Our Favorite Reads of 2015

I love this time of year - all of the Best of book lists - that always bring conversation and additions to the wish list.

So I'll start off this thread and hope that many in this group will add to it!

My books are listed in the order I read them.

Fiction
All My Puny Sorrows
Our Souls at Night
The Red Notebook
Everything I Never Told You
Fates and Furies

Nonfiction
Between the World and Me
Evicted (to be published in March '16)

Honorable Mentions
Honeydew
Our Only World
Station Eleven
H is for Hawk

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's lists!

I read a lot of great books in 2015, making it hard to pick favorites. Here are my final picks: (Unless things calm down and I actually get to finish a couple more.)

Favorite Fiction
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets by Jude Morgan
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Coventry by Helen Humphreys
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Troubles by J. G. Farrell
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Favorite Mystery
Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

Favorite Reread
Emma by Jane Austen
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Favorite Classics
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier This also falls into the 'I can't believe I never read this before' category
Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope
The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

Favorite I Can't Believe I Actually Liked "That"
The Red Riding Quartet, Book One, Book Two, Book Three and Book Four by David Peace

Favorite Non-Fiction
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre

Favorite Audio
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel by by A. J. Hartley & David Hewson, Narrated by Richard Armitage

Most Disappointing
Loving Without Tears by M. J. Farrell

I know I picked too many, but I did say I was going to have a hard time picking favorites. :)

2015 Stats
Books Read Total = 73
Print/Kindle = 56; Audio = 17; Women authors = 41; New to me authors = 20; WWI related = 3

This year I gave a lot of 4 and 5 star ratings. This is partly due to the fact that I decided to stop hoarding stars like Uncle Scrooge hoards his doubloons, and use the full range of ratings. I used to be afraid to give five stars, because what if one day I find a book that is really perfect and wonderful, and I can't rate it above the rest because I already used five stars for lesser books? But I put all this nonsense behind me. Looking back, I stand by all my 5 star ratings and even added a couple, but all 4 stars are not equal (I also decided to avoid half-stars as this is not an exact science anyway).

Here are my 5 star ratings in chronological order:

La philosophie by André Comte-Sponville (non-fiction)
Le côté de Guermantes by Marcel Proust
High Water Mark by David Shumate (prose poems or flash fiction)
Phèdre by Jean Racine
The Floating Bridge by David Shumate (prose poems or flash fiction)
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Rue des boutiques obscures (Missing Person) by Patrick Modiano
The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus
And I will add La fin de l'homme rouge (no English title yet apparently) by Svetlana Alexievitch, which I will probably finish this year.

It's hard to pick a single favorite among those, but I was especially impressed by Phèdre and The Age of Wire and String. And I loved David Shumate's poems so much that I am now reading his third and latest volume, Kimonos in the Closet.

Among my many 4 star reads, I will give a special mention to the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses des jésuites de Chine which I found very interesting.

>3 FlorenceArt: I totally understand what you mean with your Scrooging of stars ;P but personally I've always been on the other side. While not all stars are equal, and are given out for different reasons, I still feel if I really enjoyed a book, for any reason, whether it was just a silly fun thriller or was an excellently written nonfic history book or, whatever, they still warrant their full stars. So, yay for coming over to the freely-giving side. We've got cookies! xD

I'm bumping this up to the top. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's lists!

>2 NanaCC: The Long Ships is among one of my all time favourites. I'm always happy when it makes someone else's best of ... list. I like the idea of favourite rereads, as a reread is already a favourite, so interesting to see how much better it can get.

>3 FlorenceArt: I ordered Lettres édifiantes et curieuses des jésuites de Chine after reading some of your earlier comments on it and look forward to reading it this winter.

My favorite reads of 2015, in the order I read them (wow, some of these feel like a long time ago...)

Fiction
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (1001 list book)
I'm Not Scared by Niccolò Ammaniti (1001 list book)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1001 list book)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1001 list book)
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1001 list book)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (I'd been meaning to get around to a book of his for at least 8 years)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1001 list book)
My Struggle, Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgård (chosen for no particular reason)
Rabbit, Run by John Updike (1001 list book)
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1001 list book)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1001 list book)
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (I had seen it mentioned)
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (1001 list book)

Nonfiction
Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi (1001 list book, Italian)
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides (I'm a sucker for polar exploration)

A lot of nonfiction books were good, but I just didn't rate them 4.5-5 stars for whatever reason. Honorable mentions in that category go to:
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life and Cars by Neil Young

Out of the 96 books I've read to this point, 35 of them have been 1001 list books, so just a little over a third of what I read. But they account for 11 out of the 18 books I mention here. So it was a pretty good year for list books!

