{"id":12650,"date":"2017-05-26T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=12650"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:19:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:19:36","slug":"public-picks-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/public-picks-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Picks 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year around this time we try to send our readers into summer with a thoughtfully curated list of the books that wowed, charmed, and provoked us most over the past 12 months. For this, the fifth-annual edition of Public Picks, we\u2019ve asked our section editors\u2014for Global Black History, Literary Fiction, Comics, Children’s & Young Adult Literature, Art, Sexuality, the B-Sides series, Print\/Screen, and Literature in Translation\u2014to wax passionate about their favorites. We hope you’ll find some surprises and future favorites of your own among them.<\/p>\n

\n

Keisha N. Blain<\/h4>\n

Global Black History<\/h5>\n

Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City\u2019s Underground Economy<\/i> <\/strong> by LaShawn D. Harris (University of Illinois Press). In Harris\u2019s beautifully written book, the stories of black women in New York who have been absent in historical narratives vividly come to life. Harris takes us on a fascinating journey of New York City unlike any we have ever seen.<\/p>\n

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America<\/i><\/strong> by Ibram X. Kendi (Nation Books). In this tour-de-force, Kendi offers a compelling history of racist ideas in the United States, drawing insights from a wide array of primary sources. His book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding race and racism in this country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nicholas Dames<\/h4>\n
Literary Fiction<\/h5>\n

The Idiot<\/i><\/strong> by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press). It\u2019s entrancingly, maybe deliberately, untimely: a spacious, meandering story of growing up in the absence of emergency, at a time and place where the world might forgive your ignorance and your mistakes. \u00a0Which is why I may not have been more enchanted by any other novel this year.<\/p>\n

The Last Samurai<\/i><\/strong> by Helen DeWitt (New Directions). Is it from this year? Clearly no; published originally in 2000, it fell into the out-of-print limbo of cult fanaticism. But also, clearly yes. Reissued in the perilous summer of 2016, its portrayal of a furtive underground world of bookish intelligence seems to have been written for exactly this moment.<\/p>\n

In Gratitude<\/i><\/strong> by Jenny Diski (Bloomsbury). Part of it is mourning: those of us who read everything Diski wrote read this memoir-of-dying as a goodbye to an essential habit. Part of it is the pleasure Diski always gave: seemingly familiar stories told by dispensing with any of the usual reference points, like some sort of trick of the light making you step gingerly into a room you thought you knew.<\/p>\n\n

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\n Reviews<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n Public Picks 2016<\/a>\n <\/h5>\n\n
\n \n The Editorial Staff <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n

Jared Gardner<\/h4>\n

Comics<\/h5>\n

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters<\/i><\/strong> by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics). The most dazzling and original graphic novel debut in ages is also the work of a fully mature comics master. Set in the 1960s, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters<\/em> is narrated by a 10-year-old \u201cmonster\u201d who is searching for the bite that will confer immortality on her dying mother. However, our narrator soon gets caught up in a quest of another kind as she seeks to discover who killed her beloved neighbor, a mystery that takes her back to Nazi Germany and a whole new world of monsters. And this is just the first of two volumes.<\/p>\n

Becoming Unbecoming<\/i><\/strong> by Una (Arsenal Pulp). By weaving her own experiences as a teenage victim of sexual violence in the 1970s with the demonizing of the Yorkshire Ripper\u2019s victims by the media and police and the romanticizing of the killer himself, Una crafts a brilliant hybrid of graphic memoir, local history, and political call to arms against global rape culture and its myriad beneficiaries and apologists.<\/p>\n

Rolling Blackouts:\u00a0Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq<\/i> <\/strong>by Sarah Glidden (Drawn & Quarterly). A nuanced journalistic essay (in gorgeous watercolors) on the efforts of independent journalists to tell stories of the veterans and victims of the 21st century\u2019s endless wars\u2014men and women whose stories don\u2019t make for easy soundbites or social media posts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marah Gubar<\/h4>\n
Children’s & Young Adult Literature<\/h5>\n

School\u2019s First Day of School<\/i><\/strong> by Adam Rex and Christian Robinson (Roaring Brook). This warm, witty, and inclusive picture book filters first-day-of-school jitters through the perspective of the school itself, giving young readers a new outlook on a familiar place.<\/p>\n

Me and Marvin Gardens<\/i><\/strong> by Amy Sarig King (Scholastic). Reminiscent of both E. T.<\/i> and Louis Sachar\u2019s Holes<\/i>, <\/i>this moving middle-grade novel skillfully blends a fantastic element into an otherwise realistic narrative. King\u2019s exploration of the question of what we owe to each other and the earth we inhabit is both poignant and thought-provoking.<\/p>\n

