Organising Queen’s best books of 2017

I finished off the year with 120 books read, 40 non-fiction (my highest non-fiction numbers ever!) and 80 fiction.

May all things in life be as neat 🙂

A post shared by Marcia Francois (@organisingqueen) on Dec 31, 2017 at 11:23pm PST

It was a really great reading year and I’ll tell you later this month how I vastly exceeded my reading goal for the year (167% of the goal).

But for now, I want to tell you about the best fiction and non-fiction I read in 2017.

Let’s start with non-fiction:

1. The Four Tendencies – Gretchen Rubin

I wrote a bit about it here as it relates to me, an upholder. I’m telling you, upholder tightening is a real thing and I’m thrilled I now have the language to explain the things I do.

No matter your tendency, get this book. It is fabulous. You will learn about yourself and your family. My second biggest reason for loving it so much is understanding my kids better. (Dion and I are both upholders, but one of us leans to Questioner and the other to Obliger)

PS Her previous book, Better than Before, is on sale at the moment. I bought myself another copy because I bought the audible version the first time around.

2. Your Move – the underdog’s guide to building your business – Ramit Sethi

I love Ramit’s work and I really enjoyed this no-frills book on business.

His blog inspired this post of mine – 3 things I do to help my productivity.

PS you can see all my reviews on my Goodreads profile.

3. Born a Crime: And other stories – Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah is South African but all I really knew about him (I’m not up to date with pop culture, as you know) was his TV ads for a cell phone provider.

This book was fascinating in all kinds of ways even to me, a South African.

I was educated, entertained, challenged and delighted by his narration of this book. Do yourself a favour and get it. If you’re concerned as I was that this would be too political, it’s not. It does challenge your thinking though.

Honorable mentions: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (one of my favourites ever but it already made my 2015 list!) and Reading People (Anne Bogel)

And now for the fiction:

1. Truly Madly Guilty – Liane Moriarty

This is the same author who wrote Big Little Lies. I love all her work but I truly was delighted with this one because I loved the characters. I loved it so much I’m planning to re-read it this year, this time on Audible 🙂

2. Every Last One – Anna Quindlen

Oh my gosh, this was such a beautiful book. My first by this author. Such detail to relationships and insights about people – just beautifully written in every way.

This year I read my first book by authors seemingly everyone has read – Anna Quindlen, Anne Tyler (Digging to America) and Maggie O’Farrell

I do want to say I abandoned 5 books this year which is AWESOME for me. This year I want to abandon them quicker.

3. A window opens – Elisabeth Egan

Another new-to-me author and I loved this book. It was a book about normal life for married women with children and I can’t tell you what exactly I loved but just everything. I could not put it down.

Get it – you’ll be delighted.

Please share your top fiction and non-fiction reads with me.

And feel free to recommend books to me too in the women’s fiction, psychological thriller and memoir range. I’m also looking for a good memoir/ project book like this one.

PS Confession – while putting together this list and searching for links online, I actually bought 5 new books (!)