.” —People
New People - Danzy Senna
New York Times 100 Notable Books, New York Times Critics Pick, Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year, NPR‘s Best Books of the Year, Washington Post Best Fiction “When Elizabeth Strout is on her game, is there anybody better? . . . This is a generous, wry book about everyday lives, and Strout crawls so far inside her characters you feel you inhabit them. . . . This is a book that earns its title. Try reading it without tears, or wonder.” —USA Today
Anything Is Possible - Elizabeth Strout
New York Times 100 Notable Books, New York Times Critics Pick, Washington Post Top Ten “All of Sullivan’s characters leap off the page. You don’t read this book; you breathe it.” —Janet Maslin, “Times Critics’ Top Books of 2017,” The New York Times
Saints for All Occasions - J. Courtney Sullivan