I will finish a few more books this year, but here is my list so far. I've read 98 books, a record for me!

Favorite fiction
The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Independent People by Halldor Laxness
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Transit by Anna Seghers

Favorite nonfiction
The Nine: Inside the Secret Life of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Love and Louis XIV by Antonia Fraser
George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to WWI by Miranda Carter

Few books but picked well...

Fiction:

Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel
Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel
The Martian
Station Eleven: A novel

Nonfiction:

Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
The Perfection of the Paper Clip: Curious Tales of Invention, Accidental Genius, and Stationery Obsession
In the Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-Year History of American Indians

I've read far fewer books so far this year (71) than previous years, and this was a more mediocre year than most, but there were still a few gems. Here are my top 10 books:

Fiction:
Outlaws by Javier Cercas (favorite novel of the year)
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (second favorite novel of the year)
The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud

Nonfiction:
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts (nonfiction book of the year)
My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe

Poetry:
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudine Rankine.

I might finish two more books before the end of the year, and one of them will be on my list of favorites. These are listed in reverse order of when I read them.

Reading this list, it sounds like I had a great reading year. But I don't feel that way, because it was a very stressful year, and I read a ton of mysteries, in fact 32.

Best of the Best
Fiction
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (still reading) and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado
The Earth by Emile Zola
The Wrong Side of Paris by Honore de Balzac
Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida edited by Robert Chandler
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Nonfiction
Island of the Lost bu Joan Druett
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Between You and Me by Mary Norris

The Best of the Rest
The War of the Saints by Jorge Amado
He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Tollope
The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope
Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier
Tyrant Banderas by Ramon del Valle-Inclan
The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
The Three Leaps of Wang Lun by Alfred Doblin
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
Honeydew by Edith Pearlman

Fun, Fun, Fun
The Wiki Coffin series by Joan Druett
The Hit Man series by Lawrence Block
Game of Mirrors and A Beam of Light by Andrea Camilleri
The Amsterdam Detectives series by Janwillem van de Wetering

Disappointments and Duds
Shadows of Carcosa edited by D. Thin (disappointment)
Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo (disappointment)
Dark City Lights edited by Lawrence Block (disappointment)
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson (disappointment)
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Alison Hoover Bartlett (dud)

Discoveries
Anthony Trollope
Sergei Dovlatov
Joan Druett
Karin Fossum

I find it hard to select favorites this year, partially because there is Cormac McCarthy and then there is everything else. I also focused on (1) the Old Testament, but other than Ecclesiastes, nothing really stood out; and (2) Toni Morrison, but I had already read her great works in 2013. What I read this year was anticlimatic. McCarthy was great though - fun, unique, out there, wholly UNrecommended but very rewarding nonetheless.

McCarthy's top five:
1. All the Pretty Horses - this is an iffy #1 because it's clearly not his best work, but it was a fun book that hangs around.
2. Suttree - his most human work. Grab your dictionary.
3. Blood Meridian - his most disturbing work, but there is nothing else like this in literature. A masterpiece, if you like.
4. Outer Dark - accessible, thought-provoking, dark. I found this one the hardest to stop thinking about. So many mysteries that I could pick up on just enough to know they were there, but not enough to really understand them.
5. The Orchard Keeper - because this is the most poetic of his works. It lacks the "fun" all his other books have, but the the language is so carefully worked over I find myself attached to it still.

Best of the rest - in text*
1. Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
2. The African by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio - you just can't go wrong with le Clezio. Here he writes non-fiction about his father.
3. My Michael by Amos Oz
4. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - I haven't reviewed this yet, but she put so much into the technique...and yet it's still a very moving work. And I think that sets it apart.
5. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine

*interesting that three of these are nonfiction

Best of audio
1. Nora Ephron - really a performer who read for herself in I Remember Nothing and I Feel Bad About My Neck
2. All Joy and No Fun : The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior, who also reads for herself
3. Tar Baby by Toni Morrison, read by Desiree Coleman
4. Malcolm Gladwell - another master of audio who reads for himself. I think I liked Outliers the best, but his books are about the same in quality. I covered all of them this year.
5. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson who reads for himself. Bryson is another great reader, except that he has an odd voice that requires getting used to...and that some people absolutely hate.

75 books this year (I'm unlikely to finish another, being 20 pages in to just about 1000!). Those I gave 5 and 4//5 stars to were:

The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennet - re-read.
Black Sheep & Venetia Georgette Heyer
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
Toby's Room Pat Barker

Heyer is my discovery of the year, I'm slowing working my way along the shelf.

