The very best of 2017 according to The Wild Detectives’ family.

The very best of 2017 according to The Wild Detectives’ family.
The very best of 2017 according to The Wild Detectives’ family.
2017 is about to end. The macro perspective can be dreary, but from a local point of view, we can’t complaint. It’s been a great year for The Wild Detectives!
Having better author events, more engaging and dynamic, was one of our key objectives for 2017. We’ve managed to bring great authors this year such as Chris Krauss, Morgan Parker, Amelia Gray, Jami Attenberg, Deb Olin Unferth, Melissa Febos… while keeping our events as a platform for local talent and community driven events (Rejected, Backyard Story Night, Shakespeare in the Bar…). We’ve expanded our Spanish program with the visits of top Spanish language writers. It was such an honor to have authors like Carlos Velázquez, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Santiago Gamboa or Cristina Rivera Garza presenting their work in our bookstore. Our Spanish event will be a key part of our mission in 2018.
We’ve also consolidated our new co-curation system which has helped us not just to sell more books, but more importantly, to sell books that are relevant for our community.
Last November, Damien Jurado (and Jacob Metcalf) inaugurated our series of intimate shows in our backyard last November and we’re already planning to bring great artists to our spot.
What else… oh yeah, our friends at Dieste came up with the #LitBait campaign and we won 2 Lions at Cannes!
Ok, enough with blowing our horn, let’s go to the ‘bestest’ of 2017 according to us, our collaborators and friends. Again, a very heterogeneous list, which just speaks tonnes about how diverse our community is. It’s the first time we have a book in Spanish as the best book of the year and that makes us immensely happy (even better: a book written by a friend).
Just so you know, our list includes not just those books, albums and movies/TV shows released on 2017, but also those that have been read, listened to and watched this year regardless of the publication date. Kind of interesting, that 1984, which was published in 1949, made it to the top 3. Why would that be. Any idea?
Books:
1.
Conjunto vacío – Verónica Gerber Bicecci
2.
4 3 2 1 – Paul Auster
3.
The Kingdom – Emmanuel Carrere
Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jasmyn Ward
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters – Emil Ferris
1984 – George Orwell
Albums:
1.
Masseduction – St. Vincent
Melodrama – Lorde
2.
American Dream – LCD Soundsystem
Damn – Kendrick Lamar
Kelly Lee Owens – Kelly Lee Owens
Salvavidas De Hielo – Jorge Drexler
Movies:
1.
Get Out – Jordan Peele
2.
Ladybird – Greta Gerwig
3.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh
At The Wild Detectives:
Jean Paul Caron
Best Book:
Sticky Fingers – Joe Hagan
Best Album:
Villains – Queens of the Stonge Age
Best Movie:
Silence – Martin Scorsese
Andrés de la Casa Huertas
Best Book:
4 3 2 1 – Paul Auster
Best Book in Spanish:
Patria – Fernando Aramburu
Best Album:
Garden of Ashes – Duke Garwood
Kelly Lee Owens – Kelly Lee Owens
Best Movie:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh
Jose Garay
Best Book:
Absalom, Absalom – William Faulkner
Best Album:
Psycho Tropical Berlin – La Femme
Best Movie:
Pickpocket – Robert Bresson
Javier García del Moral
Best Book:
The Kingdom – Emmanuel Carrere
Best Non-Fiction:
Oil Blood – Leif Wenar
Best Book in Spanish:
La Uruguaya – Pedro Mairal
Best Album:
Music for the Age or Miracles – The Clientele
Best Movie:
A Ghost Story – David Lowery
Victor Rimach
Best Book:
Quien Mató a Palomino Moreno – Mario Vargas Llosa
Best Album:
Salvavidas De Hielo – Jorge Drexler
Best Movie:
Los Perros – Marcela Said
Leala Rosen
Best Book:
The Song Poet: Memoirs of My Father – Kao Kalia Yang
Best Album:
Masseduction – St. Vincent
Best Movie:
Ladybird – Greta Gerwig
Lauren Smart
Best Novel:
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life – Samantha Irby
Best Poetry Collection:
There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce – Morgan Parker
(plus having her read her poems in the shop was MAGICAL!)
