Best books I read in 2015

[Melbourne Library Service]

This year has been a great year for reading for me and from what I can tell for a lot of other people too! Here are some of the books I have enjoyed this year ... I'd love to know your thoughts on them and what others I may have missed out on!


Me Before You by Jojo Moyes - This was such a surprise read to me, I didn't expect it to have as much depth as it did, nor did I expect to cry buckets ... This should probably come with a trigger warning as the story does deal with the concept of euthanasia, but it is very successfully wrapped up in what at first seems like pure chick lit until you get a little further into it. I loved it so much that I have just grabbed the sequel - After You - which I am looking forward to reading over the festive season break!


Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel - This was a different kind of dystopian science fiction, slow paced, lyrical and with loads of pop culture references. The characters are well-drawn and realistic and the way the author has written about how people behave when pushed to extremes is fascinating. I loved the parallels in the book with a graphic novel the main character is searching for and that the women were, by and large, strong and capable. Recommended for lovers of literary science fiction / dystopian fiction.


Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - This book won best book of the year for me! It is a wonderful, though-provoking read. Beautifully written and with many lines and passages which I simply HAD to read out loud they were so lovely. It is also a very intelligent book which had me asking questions of my own experiences and I found it deeply moving. I must agree with Toni Morrison: "This is required reading". I want to buy this book for everyone I know and also everyone else, it feels that important to me.


Only the animals by Ceridwen Dovey - This book was longlisted for the Stella Prize in 2015 so of course I had to read it! It is a beautiful, fable-like novel broken up into 10 short stories or chapters. Each can be read alone but together it has a fairytale-esque quality that stayed with me for quite a while after I had put it down. Each story is told by the soul of an animal and in the style of an author that the animal is connected to somehow. My favourite is the one about the Mussel told in a Jack Kerouac style - it's amazing!!! There are some tear-jerkers in here too, don't say I didn't warn you.


Sorcerer to the crown by Zen Cho - This was recommended to me and I am so glad, it was brilliant! Kind of an adult Harry Potter type but not really. The main character is a freed slave in Victorian England and also the boss of all the other Sorcerers ... who don't really like that at all! He is trying to discover why their magic is drying up and meets a young lady who is just the best female character out there! She is strong, she is his partner, not his subordinate, although he is actually really likeable too. This is the first in a series, but is the only one out there yet. I am very much looking forward to the rest!


We were liars by E. Lockhart - I didn't remember reserving this book from the library but boy am I glad I did. It is one of the most haunting books I have read all year and it is the only book ever which has made me want to get a phrase from it tattooed on my fingers! It is a young adult book but is easily one of those 'cross-over' books for those young adults reading at a higher level. It is about family, friendship, love and about how we can choose to create/become the kind of person we want to be. A twist that I didn't see coming at the end too. I thought this was simply stunning and would recommend it to any reader from 15-35!


Uprooted by Naomi Novik - A fantasy rooted in folklore, this is actually quite a dark story. It is full of strong characters and Naomi Novik twists the usual tropes around fantasy in highly original and slightly horrible ways. I hope that there are more stories in this world but this is a stand alone and one which I recommend to readers who like a little darkness, whimsy and flawed but charming characters!

There are so many more, but I am going to stop here and hope that you'll give me some more book suggestions for my ever-growing-although-slightly-depleted #tbr pile!

Happy Summer Reading all!

Justine (Librarian)

[Michael]

A brilliant list - I loved Station Eleven, Between the World and Me and Only the Animals too and will chase up the rest!

Other favourites for me this year:


Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill

A short, angry, hilarious portrait of a marriage, foundering on the rocks of parenthood, frustrated creativity and stagnation. There are wonderful moments on every page - witticisms, fascinating tangents and brutal descriptions of anxiety or fear.


What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

A brilliant and heartbreaking story about friendship, family, art and so much more. Hustvedt is a phenomenon.


All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

A crushingly sad story about a chronically depressed woman and her family's struggle to keep her alive. Toews is such a wonderful writer that this incredibly sad story is somehow hilarious and uplifting at the same time as it is dreadfully, crushingly sad.


H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

A stunning book, describing the author's obsession with training a goshawk as an escape from her grief over her father's death. Filled with vivid nature writing, astonishing portraits of raptors and a potted history of their use by hunters, the book grasps at broader and deeper truths about wildness, grief, community and how we fit ourselves into the world.


