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Year consensus · 2015

The Most Recommended Books of 2015

We counted 4,748 entries from 132 sources in 2015. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared on 27, 7 more than any other book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2015 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

27 sources

  1. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

20 sources

  1. H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

19 sources

  1. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

16 sources

  1. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

  2. The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

14 sources

  1. Purity by Jonathan Franzen

12 sources

  1. Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy

  2. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

11 sources

  1. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

  2. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

  3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

  4. The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf

10 sources

  1. Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

  2. City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

  3. Nimona by ND Stevenson

  4. Outline by Rachel Cusk

  5. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

  6. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

9 sources

  1. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

  2. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

  3. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

  4. Hold Still by Sally Mann

  5. M Train by Patti Smith

  6. On the Move by Oliver Sacks

  7. One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Ǻsne Seierstad

  8. Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

  9. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

  10. The Green Road by Anne Enright

  11. The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

  12. The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories by Joy Williams

8 sources

  1. Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

  2. Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

  3. Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Dinara Mirtalipova

  4. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

  5. Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

  6. Honeydew by Edith Pearlman

  7. Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña

  8. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman

  9. Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith

  10. SPQR: A History of Rome by Mary Beard

  11. Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M. T. Anderson

  12. The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

  13. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli

  14. The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

  15. The Witches by Stacy Schiff

  16. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

  17. Waiting by Kevin Henkes

7 sources

  1. Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

  2. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

  3. Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson

  4. Funny Bones by Duncan Tonatiuh

  5. Get In Trouble by Kelly Link

  6. Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

  7. Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

  8. Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan

  9. The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard

  10. The Cartel by Don Winslow

  11. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

  12. The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

  13. The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

  14. Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt

6 sources

  1. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

  2. Beatlebone by Kevin Barry

  3. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

  4. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh

  5. Dreamland: The True Story of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones

  6. Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert

  7. Girl at War by Sara Novic

  8. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart

  9. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman

  10. Invisible City by Julia Dahl

  11. Negroland by Margo Jefferson

  12. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

  13. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

  14. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

  15. Slade House by David Mitchell

  16. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

  17. The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

  18. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

  19. The First Bad Man by Miranda July

  20. The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

  21. The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud

  22. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel

  23. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

  24. The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton

  25. The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

5 sources

  1. A Strangeness In My Mind: A Novel by Orhan Pamuk

  2. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

  3. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

  4. Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

  5. Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb

  6. Blackout by Sarah Hepola

  7. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

  8. Dietland by Sarai Walker

  9. Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell

  10. Float by Daniel Miyares

  11. Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton

  12. Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins

  13. Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine

  14. KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

  15. March by John Lewis

  16. More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

  17. My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson

  18. Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story by David Maraniss

  19. Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith

  20. So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

  21. Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate

  22. The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day

  23. The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

  24. The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

  25. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman

  26. The Incarnations by Susan Barker

  27. The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

  28. The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray

  29. The Marvels by Brian Selznick

  30. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

  31. Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann

  32. Uprooted by Naomi Novik

  33. Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford

  34. Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson

4 sources

  1. A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

  2. Against the Country by Ben Metcalf

  3. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

  4. Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir by Riad Sattouf

  5. Barbarian Days by William Finnegan

  6. Beastly Verse by JooHee Yoon

  7. Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips

  8. Bettyville by George Hodgman

  9. Black Earth by Timothy Snyder

  10. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

  11. Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham

  12. Detective Gordon: The First Case by Ulf Nilsson

  13. Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle

  14. Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

  15. Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick

  16. Freedom's Child by Jax Miller

  17. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

  18. George by Alex Gino

  19. Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  20. Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash

  21. How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt

  22. How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes

  23. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

  24. In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar

  25. It’s Only Stanley by Jon Agee

  26. Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron

  27. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

  28. Lenny & Lucy by Philip C. Stead

  29. Mesmerized by Mara Rockliff

  30. Mislaid by Nell Zink

  31. Mosquitoland by David Arnold

  32. Nagasaki by Susan Southard

  33. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

  34. Rain by Cynthia Barnett

  35. Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound by Andrea Davis Pinkney

  36. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

  37. Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood

  38. Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan

  39. Step Aside, Pops by Kate Beaton

  40. Strangers Drowning: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, And The Overpowering Urge To Help by Larissa MacFarquhar

  41. SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

  42. Thank You and Good Night by Patrick McDonnell

  43. The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector

  44. The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

  45. The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming

  46. The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits

  47. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

  48. The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

  49. The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

  50. The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein

  51. The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? by Dale Russakoff

  52. The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

  53. The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret

  54. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

  55. The Stranger by Harlan Coben

  56. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

  57. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

  58. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

  59. The Whisper by Pamela Zagarenski

  60. The Whites by Richard Price

  61. Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by Greg Pizzoli

  62. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

  63. Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello

  64. Water Is Water: A Book About the Water Cycle by Miranda Paul

  65. Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman

  66. X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

3 sources

  1. 40 Sonnets by Don Paterson

  2. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

  3. A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

  4. After the Parade by Lori Ostlund

  5. After You by Jojo Moyes

  6. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds

  7. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

  8. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

  9. Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

  10. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

  11. Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth

  12. Baba Yaga's Assistant by Marika McCoola

  13. Becoming Maria by Sonia Manzano

  14. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of An American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt

