In my home, books are a big part of the holidays, whether given as gifts, or enjoyed by a roaring fire with a mug of hot mulled wine at hand, and a cat purring nearby. As always, BookLoons has recommendations for you, based on the best of our 2017 reading (limited to 3 per genre). These are mainly hardcovers - find rave reads most likely published in paperback in 2017 in our Recommended Reads 2016.

Contemporary	Fantasy	Historical
A Dog's Way Home New Boy The Rules of Magic	The Girl in the Tower Miranda and Caliban Oathbringer	The Chilbury Ladies' Choir The Half-Drowned King Love and Other Consolation Prizes
Mystery	Mystery - Cozy	Mystery - Historical
Fast Falls the Night Marathon Paradise Valley	The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes How the Finch Stole Christmas Miles Off Course	The Countess of Prague The Irregular Racing the Devil
Mystery - Int'l	Mystery - Thriller	Romance
Blue Light Yokohama The Fifth Element Skeleton God	Dead Woman Walking The Marsh King's Daughter Two Nights	Seeing Red Some Kind of Hero
SF	Non-Fiction
Fever Hymn The Man in the Tree	Ancient Brews If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? Letters to a Young Muslim
YA Fiction	YA Fantasy/SF	YA Mystery
Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined Optimists Die First Turtles All the Way Down	Martians Abroad Shadow Run Shattered Warrior	City of Saints & Thieves Missing Never Say Die
Picture Books	Chapter Books
I am Jim Henson Sam Sorts Who Wants a Tortoise?	The Best Bear in All the World Dog Night at the Story Zoo Henrietta and the Perfect Night
Find more book gift suggestions in our many previous Holiday Columns.
All of us at BookLoons wish you and yours the best of times, the happiest of holidays, and a joyous, healthy, prosperous and (especially) peaceful 2018!!