Looking for the perfect books for your book club to read in 2015? Look no further!
Below we showcase 24 exceptional books: From historical fiction to speculative fiction, these books tell stories of ordinary and extraordinary lives that explore the worlds of art, war and so much more. Mostly fiction, you'll also find a handful of carefully selected nonfiction and young adult recommendations.
All have published in paperback since September 2014, or will do by March 2015. Of course, all are also available in ebook.
Update:
In August '15 we published Part 2 of this list
In November '15 we published Part 1 of Best Books for Book Clubs in 2016
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
Hardcover Feb 2014. Paperback Jan 2015. 240 pages
Published by Bloomsbury USA.
The Wives of Los Alamos is a bold and emotionally charged debut novel told in the collective voices of the wives of the men who created the atom bomb.
Full info including reading guide
Belle Cora: A Novel by Phillip Margulies
Paperback Oct 2014. 608 pages. Published by Anchor Books.
A sweeping historical novel based on the extraordinary life and times of Belle Cora, the daughter of a New York merchant who went on to become a millworker, a prostitute, a notorious madam, a murderess, and eventually one of San Francisco's richest and most revered dowagers.
Full info including reading guide
Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
Paperback Sep 2014. 496 pages. Published by Ballantine Books.
A much-anticipated second novel which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny.
Full info including reading guide
I Shall Be Near To You by Erin Lindsay McCabe
Paperback Sep 2014. 320 pages. Published by Broadway Books.
I Shall Be Near To You is the intimate story of the drama of marriage, one woman's amazing exploits, and the tender love story that can unfold when two partners face life's challenges side by side.
Full info including reading guide
The Bathing Women: A Novel by Tie Ning
Paperback Oct 2014. 368 pages. Published by Scribner.
Spellbinding, unforgettable, and an important chronicle of modern China,
The Bathing Women is a powerful and beautiful portrait of the strength of female friendship in the face of adversity.
Full info including reading guide
The Painter by Peter Heller
Hardcover May 2014. Paperback March 2015. 384 pages
Published by Knopf.
Peter Heller, the celebrated author of the breakout best seller
The Dog Stars, returns with an achingly beautiful, wildly suspenseful second novel about an artist trying to outrun his past.
Full info including reading guide
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
Paperback Nov 2014. 384 pages. Published by Simon & Schuster.
A brilliant, provocative novel about an artist who, after years of being ignored by the art world, conducts an experiment: she conceals her female identity behind three male fronts.
Full info including reading guide
Orfeo by Richard Powers
Paperback Sep 2014. 384 pages. Published by W.W. Norton & Company.
The National Book Award–winning author of
The Echo Maker delivers his most emotionally charged novel to date, inspired by the myth of Orpheus.
Full info including reading guide
SPECULATIVE & FUTURISTIC
Dominion by C.J. Sansom
Paperback Dec 2014. 656 pages. Published by Mulholland.
C.J. Sansom rewrites history in a thrilling novel that dares to imagine Britain under the thumb of Nazi Germany.
Full info including reading guide
The Martian by Andy Weir
Paperback Nov 2014. 384 pages. Published by Broadway Books.
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
Full info including reading guide
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee
Paperback Dec 2014. 432 pages. Published by Riverhead Books.
Against a vividly imagined future America, Lee tells a stunning, surprising, and riveting story that will change the way readers think about the world they live in.
Full info including reading guide
The Last Man Standing by Davide Longo
Paperback Oct 2014. 352 pages. Published by MacLehose Press.
Davide Longo's
Last Man Standing is a vivid description of one man's struggle in a post-apocalyptic world to protect his loved ones even as societal norms give way to barbarism and cruelty.
Full info including reading guide
EFFECTS OF WAR
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Hardcover Mar 2014. Paperback Feb 2015. 304 pages
Published by Penguin Press.
Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned.
Full info including reading guide
The Bird Skinner by Alice Greenway
Paperback Nov 2014. 336 pages. Published by Grove Press.
Written in lush, lyrical prose - rich in island detail, redolent of Maine in summer and of the Pacific -
The Bird Skinner is wise and wrenching, an unforgettable masterwork from an extraordinarily skillful novelist.
Full info including reading guide
TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION
Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart by Carol Wall
Hardcover Mar 2014. Paperback Feb 2015. 304 pages
Published by Amy Einhorn Books.
A true story of a unique friendship between two people who had nothing - and ultimately everything - in common
Full info including reading guide
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark
Hardcover Mar 2014. Paperback Feb 2015. 384 pages
Published by Ecco.
In 1810, John Jacob Astor sent out two advance parties to settle the wild, unclaimed western coast of North America. More than half of his men died violent deaths. The others survived starvation, madness, and greed to shape the destiny of a continent.
Full info
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway by Doug Most
Hardcover Feb 2014. Paperback Feb 2015. 352 pages
Published by St. Martin's Press.
The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions.
Full info including reading guide
A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants by Ruth Kassinger
Hardcover Feb 2014. Paperback Feb 2015. 416 pages
Published by William Morrow.
In the tradition of
The Botany of Desire and
Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.
Full info including reading guide
YOUNG ADULTS
Noggin by John C. Whaley
Hardcover Apr 2014. Paperback March 2015 352 pages
Published by Atheneum Books.
Travis Coates has a good head...on someone else's shoulders. A touching, hilarious, and wholly original coming-of-age story from John Corey Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning
Where Things Come Back.
Full info
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina
Paperback Aug 2014. 272 pages. Published by Candlewick Press.
In Meg Medina's compelling new novel, a Latina teen is targeted by a bully at her new school - and must discover resources she never knew she had.
Full info including reading guide
Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool
Paperback 23 Dec 2014. 336 pages. Published by Yearling.
New York Times Best Seller
Navigating Early by Claire Vanderpool, Newbery Medalist for
Moon Over Manifest, is an odyssey-like adventure of two boys' incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail where they deal with pirates, buried secrets, and extraordinary encounters.
Full info including reading guide
