The best books of 2015

2015 was a wild year in books, from the controversy surrounding Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" to the winning streak of Ta-Nehisi Coates "Between the World and Me."

As "best of the year" book lists come together, MPR News host Kerri Miller asked two avid readers and critics to discuss their favorites of the year. Ron Charles, the editor of Book World at the Washington Post, and Jenn Northington, longtime bookseller at WORD in Brooklyn and events director at Riot New Media, shared their must-reads.

Other suggestions for great books — and good gifts — poured in from listeners. Readers offered a mix of new titles and older favorites. For the complete list, use the audio player above. Descriptions of the books below are provided by the publishers.

Reading recommendations from Ron Charles and Jenn Northington

Ron Charles's picks

Book World's full "Best Books of 2015" list is available on the Washington Post. Charles shared a few of this year's hits on air.

"Fates and Furies" by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

"The Tsar of Love and Techno" by Anthony Marra

This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love.

"Welcome to Braggsville" by T. Geronimo Johnson

With the keen wit of "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" and the deft argot of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," T. Geronimo Johnson has written an astonishing, razor-sharp satire. Using a panoply of styles and tones, from tragicomic to Southern Gothic, he skewers issues of class, race, intellectual and political chauvinism, Obamaism, social media, and much more.

"Purity" by Jonathan Franzen

Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother — her only family — is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life.

"Book of Aron" by Jim Shepard

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar and unhappy young boy whose family is driven by the German onslaught from the Polish countryside into Warsaw and slowly battered by deprivation, disease, and persecution.

Jenn Northington's picks

"Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

"Ember in the Ashes" is a thought-provoking, heart-wrenching and pulse-pounding read. Set in a rich, high-fantasy world with echoes of ancient Rome, it tells the story of a slave fighting for her family and a young soldier fighting for his freedom.

"Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis.

"Bright Lines" by Tanwi Nandini Islam

This vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past.

"Half an Inch of Water: Stories" by Percival Everett

Percival Everett's long-awaited new collection of stories finds him traversing the West with characteristic restlessness. A deaf Native American girl wanders off into the desert and is found untouched in a den of rattlesnakes. A young boy copes with the death of his sister by angling for an unnaturally large trout in the creek where she drowned. An old woman rides her horse into a mountain snowstorm and sees a long-dead beloved dog.

"Sorcerer to the Crown" by Zen Cho

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty's lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman — a freed slave who doesn't even have a familiar — as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England's once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry.

"The Tusk That Did the Damage" by Tania James

"The Tusk" is a tour de force set in South India that plumbs the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and, in a feat of audacious imagination, an infamous elephant known as the Gravedigger.

"The Wake" by Paul Kingsnorth

In the aftermath of the Norman Invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror was uncompromising and brutal. English society was broken apart, its systems turned on their head. What is little known is that a fractured network of guerrilla fighters took up arms against the French occupiers.

Written in what the author describes as "a shadow tongue" — a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable to the modern reader — "The Wake" renders the inner life of an Anglo-Saxon man with an accuracy and immediacy rare in historical fiction.

Best books of the year (and some older favorites) from listeners

Fiction

"Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse" by Faith Sullivan

Nell Stillman's road is not easy. When her boorish husband dies soon after they move to the small town of Harvester, Minnesota, Nell is alone, penniless yet responsible for her beloved baby boy, Hillyard. Not an easy fate in small-town America at the beginning of the twentieth century.

"Daughters of Mars" by Thomas Keneally

In 1915, Naomi and Sally Durance, two spirited Australian sisters, join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father's farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Amid the carnage, the sisters' tenuous bond strengthens as they bravely face extreme danger and hostility — sometimes from their own side. There is great humor and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of the incredible women they serve alongside. In France, each meets an exceptional man, the kind for whom she might relinquish her newfound independence — if only they all survive.

"The Untold" by Courtney Collins

With shades of "Water for Elephants" and "True Grit," "The Untold" is a stunning debut novel set in the Australian outback about a female horse thief, her bid for freedom, and the two men trying to capture her.

"Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion — for each other and for their homeland.

"Hotels of North America" by Rick Moody

Moody's latest is a darkly comic portrait of a man who comes to life in the most unexpected of ways: through his online reviews.

Reginald Edward Morse is one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many reviews reveal more than just details of hotels around the globe — they tell his life story.

"Circling the Sun" by Paula McLain

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller "The Paris Wife," now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. "Circling the Sun" brings to life a fearless and captivating woman — Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir "Out of Africa."

Nonfiction

"H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer — Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood — she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry.

"Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things" by Jenny Lawson

In "Furiously Happy," bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea.

But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

"Suga Water: A Memoir" by Arshay Cooper

The affluent world of crew is rocked by the first all-black high school rowing team in the country. Out of their neglected neighborhood, a group of young men emerge to show that there are new heroes and bonds that can be found amidst the noise and chaos of the Westside of Chicago. Led by a kind but determined benefactor and an inspired team captain, the Manley crew team must overcome obstacles to discover what it really means to succeed.

The "My Struggle" series from Karl Ove Knausgaard

"My Struggle: Book One" introduces American readers to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues — death, love, art, fear — and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, "My Struggle" is an essential work of contemporary literature.

"The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood" by Jane Leavy

Jane Leavy delivers the definitive biography of baseball icon Mickey Mantle. The legendary Hall-of-Fame outfielder was a national hero during his record-setting career with the New York Yankees, but public revelations of alcoholism, infidelity, and family strife badly tarnished the ballplayer's reputation in his latter years.

Poetry

"Citizen: An American Lyric" by Claudia Rankine

In essay, image, and poetry, "Citizen" is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Young adult

"I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson

At first, Jude and her twin brother Noah are inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them.

Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways . . . but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.

The "Unclaimed" series by Laurie Wetzel

Abandoned by her birth parents and ignored by her adoptive family, Maddy Page believes she is unlovable. She only allows herself to dream of falling in love. That changes when she meets MJ; handsome and kind, MJ penetrates Maddy's defenses.

When Maddy witnesses MJ disappear and reappear in thin air, she realizes she might have been wrong about him. He could be dangerous — maybe even a killer. Determined to uncover the truth of who, or what, MJ is, Maddy ignores her instinct to run. But she soon realizes that getting close to MJ could cost more than a broken heart — it could cost Maddy her soul.

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