Best Album:
Empressionism – Ruby Empress
Best Movie:
Ladybird – Greta Gerwig
Paco Vique
Best Book:
Camanchaca – Diego Zúñiga
Best Album:
City Music – Kevin Morby
Relatives in Descent – Protomartyr
Best Movie:
The Florida Project – Sean Baker
Our collaborators:
Elizabeth Alexander
Check Elizabeth’s articles on our website here and here
Best Book:
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions – Valeria Luiselli
Luis Borges
Check Luis’ article on our website (Spanish)
Best Book:
Conjunto vacío – Verónica Gerber Bicecci
Best Album:
Salvavidas de hielo – Jorge Drexler
Best Movie:
Coco – Lee Unkrich (Pixar)
Camile Bradley
Co-Heart-and-soul of The WD’ book club
Best Book:
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness – Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
Best Album:
Damn – Kendrick Lamar
Best Movie:
The Big Sick – Michael Showalter
John Bradley
Co-Heart-and-soul of The WD’ book club
Check his article on our website here and here
Best Book:
Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
Best Album:
Goths – The Mountain Goats
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Kelsey Capps
Check Kelsey’s articles on our website here and here
Best Book:
4 3 2 1 – Paul Auster
Best Album:
Mr. Finish Line – Vulfpeck
Best Movie:
Blande Runner 2049 – Denis Villeneuve
Ana Lourdes Campoy
Ana is El Book Club –our book club in Spanish– coordinator
Best Book:
Fiesta en la Madriguera – Juan Pablo Villalobos
Best Album:
Qué lindo es el amor – Interactivo
Best Movie:
The Stressful Adventures of Boxhead & Roundhead – Elliot Cowan
Trey Carlock
Check Trey’s poems on our website
Best Book:
The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
Best Music:
Bon Iver’s 2017-18 live tour
Best Movie:
Snowden – Oliver Stone
Marina Cuesta
Creative Director at Dieste. Responsible for this campaign and the 2 Bronze Lions in Cannes we got this year
Best Book:
The Girls – Emma Cline
Best Album:
Residente – Residente
Best Movie:
Your Name – Makoto Shinkai
Best TV Show:
Ozark – Bill Dubuque
Austin Dupree
Austin helped us to put Women Galore together last March
Best Book:
Sex and Rage – Eve Babitz
Best Album:
Hallelujah Anyhow – Hiss Golden Messenger
Best TV Show:
Godless – Scott Frank
Katy Dycus
Check Katy’s articles on our website here, here and here
Best Book:
Theft By Finding – David Sedaris
Best Album:
Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex
Best Movie:
Ladybird – Greta Gerwig
Matías Jaramillo
Digital Director at Dieste. Responsible for this campaign and the 2 Bronze Lions in Cannes we got this year
Best Book:
Death’s End – Liu Cixin
Best Album:
EP2 – Yaeji
Best TV Show:
Halt and Catch Fire – Christopher Cantwell & Christopher C. Rogers
Janielle Kastler
Director and co-creator of the Movies that should Be Musicals series
Best Book:
Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
Best Album:
Melodrama – Lorde
Best Movie:
Ladybird – Greta Gerwig
Bret McCormick
Check Bret’s stories on our website here and here
Best Book:
Heroes of the Frontier – Dave Eggers
Best Album:
The Authorized Bang Collection – Van Morrison
Best Movie:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh
Ernesto Montiel
Dj, music erudite and the engine behind our Further Sounds and Further Jazz series
Best Book:
Pim & Francie – Al Columbia
Conjunto vacío – Veronica Gerber Bicecci
The Old Ways – Robert Macfarlane
La gesta del marrano – Mario Aguinis
Best Albums:
Bronshoj (Puncak) – Senyawa
Tibetan Buddishm Trip – Kink Gong
Hand in Hand – Felicia Atkinson
The Kid – Katlyn Aurelia Smith
Cosmogony – Demdike Stare
Superlative Fatigue – Errorsmith