  15. Between You & Me: Confessions Of A Comma Queen by Mary Norris

  16. Beyond Words by Carl Safina

  17. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

  18. Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen

  19. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón

  20. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

  21. Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley

  22. City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

  23. Confidence by Russell Smith

  24. Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

  25. Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

  26. Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

  27. Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T.J. Stiles

  28. Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little

  29. Dietrich and Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives by Karin Wieland

  30. Dry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman

  31. Easily Distracted by Steve Coogan

  32. Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

  33. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings : A Memoir by Margarita Engle

  34. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

  35. Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis

  36. From the New World: Poems 1976-2014 by Jorie Graham

  37. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

  38. Golden Age by Jane Smiley

  39. Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett

  40. Golden Son by Pierce Brown

  41. Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia

  42. Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

  43. Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon

  44. Hilo:The Boy Who Crashed to EArth by Judd Winick

  45. Home by Carson Ellis

  46. How to be Both by Ali Smith

  47. I Crawl through It by A. S. King

  48. I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

  49. Ice Shear by M.P. Cooley

  50. If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson

  51. In Certain Circles by Elizabeth Harrower

  52. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

  53. Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood

  54. It's What I Do by Lynsey Addario

  55. John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr

  56. Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs

  57. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

  58. Katrina: After The Flood by Gary Rivlin

  59. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

  60. Lamentation by C.J. Sansom

  61. Lila by Marilynne Robinson

  62. Lillian's Right to Vote by Jonah Winter and Shane W. Evans

  63. Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera

  64. Lock In by John Scalzi

  65. Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe

  66. Loving Day by Mat Johnson

  67. Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

  68. Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat

  69. MARTians by Blythe Woolston

  70. Missoula by Jon Krakauer

  71. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

  72. My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl

  73. My Pen by Christopher Myers

  74. My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  75. My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh

  76. Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

  77. One Thousand Things Worth Knowing by Paul Muldoon

  78. Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

  79. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam

  80. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez

  81. Out of the Woods: A True Story of an Unforgettable Event by Rebecca Bond

  82. Pacific by Simon Winchester

  83. physical by Andrew McMillan

  84. Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe by J.W. Ocker

  85. Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish

  86. Present Darkness by Malla Nunn

  87. Sail Away by Langston Hughes

  88. Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll by Peter Guralnick

  89. Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh

  90. Single, Carefree, Mellow: Stories by Katherine Heiny

  91. Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot by Mark Vanhoenacker

  92. Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis

  93. St Mark's is Dead: the Many Lives of America's Hippest Street by Ada Calhoun

  94. Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper

  95. Submission by Michel Houellebecq

  96. Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  97. The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

  98. The Bees by Laline Paull

  99. The Blondes by Emily Schultz

  100. The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks

  101. The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko

  102. The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne by Anna Bikont

  103. The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett

  104. The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

  105. The Day She Died by Catriona McPherson

  106. The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt

  107. The Death of the Hat: A Brief History of Poetry in 50 Objects by Paul B. Janeczko

  108. The Figure of the Detective: A Literary History and Analysis by Charles Brownson

  109. The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt

  110. The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

  111. The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson

  112. The Golden Age by Joan London

  113. The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan

  114. The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood

  115. The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

  116. The Love Object by Edna O'Brien

  117. The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

  118. The Martian by Andy Weir

  119. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

  120. The New Small Person by Lauren Child

  121. The Octopus Scientists: Exploring the Mind of A Mollusk by Sy Montgomery

  122. The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick

  123. The Only Child by Guojing

  124. The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck

  125. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

  126. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

  127. The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet

  128. The Road to Character by David Brooks

  129. The Rocks by Peter Nichols

  130. The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

  131. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs

  132. The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook

  133. The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus

  134. The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

  135. The Water Museum: Stories by Luis Alberto Urrea

  136. The Winter Family by Clifford Jackman

  137. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

  138. The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

  139. There's Something I Want You To Do: Stories by Charles Baxter

  140. This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner

  141. Tommy: The Gun That Changed America by Karen Blumenthal

  142. Toys Meet Snow: Being The Wintertime Adventures Of A Curious Stuffed Buffalo, A Sensitive Plush Stingray, And A Book-Loving Rubber Ball by Emily Jenkins and Paul O. Zelinsky

  143. Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

  144. Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family by Anne-Marie Slaughter

  145. Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones

  146. Wait by Antoinette Portis

  147. We Are All Made of Molecules by Susin Nielsen

  148. What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford by Frank Stanford

  149. What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing by Brian Seibert

  150. When A Scot Ties the Knot: Castles Ever After by Tessa Dare

Sources counted in 2015