Best Books – 2015
Best Books of 2015
Other Years: 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019
The following are the best books of 2015, as determined by book review trade magazines, national newspapers, and popular arts and culture publications. The Top 20 listed below was compiled by tallying the number of Best Books of the Year lists from major outlets. The parentheses following each book indicate the total number of lists on which the book was included.
Top 20
1. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (88)
2. A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara (67)
3. The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (65)
4. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (53)
5. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (42)
6. M Train by Patti Smith (39)
7. Purity by Jonathan Franzen (35)
8. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson (33)
9. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (32)
10. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (29)
11. On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks (28)
12. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (27)
12. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (27)
14. City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg (26)
14. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (26)
16. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (25)
17. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (23)
18. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (22)
18. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson (22)
20. Get in Trouble: Stories by Kelly Link (21)
20. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari (21)
Other Books on twelve or more lists:
The First Bad Man by Miranda July (20), A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (20), Submission by Michel Houellebecq (20), Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan (19), Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jilly Leovy (19), Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (18), The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (18), The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams (18), The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (17), Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (17), The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (17), Eileen by Ottesa Moshfegh (16), Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs by Sally Mann (16), The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff (16), Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan (15), Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (15), Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (15), Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (15), Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein (15), The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf (15), The Mare by Mary Gaitskill (15), Outline by Rachel Cusk (15), The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (15), Beatlebone by Kevin Barry (14), The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits (14), The Green Road by Anne Enright (14), In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar (14), Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (14), The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra (14), Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick McDevitt (14), The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood (13), One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Asne Seierstad (13), Slade House by David Mitchell (13), The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (12), God Help the Child by Toni Morrison (12), The Honeydew by Edith Pearlman (12), The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (12), The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray (12), Missoula: Rape and Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer (12), The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavich (12), Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan (12), Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie (12), Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (12)