Nídia é má, Nídia é Fudida – Nidia
For Organ and Brass – Ellen Arkbro
Musikautomatika – Musikautomatika
Estórias para voz, instrumentos acústicos e eletrónicos – Jocy de Oliveira
Motore Immobile – Giusto Pio
Best Movies:
The Death of Louis XIV – Albert Serra
Patterson – Jim Jarmusch
The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Yorgos Lanthimos
Brigham Mosley
Performer and co-creator of the Movies that should Be Musicals series
Best Book:
Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel
Best Album:
Melodrama – Lorde
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Laura Pacheco
The super talented illustrator of our web-comic series Reading Quirks
Best Book:
El libro de Gloria Fuertes para niñas y niños – Gloria Fuertes
Best Album:
Los Ángeles – Rosalía
Best TV Show:
Ozark – Bill Dubuque
Ashuni Lucía Pérez
Check Ashuni’s poems on our website
Best Book:
General Alonso de Leon’s Expeditions into Texas, 1686-1690 – Lola Orellano Norris
Best Album:
Chsss! EP – Los Manises
Best Movie:
Una mujer fantástica – Sebastián Lelio
Vicky Sanz
Vicky is our moderator in all our bi-lingual events
Best Book:
Conjunto vacío – Verónica Gerber Bicecci
Best Album:
I See You – The XX
Best Movie:
The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro
Tempranillo (David Piorno)
Dj and our Mondays music curator
Best Book:
The Heavenly Table – Donald Ray Pollock
Best Album:
Slowdive – Slowdive
Best Movie:
Dunkirk – Christopher Nolan
Robert Tinajero
Check out Robert’s poems on our website
Best Book:
Angels of Our Better Nature – Steven Pinker
Best Album:
American Teen – Khalid
Best Movie:
War for the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves
Julia Ruth Worland
Check out her article Confessions of a Wannabe Bibliophile on our website
Best Book:
1984 – George Orwell
Best Album:
Capacity – Big Thief
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Our friends:
Andrea Amosson
Author
Best Book:
1984 – George Orwell
Best Movie:
Coco – Lee Unkrich (Pixar)
Will Clarke
Author
Best Book:
Autumn – Karl Ove Knausgaard
Best Album:
Sleep Well Beast – The National
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Barak Epstein
Texas Theatre
Best Book:
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters – Emil Ferris
Best Album:
Generation X – Generation X
Jawbreakers – Unfun
Best Movie:
A Ghost Story – David Lowery
The Lure – Agnieszka Smoczynska
Will Evans
Deep Vellum (boh, Publishing and Books)
Best Book:
Radiant Terminus – Antoine Volodine
Best Album:
The Dusk in Us – Converge
Best Movie:
Blade Runner 2019 – Denis Villeneuve
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Patricia García
Professor in Hispanic and Translation Studies at The University of Nottingham
Best Book:
Desoriental – Negar Djavali
Best Album:
The First Days of Spring – Noah and the Whale
Best Movie:
The Salesman – Ashgar Farhadi
Veronica Gerber Bicecci
Author
Best Non-Fiction:
Los condenados de la pantalla – Hito Steyerl
Best Poetry Collection:
O reguero de hormigas – Yolanda Segura
Best Graphic Novel:
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters – Emil Ferris
Best Movie:
Homo Sapiens – Nicolaus Geyrhalter
Kendra Greene
Author
Best Book:
Among the Living and the Dead – Inara Verzemnieks
Animals Strike Curious Poses – Elena Passarello
Don’t Come Back – Lina Ferreira
All the Agents and Saints – Stephanie Elizondo Griest
This is the Place (anthology)
Brittany Griffiths
Poet and publisher at Spontaneous Afflatus
Best Book:
Leaving the Atocha Station – Ben Lerner
Best Album:
Masseduction – St. Vincent
Best Movie:
Song to Song – Terrence Malick
Louisa Hall
