The Day's writers select their favorite books of 2017.

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

Here's a book that hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list — and torqued off President Trump. The Donald didn't like that "Devil's Bargain" explored how Bannon helped him get elected; Trump likes to take all the credit and attention for himself, if you haven't noticed. "Devil's Bargain" is fascinating, well-researched and well-written. And "Devil's Bargain" just happens to be by Joshua Green, who grew up in New London and graduated from New London High School and Connecticut College.

— Kristina Dorsey

The Nix by Nathan Hill

One of those "literary" debuts by a precociously gifted young writer, this estranged mother/son dynamic effortlessly and hilariously pinballs from the 1968 Democratic National Convention to video game addiction to Norwegian folk myths, and somewhere the specters of David Foster Wallace and John Kennedy Toole are chortling.

— Rick Koster

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

First-time novelist Tallent shot onto the literary scene like a North Korean rocket this year. Some quaked at the brutal nature of this novel, the story of a 14-year-old Julia "Turtle" Alveston trying to escape an abusive father and develop an identity of her own. Set in the Pacific Northwest, the book burns with site-specific details and Turtle's dead-on voice. If you heard Tallent read earlier this year at the Savoy Bookshop and Cafe in Westerly, you would be hard-pressed to buy the criticism that his accounts of abuse are salacious. On the contrary, he has created a heroine as unforgettable as Scout of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and a novel with themes just as important.

— Betty J. Cotter

The Weight of This World by David Joy

Wait till midnight on a moonless, starless night. Then put on a blindfold and cover it with sunglasses and crawl deep inside a cave. You think that's dark? HA! Read this masterpiece of Appalachian noir and ask yourself, "Is it too much just to hope?" As bleak as this novel is, the majesty of Joy's prose and longing will leave you breathless with appreciation and awe.

— Rick Koster

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

When a popular Colorado school girl is found beaten to death, the jury of public opinion targets a classmate who stalked her. As relayed through three different POVs, though — and beautifully crafted and written — Kukafka will spin you like a top. Complex, secretive, and irresistible.

— Rick Koster

A Piece of the World by Christine Baker Kline

The author has made the audacious decision to inhabit the point of view of Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's iconic painting, "Christina's World." Her boldness pays off in this rich, bittersweet story of a woman who lived in squalor on the edge of the Maine coast. Olson's refusal to surrender her independence, even if it meant dragging her debilitated body on the ground, is explained with a sensitively told back story of failed medical treatments, a heartbreaking love affair, and an unlikely bond with a painter from the upper classes.

— Betty J. Cotter

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

This is a book that provides a potent portrait of the Rust Belt and gives a peek into the world of the voters there who so enthusiastically cast their ballots for Trump. Even if Trump hadn't won, though, Vance's book would still be an intriguing look at his family and blue-collar culture in Kentucky and Ohio, which is where the author grew up.

— Kristina Dorsey

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

Shreve, the author of 15 novels, is in top form in this historical novel, also set in Maine and based on a devastating fire that leveled nine towns in 1947. Grace Holland is married to a cold husband, a surveyor whose mathematical precision allows her precious room to be her own person. When he disappears in the wildfire, she has a chance at a new life in the ancestral seaside house he left behind. Grace's fate will not be worked out quite that neatly, however, and neither her new employer – the local doctor – nor a piano-playing intruder can protect her from the calculus of revenge.

— Betty J. Cotter

The Innocents by Ace Atkins

I read a quote recently from comic Patton Oswalt, who wondered what was wrong with a world where a comedian as good as Brian Regan isn't filling arenas. I feel the same way about literary crime novelist Atkins, whose rural Mississippi stories about lawman Quinn Colson are stunningly envisioned and realized. Funny, brutal, heartbreaking, complex, unsparing and dazzling reflections of a very real segment of our society.

— Rick Koster

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I kept expecting more dark plot turns to take place, but "Gentleman" remained an engrossing fable. I was always happy to return to the world of a Russian count sentenced to house arrest in a posh Moscow hotel. Despite the looming threat of the communist government, his life is rather charmed — and charming.

— Kristina Dorsey

An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn

Mendelsohn, a writer who teaches at Bard College in New York, has misgivings when he allows his 81-year-old father to audit his class on Homer's classic. While he initially frets about his father's weekly drive from Long Island and the reception undergraduates will give the cranky retired scientist, Mendelsohn finds himself learning lessons of his own – in attention, patience, and the mysteries that can lie within the most familiar figures. Mendelsohn unspools his personal story alongside an insightful journey into the epic tale of a warrior trying to make his way home.

— Betty J. Cotter

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This is the tale of a family slowly upended by the arrival of an artist mother and her teen daughter in Shaker Heights, Ohio. It's compulsively readable, even if Ng's debut, "Everything I Never Told You," is arguably a deeper work.

— Kristina Dorsey

Setting Free the Kites by Alex George

Two unlikely best friends come of age together against the backdrop of a Maine amusement park. It's like John Knowles wrote Stephem King's "Joyland" or King wrote Knowles' "A Separate Peace." And watch out for that last twist.

— Rick Koster

Dead Souls by J. Lincoln Fenn

You'd figure, after Marlowe, Goethe and Benet, most writers would tend to avoid trying to work the ol' "sell your soul to the devil" trope. But damned if Fenn doesn't provide a wonderfully contemporary flavor on the idea.

— Rick Koster

The Force by Don Winslow

There aren't many writers about whom you can say of a new work, well, this is probably about my seventh favorite book by this person. And it's still by-God fantastic. That's the situation with this heart-shredding cop story set in New York City. It's not up there with Winslow's "The Power of the Dog," "The Cartel," "The Dawn Patrol," "Savages," "The Kings of Cool" or a few more. That said? "The Force is un-freakin'-believable.

— Rick Koster

Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin

Flaneur is a French word for a particular type of gentleman, who wanders the streets of Paris, soaking in city life. Elkin reclaims this territory for women, recounting adventures ranging from the intrepid walks of Virginia Woolf to the wanderings of artist Sophie Calle. Along the way, she has adventures of her own, concluding that Tokyo – an obstacle course of concrete – is the least flaneuse friendly, while London and Paris live up to their reputations. "Let me walk," she writes. "Let me go at my own pace. Let me feel life as it moves through me and and around me."

— Betty J. Cotter

Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

And so Iles has completed his massive trilogy about race, murder, clandestine romance and much, much, much more in the secret-caked Deep South. Do NOT be put off by the couple-thousand pages you need to read to get to the finish line. "Natchez Burning," "The Bone Tree" and now "Mississippi Blood" are wonderful and you'll not regret a moment.

— Rick Koster

Swimming with the Bridgeport Girls by Anthony Tambukis

This Connecticut-born and established screenwriter took years to finish this debut novel. It was time well spent. Very funny and wretchedly desperate and sad, it's the story of Ray, a bottomed-out ex-ESPN anchor who cannot accept that his ex-wife has moved on. His increasingly delusional plans to get her back provide the narrative arc, but the set pieces and support characters who enable and/or try to help Ray help fuel this wonderful book.

— Rick Koster