One Life: My Mother's Story by Kate Grenville

This comes across like such a simple, straightforward book telling the life story of Grenville's mother, but it draws out broader themes about the struggle s women faced throughout the 20th Century (and continue to face in the 21st)


The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop

A precise, beautiful and sad book about motherhood, nostalgia, homesickness, race and love. Wonderfully written and achingly sad, this will surely be on the Stella Prize shortlist next year.


The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

And all the Ferrante books - there's nothing else to say about this series of books, it's a majestic, astonishing, breathtaking achievement.


Small Acts of Disappearance by Fiona Wright

A beautiful series of essays dealing broadly with the authors anorexia. Wright is an exquisite writer and refuses to take easy narrative paths or fall back on sentimentality. It's a short, powerful and lyrical book that deserves to be widely read.

That's probably enough, but there were so many more outstanding books (The Natural Way of Things, Gold Fame Citrus, Second Half First, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, A Guide to Berlin, Salt Creek, Six Bedrooms, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Bad Behaviour and on and on and on and on)

[Melbourne Library Service]

Hi Michael,

Wow, what a great list you have! I am looking forward to reading some of these over summer (particularly H is for Hawk), although I must admit I did NOT catch #FerranteFever ... don't shoot me!

Happy holidays!
Justine

[Andrea]

I didn't manage to read many new releases in 2015, so some of my picks might be old news! Here are my top 5:

Brother of the More Famous Jack
I really liked this book! Firstly, for some reason I expected it to be set in the USA, but I was delighted to find the action took place primarily in England, with little forays into Europe. Secondly, I loved every one of the Goldman family characters (I wanted to be Katherine, to spend time with them) and Katherine herself grew into a well-developed, admirable character too. In fact I found myself with the urge to take up the knitting needles - one of Kath's many talents, variously lauded and derided by one Goldman or another. Thirdly, the plot was really satisfying. I wasn't too sure about a certain turn of events in Act III, but ultimately I think it worked. Finally - the writing was great. I daresay I will re-read this one day.

Life After Life
My second Kate Atkinson novel; and I could recognise some faint influences of the earlier Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I've heard some readers have found the repetition a bit monotonous, but I actually thought it was quite exciting - Where is she going to take us this time? There were some versions of Ursula that frustrated me (although to be fair, I knew what was happening, whereas she didn't) and others that broke my heart. Overall I found this book really inventive, well-written and quite moving at times. I can't wait to read the sequel, A God in Ruins.

A Man Called Ove
Now that I've read it for myself, I understand why this book has been almost universally adored. We all know, and have probably had in our lives, an 'Ove', and whether we like it or not are better off for it. With loads of humour but also plenty of tender moments, I tried to read the epilogue in public - big mistake. I quickly thrust my Kindle into my bag and headed home to continue reading in privacy, as would have been approved/tolerated by a man like Ove.

The Luminaries
After a solid month of reading I came out at the other end as a new Eleanor Catton fan. I usually avoid the commitment of such a lengthy novel, but this one has such an intricately detailed plot and a cast of mostly likeable characters, so I looked forward to picking it up every day. At first I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to keep track of all the characters, so I printed out the list from the front of the book for easy access, but then found I didn't really need it as I got further into the story.

Before I began reading I was aware the astrological dimension to the story, which has delighted some readers and frustrated others. I made the decision to ignore it and just enjoy the story at face value. The Luminaries is not likely to be a re-read for me, but if I ever did, I would take more care to try to understand how the astrology worked, and see whether it added anything.

A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story
Qais Akbar Omar's family could be considered one of the luckier ones, living through - and largely surviving - the horrors of life in late 20th century Afghanistan. This chronicle is raw, powerful, emotional, detailed and beautifully told. I've read a LOT of fiction set in Afghanistan over the years, so it has been quite an eye-opening experience for me to read this memoir and understand just how much of that fiction is strongly grounded in the reality of ordinary Afghani people, regardless of ethnicity or social/economic advantage. The author acknowledges the mentorship of Khaled Hosseini, so if you're one of the multitude who (like me) has read and loved Hosseini's novels, read this next.

A few other books that I read in 2015 that really got into my head were Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn, You by Caroline Kepnes and Alex by Pierre Lemaitre.

[Melbourne Library Service]

Belated thanks Andrea for your additions, I haven't read many of these which is great as I love discovering new books to add to my list!

I have been avoiding The Luminaries myself as I also don't like the commit a novel of that length requires but you have persuaded me I should give it a go!

Cheers,
Justine