Author
Best Book:
The Kingdom – Emmanuel Carrere
Best Album:
Heavn – Jamila Woods
Pleasure – Feist
Brentney Hamilton
Dallas Morning News
Best Book:
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me – Sherman Alexie
Best Album:
Lotta Sea Lice – Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile
Best Movie:
A Decade On – Ethan Newberry
Juan Jaramillo
Al Día Dallas
Best Book:
4 3 2 1 – Paul Auster
Best Album:
American Dream – LCD Soundsystem
Best Movie:
The Florida Project – Sean Baker
Kathleen Kent
Author
Best Book:
Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jasmyn Ward
Best Album:
Fake Sugar – Beth Ditto
Best Movie:
Wind River – Taylor Sheridan
Josh Kumler
Bar Politics
Best Book:
Battles for Freedom: the Use and Abuse of American History – Eric Foner
Best album:
Damn – Kendrick Lamar
Best song:
Wear Black – The Mountain Goats
Best Concert:
Jacob Metcalf & Damien Jurado (at The WD)
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Best TV Show:
Master of None – Aziz Ansari, Alan Yang
Best Play:
Shadow Woman – Claire Carson
Best Podcast
The Miseducation of Dallas County
Julián Lacalle
Publisher at Pepitas de Calabaza
Best Book:
Conjunto vacío – Verónica Gerber Bicecci
Best Album:
Fuego – La Bien Querida
Alex Macon
D Magazine
Best Book:
I Hate the Internet – Jarrett Kobek
Best Album:
Kelly Lee Owens – Kelly Lee Owens
Best Movie:
Good Time – Ben & Josh Safdie
Joe Milazzo
Writer, editor, educator, and designer.
Best Book:
Time Travel for Daydreamers, Volumes 1 & 2 – James Barret Rodehaver, with illustrations by Nadia Wolnisty
Best Album:
Cedars – AF Jones & Derek Rogers
Best Movie:
Telefóto – Richard Bailey
Charles Dee Mitchell
Wordspace
Best Novel:
Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
Best Story Collection:
Things We Lost in the Fire – Mariana Enriquez
Best Non-Fiction:
Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70’s and ‘80’s Horror Fiction – Grady Hendrix
Best Biographies:
The Invention of Angela Carter – Edmund Gordon
Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas de Quincey – Frances Wilson
Best Album:
Masseduction – St Vincent’s
Best Movie:
Cure – Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1998)
Michelle Newby
Lone Star Literary Life
Best Book:
Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jessmyn Ward
Best Album:
Melodrama – Lorde
Best Movie:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh
Jason Roberts
Better Block
Best Book:
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
Best Album:
Hot Thoughts – Spoon
Best Movie:
Dunkirk – Christopher Nolan
Cristina Rodriguez
Deep Vellum Books
Best Book:
We Were Witches – Ariel Gore
The Book Of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa, translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Best Non-Fiction:
Word By Word: The Secret Life Of Dictionaries – Kory Stamper
Best Album:
About Time – Sabrina Claudio
Best Movie:
Get Out – Jordan Peele
Carlos Velázquez
Author
Best Book:
Burning Your Boats – Angela Carter
Best Album:
American Dream – LCD Soundsystem
Best Movie:
Blade Runner 2049 – Denis Villeneuve
Transpotting 2 – Danny Boyle
Tonya Wardell
Deep Vellum Publishing
Best Book:
Exist West – Moshin Hamid
The Iliac Crest – Cristina Rivera Garza
Best Album:
Okovi – Zola Jesus
Process – Sampha
Expect the Best – Widowspeak
Tropix – Céu
Best Movie:
Blade Runner 2049 – Denis Villeneuve
Transpotting 2 – Danny Boyle
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The Wild Detectives is your local independent bookstore bar and venue in Oak Cliff. Serious Pleasures.
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