Best Reads - Fiction

A Round­up of 2015’s Best Reads: Fiction

Here are 5 of some of the most written about, highly rated and acclaimed novels of 2015 (all

which can be found in your library!)


1.       Book of Aron

Jim Shepard

Main Stacks PS3569.H39384B77

This historical fiction features real­life Warsaw Ghetto hero, Janusz Korczak, a Jewish

pediatrician and children’s advocated who founded an orphanage and refused to abandon the

children in his care.  According to a Booklist review, author Shepard “presents a profoundly

moving portrait of Korczak; explores, with awe, our instinct to adapt and survive; and through

the evolving consciousness of his phenomenally commanding young narrator, exposes the

catastrophic impact of war and genocide on children.” (Booklist, vol 111, number 16, p32)


2.       Finders Keepers

Stephen King

Main stacks PS3561.I483F56

Publishers weekly calls this one a “taut thriller” and the main character, Morris Bellamy, one of

King’s “creapiest creations – a literate and intelligent character whom any passionate reader will

both identify with and be repelled by.”  If you are looking for novel filled with nail­biting

suspense, checkout Finders Keepers. (Publishers Weekly, vol 262, issue 16)


3.       Green Road

Anne Enright

Main stacks PR6055.N73G74

Library Journal claims VERDICT Booker Prize winner Enright “lays bare the hopes, desperations,

and all too brief moments of understanding in family and modern life.” Rosaleen's adult children

gather for Christmas in Ireland for the first time in years. Rosaleen can't be made happy, and

her children are far from trying anymore, if they ever did. Rosaleen forces her children to see

her and her choices in a new light. (Library Journal, vol 140, issue 6, p73)


4.       Illuminations

Andrew  O’Hagan

Main stacks PR6065.H18I44

O'Hagan, a multi­award winner named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003,

tells a story about storytelling and how it must sometimes be blown out of the water. Library

Journal summarizes that a documentary photographer, Anne Quirk, has survived loving a

devious man by creating her own ongoing deceptions. But then her grandson Luke, a captain in

the Royal Western Fusiliers, returns home to Scotland after finding his perceptions of the world

wiped clean by the war in Afghanistan. Luke and Anne join forces to investigate a mystery in

Anne's past (Library Journal, vol 139, issue 16, p63)


5.       Spool of Blue Thread

Anne Tyler

Main stacks PS3570.Y45S68

A chronicle of the Whitshank family though several generations in Baltimore, Maryland.

Publishers Weekly mentions some problems with cohesion, but otherwise says the story is

thoroughly enjoyable and that Tyler is a ‘gifted and engrossing storyteller.” (Publishers Weekly,

vol 261, issue 50, p)