3 Answers2026-07-09 02:50:24
International lists that year seemed dominated by a few repeat names, honestly. 'Origin' by Dan Brown was everywhere, airports especially, but I found it pretty formulaic. The real story might be in the regional charts—like 'Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine' really exploded in the UK later that year, but its global surge came a bit after 2017 proper.
I'd argue the 'worldwide' metric gets skewed by US-centric reporting. If you check lists from markets like Germany or Japan, 'The Woman in the Window' by A.J. Finn had massive pre-publication buzz that translated into huge sales post-release, but it’s rarely mentioned in the same breath as the juggernauts. The steady performer no one talks about now is maybe 'Camino Island' by Grisham—not a critical darling, but it sold a ton of copies quietly.
3 Answers2026-07-09 06:33:46
Looking back, 2017 had a bunch of books that seemed to dominate the conversation for a while. I'd still recommend 'Sing, Unburied, Sing' by Jesmyn Ward without hesitation. It's the kind of book where the atmosphere settles into your bones—the prose is so visceral and haunted, it just sticks with you.
For something completely different in the speculative lane, 'The Power' by Naomi Alderman made me argue with my friends for weeks. That premise about women developing a physical advantage just unravels society in such a fascinating, uncomfortable way. It felt very of its moment but the questions it raises are timeless.
And honestly, you can't go wrong with 'Lincoln in the Bardo' by George Saunders. It's weird, yeah, but it's a beautiful, funny, sad mosaic about grief. It took me a bit to get into the rhythm of all those voices, but once I did, I couldn't put it down.
3 Answers2026-07-09 08:49:25
Struggling to remember back that far! I was still catching up on older stuff in 2017, but a few debuts from that year really carved out a lasting place. Gabrielle Zevin's 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' wasn't until 2022, so that's not it. The one that comes up most is 'The Power' by Naomi Alderman. It swept up awards and sparked huge conversations. It won the Bailey's Prize (now the Women's Prize for Fiction) and had this incredibly sharp premise about gender dynamics flipping.
Another was 'Sing, Unburied, Sing' by Jesmyn Ward, which actually won the National Book Award that year, though I think 'Salvage the Bones' was her debut earlier? Might be a misremember. Either way, 'Sing' got enormous critical love for its haunting prose and deep Southern family saga. Mohsin Hamid's 'Exit West' was also huge, blending magical doors with a refugee love story—beautiful and timely. Felt like critics couldn't get enough of its approach to global displacement.
A personal favorite that flew a bit under the mainstream radar was 'Her Body and Other Parties' by Carmen Maria Machado. It's a short story collection, but the acclaim for its genre-bending feminist horror was intense and well-deserved. That one stuck with me long after reading.
3 Answers2026-07-09 11:33:41
There's always that one novel each year that seems to sweep the board, and for 2017, for me, that was unquestionably George Saunders's 'Lincoln in the Bardo'. The sheer ambition of its structure—a chorus of ghostly voices in a graveyard—captured the Man Booker Prize. It felt like a genuine event in literary fiction, a book that was both formally daring and deeply moving in its exploration of grief and history. It dominated conversations for months.
While others like 'Exit West' got well-deserved recognition, the Saunders novel had this momentum. It was the kind of book you saw everywhere, from bookstore displays to year-end lists, and winning the Booker really cemented its place as the defining award-winner of that season.
3 Answers2026-07-09 21:29:30
Worldwide? That's casting a huge net. Back then, I felt its buzz was super regional. It blew up in China and parts of Southeast Asia first, mostly because of the original web novel's platform and early adaptations. The official English translation didn't even start until late 2016, so Western readers were playing catch-up for a while.
By 2017, though, the manhua and donghua were fueling it hard overseas. The animated series was a big deal. It was all over my feeds—people were sharing clips of the epic cultivation battles. That visual push did more for its global spread that year than the book itself, I think. The novel's popularity curve wasn't a single global spike; it was this rolling wave hitting different shores at different times.