Each December I reflect upon the best of what i’ve read of titles published this year. Like previous years, this year’s “most engaging books” list reflects what i found most fascinating / useful / generative. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search. Your local, independent, bookstore can help….

This is the cream of the crop for 2017, seriously:

Poetry

Howe, Susan. Debths. (New Directions)

Métail. Michèle. Wild Geese Returning: Chinese Reversible Poems. (NYRB)

Queyras, Sina. My Ariel. (Coach House Books)

Rinne, Cia. L’Usage du Mot. (Gylendal)

Villoro, Federico Pérez and Christopher Hamamoto. Printer Prosthetic: Futura. (Printed Matter)

Wolf-Rehfeldt, Ruth. Signs Fiction. (Motto Books)

Fiction

Crowe, Michael. An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in GTA Online. (Studio Operative)

Desnos, Robert. The Punishments of Hell. (Atlas Press)

Garréta, Anne. Not One Day. (Deep Vellum)

Non-fiction

Briggs, Kate. This Little Art. (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Hunt, Andrew and Nicola Simpson, eds. dom sylvester houédard. (Richard Saltoun)

Krukowski, Damon. The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World. (The New Press)

Scott, Jordan. Lanterns at Guantánamo. (SFU writers in residence chapbook series)

Photography (& more)

Zelazo, Suzanne, ed. Janieta Eyre: Incarnations. (Coach House Books)