The Most Popular Books of 2015
Lists of the Library's most-circulated books from 2015 reveal the eclectic reading tastes of our membership: literary fiction, historical fiction, dark crime novels, "entertainments," and a nonfiction list that is terrifically varied in its range of subject matter. Traditionally popular authors at the Library (McEwan, Franzen, Atkinson, Rendell, Leon, Price, etc.) dominate the lists below, but a handful of relative newcomers made their mark, as well, including debut novels from Garth Risk Hallberg (the much-hyped City on Fire) and Matthew Thomas (We Are Not Ourselves). Impressively, the top-circulating book of the year, Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, was also number six on the 2014 fiction list. Clearly, though, the big story is Elena Ferrante and her Neapolitan novels—all four books of her quartet landed in this year's fiction Top 20.
Below the categorized top-twenty lists, you will find the top 10 across all categories. Note that ebooks are available for all listed titles in the Library's 3M Cloud Library collection, except those marked with an asterik.
Fiction
- Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See
- Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend (book one of the Neapolitan Novels; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
- Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
- Lily King - Euphoria
- Kristin Hannah - The Nightingale
- Jonathan Franzen - Purity
- Harper Lee - Go Set a Watchman
- Kate Atkinson - A god in Ruins
- Marilynne Robinson - Lila
- Rachel Cusk - Outline
- Ian McEwan - The Children Act *
- Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (book three of the Neapolitan novels; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
- Colm Toibin- Nora Webster
- Lauren Groff -Fates and Furies
- Edith Pearlman - Honeydew: stories *
- Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life
- Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves
- Garth Risk Hallberg - City on Fire
- Elena Ferrante - The Story of the Lost Child (book four of the Neapolitan novels; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
- Elena Ferrante - The Story of a New Name (book two of the Neapolitan novels; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
Mysteries
- Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train
- Harry Brandt- The Whites (Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt)
- Joseph Kanon - Leaving Berlin
- Donna Leon - Falling in Love *
- Daniel Silva - The English Spy
- Olen Steinhauer - All the Old Knives
- Michael Connelly - The Burning Room
- Charles Todd - A Fine summer's Day: an Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
- Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb
- Peter Lovesey - Down among the Dead Men: a Peter Diamond Investigation
- David Baldacci - The Escape *
- Ruth Rendell- The Girl Next Door
- David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web (translated from the Swedish by George Goulding)
- Jacqueline Winspear - A Dangerous Place
- Lee Child - Make Me: a Jack Reacher Novel
- Renee Knight - Disclaimer
- Louise Penny - The Nature of the Beast
- Thomas Perry - A String of Beads: a Jane Whitefield Novel *
- Ken Follett - Edge of Eternity *
- Jack Higgins- Rain on the Dead * & Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel,* by Lee Child.
Nonfiction
- Atul Gawande - Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
- Erik Larson - Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- Helen Macdonald - H is for Hawk
- Oliver Sacks - On the Move: a Life
- Ta-Nehisi Coates - Between the World and Me
- Mary Norris - Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen *
- Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal *
- Daniel Brown - The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
- Hermione Lee - Penelope Fitzgerald: a Life
- Sally Mann - Hold Still: a Memoir with Photographs *
- Alexandra Fuller - Leaving Before the Rains Come
- Roger Cohen - The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family *
- David G. McCullough - The Wright Brothers
- Nina Stibbe - Love, Nina: a Nanny Writes Home *
- Vivian Gornick- The Odd Woman and the City: a Memoir
- Candice Bergen - A Fine Romance
- Roz Chast - Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? *
- Richard Norton Smith - On His Own Terms: a Life of Nelson Rockefeller *
- Marilyn Johnson - Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble *
- Anne Sinclair - My Grandfather's Gallery: a Family Memoir of Art and War (translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside)
Top 10
- Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See
- Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train
- Atul Gawande - Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
- Harry Brandt- The Whites (Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt)
- Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend (book one of the Neapolitan Novels; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
- Erik Larson - Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
- Helen Macdonald - H is for Hawk
- Lily King - Euphoria
- Oliver Sacks - On the Move: a Life
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