The Hate U Give<\/i><\/strong> by Angie Thomas (HarperCollins). An instant classic, this brilliantly structured young adult novel vividly evokes the joys and pleasures as well as the tragedies and injustices endured by African Americans living in a poor urban neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\"Things
Photograph by Ron Frazier \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anne Higonnet<\/h4>\n

Art<\/h5>\n

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry<\/em><\/strong>, catalogue for the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016\u20132017). The Met celebrated Kerry James Marshall as only the Met can: within a gloriously long tradition. It was into exactly such a tradition and museum that the Chicago painter vowed to introduce black figures. Marshall reinvented how the color black can represent figures, as the exhibition catalogue essays astutely argue. Never before has deep matte black, in which we think we see nothing but absence, had so much political presence. Marshall\u2019s monumental paintings layer multiple references to vernacular African American traditions with subtle allusions to Old Masters. To make that point, the Met had Marshall curate a brilliantly eclectic choice of inspirational works from its collection. This year we learned how the Met brought fiscal ruin on itself by trying too hard to become what it isn\u2019t\u2014yet another New York contemporary art institution. The Marshall exhibition and its catalogue proved the relevance of what the Met is already. Deep roots can nourish true change.<\/p>\n

Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection<\/em><\/strong>, catalogue for the exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2016\u20132017). Divided among various museums since the Russian Revolution, 130 modernist paintings that had once belonged to a single collector, Sergei Shchukin, were reunited in the summer and fall of 2016. Names like Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Monet drew more than 1.2 million visitors to the Fondation Vuitton, a building designed by Frank Gehry and located on the edge of Paris. The paintings glowed with the fervor that pushed three generations of artists to defy realist standards and embrace abstraction. Meanwhile, the catalogue revels in Shchukin\u2019s pioneering taste and the home setting in which the paintings once hung. Mirroring the homage to Shchukin\u2019s private collection, the exhibition showcased the philanthropy of Bernard Arnault, creator of the Fondation Vuitton and head of the luxury conglomerate LVMH. The businessman Arnault\u2019s ability to make a deal with the Russian government runs not far beneath the surface of the catalogue\u2019s introductory material and of the televised interviews he has granted. Icons of Modern Art<\/em> challenged the public French museum system with a spectacle of buying power.<\/p>\n

Color in the Age of Impressionism<\/em><\/strong> by Laura Anne Kalba (Penn State University Press). Who would have thought there was anything left to say about impressionism? By considering a fundamental material issue, Kalba revitalizes a dormant field. In the middle of the 19th century, new chemical dyes, printing techniques, and artificial lighting transformed color, which had always depended on natural substances. The impressionists, painting modern urban life the way Baudelaire inspired them to, caught on fast. By doing original research into everyday color technologies, Kalba links famous paintings like James McNeill Whistler\u2019s 1875 Falling Rocket<\/em> with modern pyrotechnics, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec\u2019s Montmartre nightlife posters with chromolithography. The book is a model scholarly history of visual culture, abundantly illustrated with pictures you\u2019ve never seen before as well as favorite masterpieces, and easy to read.<\/p>\n

The Pussyhat Project<\/a><\/strong>. The most potent political symbol of the year is the Pussyhat. How did 12 square inches of pink knitting take on Trump? First, the week after Thanksgiving of 2016, there was an idea by Krista Suh and Jayne Zweiman. Then came instructions by Cat Coyle, sent out on the internet as the Pussyhat Project. Ironically, the instructions made it obvious that any knitter could invent ways to execute the idea individually. When knit-world star Kay Gardiner endorsed the concept, it spread like wildfire through local yarn stores and the global online organization Ravelry. Pussyhats enabled people not only to tint the January 21 Women\u2019s Marches around the world, but also to perform their resistance in the making of the hat, and in the giving of hats to others. Hot pink fought against lukewarm femininity, humor against sexism, craft against the political machine, countless personal variations against the laws of conformity, and generosity against ruthless profit. It\u2019s fun, soft, and warm. Do it yourself. Pass it on.<\/p>\n

\"Kerry
Kerry James Marshall, Untitled<\/i> (2009). Acrylic on PVC panel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Heather Love<\/h4>\n

Sexuality<\/h5>\n

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure<\/i> <\/strong>by Eli Clare (Duke University Press). Clare\u2019s much-anticipated follow-up to his groundbreaking Exile and Pride<\/i> (1999) reflects on the necessity and violence of cure. Speaking from his experience of disability, queerness, and transgender identity, and from his passionate commitments as an activist, Clare mixes memoir with cultural criticism to offer a portrait of thriving beyond normative definitions of health and well-being.<\/p>\n