So far I've read 145 books this year. These are the ones I gave or :

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
Selections from the Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys
The Nine Tailors : changes rung on an old theme, in two short touches and two full peals by Dorothy L. Sayers
To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn
Stiff : The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
A Daughter's Tale : the memoir of Winston and Clementine Churchill's youngest child by Mary Soames
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Guards by Ken Bruen
Ex Libris : Confessions of a common reader by Anne Fadiman
Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson
Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright
Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill
A Month in the Country by J.L Carr
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
Our souls at night by Kent Haruf
Present Darkness by Malla Nunn

Despite our poor social showing here on CR, we did manage to read.

MICHAEL:

Fiction in order of preference:
1. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (2015, SF, hard SF)
2. Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (2015, steampunk)
3. The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975, classic feminist SF)
4. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013, innovative space opera)

Nonfiction:
1. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

LOIS:

Fiction in no particular order:

The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates (2016, US, science, memory, love...etc)
Happiness, Like Water: Stories by Chinelo Okparanta (2013, Nigerian/US, women's lives)
98 Reasons for Being by Clare Dudman (2005, UK, historical 19th century German setting, madness/mental illness)
A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent (2015, US, post civil war US setting, love/loss/war and "earthly pleasure")
Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders by Julianna Baggott (2015, US, family/legacies/women)
A Price to Pay and A Matter of Time, both by Alex Capus (2009, 2013 respectively, Swiss/French)
When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen (2015, Estonian, war/occupation/family)

Best crime novels, both were first novels for the authors, both were also new authors to me. I have May's 4th book now in the TBR, and Khan's 2nd book is due out in January.

The Unquiet Dead by Usma Zehanat Khan (2015, UK/Canadian, set in Canada)
Blackhouse by Peter May (2012, UK/Scottish, set in the Outer Hebrides)
The Hunting Dogs by Norwegian Jorn Lier Holst.

Best SF/F (books I've been meaning to get to for a long time)

Spirit; or the Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones (2008, UK, breath-takingly complex/fast-paced space opera)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson was also very good (2009, Canadian, a future enamored of the 19th century, so reads like historical fiction).

Nonfiction

Famous Works of Art and How They Got that Way by John Nici (2015, art history, popular culture) Not finished with this, but it will be on both 2015 and 2016's list!
The History of the Gothic: American Gothic by Charles L. Crow (2009, literary history)
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (1992, literary criticism)
Living the Secular Life by Phil Zuckerman (2014, nonfiction)https://www.librarything.com/topic/207047#

Looking back at my reading this year, I gave only one book a 5-star ranking, but I was surprised how many I'd given 4.5/5 (excluding re-reads). (I rarely rank a book lower than 3 stars, because if I feel a book is going to rank lower than that I probably won't finish it.)

So here are my best books first read in 2015:

5 stars

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (novel)

4.5 stars

Fiction - novels

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Year of Falling by Janis Freegard
My Name Was Judas by C. K. Stead

Poetry - collection

Shift by Rhian Gallagher

Graphic novel

Two Pedants by Sean Molloy

Nonfiction

What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril : China and New Zealand, 1790-1950 by Stevan Eldred-Grigg with Zeng Dazheng
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer
This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
The Great Land: Reflections on Alaska, edited by Robert Hedin and Gary Holthaus
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein

Fictionalised memoir

7 Miles Out by Carol Morley

>16 timjones: Very true for me also, Tim—about the likelihood of not finishing books which might rate below 3 stars. Life is too short. Are any of your titles SF? Just curious.

>11 rebeccanyc: I noticed you had found Karin Fossum. I've read a couple of her books, but the series never caught on with me. Not sure why that was/is. You will certainly have plenty of books of hers to read through.

This was definitely a good reading year for me, in quality, if not in quantity. Nothing I have yet to finish this year will be on my best list, so I can do it now. I don't use the star system, as books have a funny way of mutating in your mind over time, so I have just listed the standouts in the order read, three in each category.

FICTION

A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison
The Concert by Ismail Kadare
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

NONFICTION

Four Hedges by Clare Leighton
Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian (not for the general biography, accessible elsewhere, but for the interpretation)
Tove Jansson: Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen (covers a life and a career that be three or four separate lives with the added benefit of being beautifully illustrated)

>17 avaland: To my surprise, none of these titles are SF! This has been the Year of the Memoir for me - I've just added 7 Miles Out by the film director Carol Morley to my 4.5 star list - a very lightly fictionalised memoir by the British film director of "Dreams of a Life" and "The Falling" (an excellent but mysterious film which this book indirectly sheds quite a lot of light on).

The Wolf Border could be argued to be alternative history, since in it Scotland votes for independence in the 2014 referendum, but the major events of the novel (with the partial exception of the ending) don't depend on that.

But Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, which I see topped Michael's list, did almost make my list - I vacillated between 4 and 4.5 stars for this one and in the end awarded it 4 stars - it had many of the things I love about Kim Stanley Robinson's work, but also his main fault, an excess of info-dumps - and I didn't particularly like the ending.

Had I included re-reads, GRRM's A Storm of Swords and A Dance With Dragons would both have made my list.

Picking out my favorite fiction reads for this past year wasn't too hard, but picking out my favorite NF books was quite impossible. I read 53 books this year - a record for me!

FICTION
East of Eden by John Steinbeck Another Steinbeck tops my list, no surprise there.

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories by Truman Capote I especially loved A Christmas Memory and think I read it at least 2 or 3 times before having to send it back to the library.

In The Mountains by Elizabeth Von Arnim An incredibly slow moving story of one's woman transition from heartbreak and loss to life again. There's something very healing about it. (But maybe not for the easily bored.)

The Paris Wife by Paula McClain My big surprise of the year. It really wasn't on my list of things to read but my aunt loved it and sent it to me as a gift.

One of my goals this year was to read SF, a genre I had most definitely stayed away from (with the exception of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - which is more humour than sci fi). I had to kind of "force" myself into reading SF, but I'm glad I did because I discovered a real love of the genre.

The Martian by Andy Weir OK. Not being a science geek, the science-y spots of this book bored me (maybe if I had read this is a kid I would have been more awake during science class) but I loved the main character's snark. It's a surprisingly funny book. Also, any book whose opening line is "I'm pretty much f****ed." has my vote.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov I loved the way Asimov wove small, short stories into one big picture here.

NONFICTION
I Must Say, My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short Absolutely loved every minute here, I must say! Short has such a great attitude toward life and he's had some major heartbreaks to get through. I also loved introducing my kids to Ed Grimley via YouTube don't you know?

Cat Daddy by Jackson Galaxy After being inundated with cats and more cats in our neighborhood, I started watching "My Cat From Hell" on Animal Planet. The bald, tattooed, bespectacled, rock n roll/hippy cat guru grabbed my attention right away. Somebody like that has to have quite a story to tell and he tells it well.

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai Probably the most important book I read all year.

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson During my Breakfast At Tiffany's/Audrey Hepburn phase. This is about the making of the movie. Loved it.

Favorite musical autobios: Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Life by Carlos Santana and Between A Rock and A Hard Place by Pat Benatar

Favorite self-help: The Gifts of Imperfection y Brene Brown (Probably the only self help book I've found worth the time it took to read it!)

Favorite humour: Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

Books I have rated 4.5 or 5 stars to this year:

Fiction

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise by Gene Luen Yang
Sweetland by Michael Crummey
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Tenth of December by George Saunders
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Putting on the Ritz by Joe Keenan

Non-fiction

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight by M. E. Thomas
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better by Clive Thomspon
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann
Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis by Warwick Davis

A little of both

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012 edited by Dave Eggers

Now, that is a darned good year of reading!

52 books read. Overall, a great reading year.

4 1/2 or 5 star reads of 2015:

Fiction
Doris Lessing, The Grandmothers, 4 novellas
Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table, novel
David Bajo, The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri, novel
Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier, Kristnihald undir Jökli, trans. Magnus Magnusson, novel
Halldor Laxness, The Fish Can Sing, trans. Magnus Magnusson, novel
Heather O'Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals, novel
Ismail Kadare, Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, Lulet e ftohta të marsit, trans. David Bellos, novella
Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians, novel
Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries, novel, historical fiction, Man Booker Prize
Marilynne Robinson, Lila, novel

Series
David Herter, The First Republic Trilogy: On the Overgrown Path, The Luminous Depths and One Who Disappeared, novels
Elena Ferrante, Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child, trans. Ann Goldstein, novels

Memoirs
Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming, memoir, narrative poetry
The Confessions of Lady Nijo, trans. and edited by Karen Brazell, diary, memoir
Tove Jansson, Sculptor's Daughter: A Childhood Memoir
Patti Smith, M Train, memoir

Non-fiction
Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, history, biography
Szilvia Cseh, Ferenc Gosztonyi (Editor), Judit Pokoly (Translator), Hungarian National Gallery: The Collections - Guide, museum catalog

When I look back on the year, the books that stand out for me were not necessarily the ones that I rated highly, and some that I thought were very good have since been almost forgotten. That leads to this list of my most memorable books of 2015, based on enjoyment factor and not quality (in chronological order).

Bridget Jones's Diary (reread) and Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding
The Children Act, Ian McEwan
The Swimming Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst
North of Normal, Cea Sunrise Person
Summer House with Swimming Pool, Herman Koch
Gossip from the Forest, Sara Maitland
Gut, Giulia Enders
The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates