Links go to my reviews (if I wrote one), either here on the blog or on LibraryThing (baystateRA).
2015 Favorite Books
All Together Now by Gill Hornby
Little Brown, 2015
A feel-good story for the heart and the brain! A dying community choir comes back to life in a suburban English village.
Bradstreet Gate by Robin Kirman
Crown, 2015
A Harvard University student is murdered right before graduation. Did the weirdly charismatic professor kill her or a jealous fellow student? Warning: Unlikeable characters abound.
Grant Park by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Overlook, 2015
The kidnapping of a prominent African-American newspaper columnist by two scarily wacky white supremacists launches this provocative novel about U.S. race relations and protest movements.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Crown, 2015
Dark fantasy with a surreal library. If you liked The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman, try this one. Maybe the first in a trilogy of its own?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Doubleday, 2015
A sprawling saga of friendship and family with a broad vein of tragedy throughout, this is the story of four male college friends and their lives before and after. To be savored!
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Granta, 2013
Written in the style of a 19th-century novel, The Luminaries has the scope, depth, structure, emotional resonance, and humor of an instant classic. (Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Europa, 2012
First in the Neapolitan Quartet, My Brilliant Friend is the story of a rocky friendship between two girls growing up together in Naples, translated from the Italian. Lots of character development and conflicted people…my favorite kind of novel!
She Came from Beyond by Nadine Darling
Overlook, 2015
I reviewed this quirky novel for Library Journal but despite other good reviews, the book hasn’t taken off. Its dark humor and likeable actress-heroine (Easy Hardwick) make it a good choice for readers who like campy sci-fi movies and sarcasm.
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Knopf, 2015
I’m a big Anne Tyler fan, so her new one was bound to make my 2015 list. Although I didn’t like the ending of A Spool of Blue Thread, the flawed but likeable characters and family dynamics still make this a five-star read.
Weekends with Daisy by Sharron Kahn Luttrell
Gallery, 2013
A memoir by a Massachusetts journalist about her experience as a weekend puppy-raiser, sharing the training of Daisy, a loveable yellow Lab, with a prison inmate through the Prison Pups program.
Wool by Hugh Howey
Simon & Schuster, 2013
A post-apocalyptic dystopian novel that envisions literal strata of society living together in an underground silo after the planet’s surface has been poisoned. A trilogy that became a quintet with a prequel and a sequel?
Click image for my Top Five of 2015 on LibraryThing and other members’ Top Five lists.
Can’t get enough Best Of 2015 lists? Visit Largehearted Boy for best-of book lists gathered together for you in one place.
I remember marking Bradstreet Gate at BEA (I’m a sucker for campus novels!) and then haven’t seen much about it since (and never got around to reading it) – glad you enjoyed it!
So many of the ARCs I read didn’t get any buzz after publication! (I didn’t make it to BEA this year.) It’s got to be so hard on the authors to see all their hard work getting lost in the shuffle. Happy New Year!
I keep hearing about Elena Ferrante — this recommendation is the decision point, I put it on my list of books to read soon. Right now I’m on an Agatha Christie binge, though.
best… mae from maefood.blogspot.com
I actually haven’t read any of your favorite books this year! Sounds like I need to add some of these to my to-read list 🙂
Seeing Library at Mount Char on everybody’s list is making me super anxious about not having read it yet!! I have the audiobook out from the library, so it’s probably time to read it haha. A Little Life was on my list this year too!