Tough Enough: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil<\/i><\/strong> by Deborah Nelson <\/i>(University of Chicago Press). Women artists and intellectuals find themselves in a double bind, condemned as sentimental if they show too much emotion and as cold if they show too little. Nelson identifies a counter-tradition in the work of six brilliant and tough-minded thinkers who dealt with catastrophic and ordinary violence by facing it<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In the Wake: On Blackness and Being <\/i><\/strong>by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press). In a series of formally innovative chapters (\u201cThe Wake,\u201d \u201cThe Ship,\u201d \u201cThe Hold,\u201d and \u201cThe Weather\u201d), Sharpe explores the possibilities for black survival and resistance in the aftermath of slavery. Identifying gender and sexuality as key targets of historical and contemporary violence, Sharpe writes, \u201cBlack life in and out of the \u2018New World\u2019 is always queered and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Plotz<\/h4>\n
B-Sides Series<\/h5>\n

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness<\/i><\/strong> by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). A philosopher turned friend-of-cephalopods explores a species that took a path toward intelligence, sociability, and practical jokes that differed from humanity\u2019s at every evolutionary step. Yet at the end of the road, the way these short-lived tricksters and prestidigitators think is not so hard to fathom. \u00a0As close as we will come to \u00a0encountering a truly alien intelligence (at least those of us who never go on a White House tour \u2026).<\/p>\n

Living<\/strong> <\/i>by <\/i>Henry Green (NYRB Classics). Originally published in 1929 (the author was only 24) this was reissued by the indispensable NYRB Classics series. It\u2019s a perceptive novel about factory life, sure, but what\u2019s dazzling is its form: a kind of radio play for voices, dialogue floating in the void, vowels torqued and syllables clipped and just about legible. Like a life seen through smoke or half-audible behind whistles and the clatter of machinery.<\/p>\n

Underground Airlines<\/i><\/strong> by Ben Winters (Mulholland). In the spirit of Philip K. Dick\u2019s The Man in the High Castle<\/i>, <\/i>this account of slavery still ongoing in 2016 America asks readers to notice how much (or how little) has actually changed in our own world of racial profiling and third-world factory production.<\/p>\n

\"Old
Old List<\/i> (detail). Photograph by Kit \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leah Price<\/h4>\n

Print\/Screen<\/h5>\n

Public Library: And Other Stories<\/em><\/strong> by Ali Smith (Anchor). Smith\u2019s latest collection looks uncannily like the bookshelf of a library: you don\u2019t know what you\u2019ll find next to what, but you do trust that some logic governs the juxtapositions. \u00a0The lyrical statistics and laconic anecdotes that caulk together Smith\u2019s stories add up to a story of their own, about the neoliberal British state replacing librarians by volunteers and selling off reading rooms to private fitness clubs. \u00a0The collection ends with Smith\u2019s partner going through her dead mother\u2019s purse to dispose of credit cards, reward cards, driver\u2019s license: \u201cThe one thing I couldn\u2019t bring myself to throw away was her library card.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stephen Twilley<\/h4>\n
Literature in Translation<\/h5>\n

Doomi Golo: The Hidden Notebooks<\/em><\/strong> by Boubacar Boris Diop, translated from the French by Vera W\u00fclfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop (Michigan State University Press). Originally composed in Wolof and later liberally adapted into French by the author, the titular notebooks are addressed to the narrator\u2019s absent grandson, who may or may not ever return to Senegal to discover this unconventional vade mecum, a beguiling mix of history and fable, braggadocio and melancholy, political critique and dreamy musings.<\/p>\n

Angel of Oblivion<\/em><\/strong> by Maja Haderlap, translated from the German by Tess Lewis (Archipelago). The vivid portrait of a singular family, part of Austria\u2019s Slovenian-speaking minority, Haderlap\u2019s story opens, little by little and obliquely, onto big themes of historical memory and forgetting, language and identity, and tolerance and tribalism\u2014all without ever betraying the specific humanity of her characters. The narrator\u2019s bitter, manic-depressed father clings to historical grudges, but her joy in accompanying him in furtive forays across the border, the family\u2019s relief at finding him merely asleep in the barn the morning after a bender, are palpable and exhilarating. Her sardonic yet tender, mystical yet pragmatic grandmother can\u2019t forget the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, but, before she\u2019s a victim or a symbol, she\u2019s a wonderfully messy and complex character that lingers in the mind.<\/p>\n

War and Turpentine<\/em><\/strong> by Stefan Hertmans, translated from the Dutch by David McKay (Pantheon). Our narrator, a Flemish writer, reconstructs the life of his grandfather, an artist and WWI veteran, from a pair of old notebooks. He moves from striking image to telling anecdote, from sensuous detail to philosophical reflection, and in the process his own childhood memories gain significance and clarity. The account is occasionally supplemented by old photographs, uncaptioned. If we\u2019ve seen the like before\u2014from Sebald, certainly, and more recently from Teju Cole and Ali Smith, but I was also reminded of Claudio Magris and Cees Nooteboom\u2014it has rarely been accomplished with such exquisite emotional as well as intellectual precision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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