Trending This Year: Barnes & Noble Booksellers Announce Best Books of 2015
2015 Categories Include Books That Started a Conversation, Hoping for
a Movie, Celebrity Behind-the-Curtain Memoirs, and More
Bookseller Picks Help Guide Creative Gifting This Holiday Season
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–With the popularity of lists this time of year, from holiday shopping to
New Year’s Resolutions, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is
releasing its picks for the top books of 2015, with thoughtfully created
categories to guide creative gift-giving. Spanning serious literature to
pop culture sensations, the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a
leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products has
identified the books that got people talking, debating, laughing,
imagining and reading through the night.
“From sweeping narratives to in-depth looks into personal lives, it’s
been an exciting year for books,” said Mary Amicucci, VP, Adult Trade
and Children’s Books. “We hope this collection of year-end lists can
help shoppers discover new books for themselves and extra-special gifts
for others.”
Barnes & Noble has compiled this year’s lists based on proprietary
criteria, most notably the trendspotting expertise of its booksellers in
nearly 650 stores nationwide who converse daily with customers. With the
complete lists available online at www.bn.com/bestof2015,
categories and books include:
Books That Started a Conversation
In a year of sociopolitical upheaval, both in the U.S. and around the
globe, a range of books and corresponding topics sparked conversations
among readers in 2015. Barnes & Noble’s picks in this category include Between
the World and Me, a moving work by Ta-Nehisi Coates offering
fresh perspective on the nation’s complicated history and current racial
crisis, and Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s much-awaited
precursor to her Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece To Kill a
Mockingbird, which ignited controversy around the story’s moral
underpinnings as well as its origins. The complete list is as follows:
-
All
the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven -
Auggie
& Me: Three Wonder Stories by R.J. Palacio -
Becoming
Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy
Ellis Nutt -
Being
Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande -
Between
the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates -
Dumplin’
by Julie Murphy -
Go
Set a Watchman by Harper Lee -
The
Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering
and Organizing by Marie Kondo -
My
Fight/Your Fight by Ronda Rousey -
We
All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach
Hoping for a Movie
Hollywood executives take note: on the heels of The Hunger Games,
Divergent, Gone Girl and other film adaptations which
translated to smashing box office success, books with equal storytelling
power and cinematic potential wait in the wings. Consider The Immortal
Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot’s intimate journey of
scientific discovery and consequences; Beautiful Ruins, Jess
Walters’ dazzling love story set against an idyllic Italian coastline;
and Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train, heartbreaking
historical fiction spotlighting American children abandoned during the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other books
featured on this list include:
-
The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by
Sherman Alexie -
Brain
on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan -
Breakaway:
Beyond the Goal by Alex Morgan -
The
Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An
American Legend by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin -
Red
Queen (Red Queen Series #1) by Victoria Aveyard -
Red
Rising by Pierce Brown -
The
School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil
Series #1) by Soman Chainani -
Station
Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel -
The
Vacationers by Emma Straub -
We
Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Books from Authors Who Drew Crowds around the Block
This year, eager fans couldn’t wait to get their hands on the hard-copy
manifestations of favorite on-screen sensations. Social media stars such
as Color Me Creative’s artistic whiz Kristina Webb, YouTube stars
Dan Howell and Phil Lester (The Amazing Book Is Not on Fire: The
World of Dan and Phil), and Tyler Oakley (Binge)
have adapted their social media success to the written page for their
massive follower bases. Books that inspired lines around the block are:
-
A
Work in Progress by Connor Franta -
The
Amazing Book Is Not on Fire: The World of Dan and Phil by Dan
Howell and Phil Lester -
Binge
by Tyler Oakley -
Color
Me Creative: Unlock Your Imagination by Kristina Webb -
I
Hate Myself: A Collection of Essays by Shane Dawson by Shane
Dawson -
In
Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World by Joey Graceffa -
Really
Professional Internet Person by Jenn McAllister -
Selp-Helf
by Miranda Sings
Bestselling Books with Staying Power
Books that capture – and continue to hold – the nation’s collective
attention prove their enduring appeal by resonating with readers
everywhere. In this category are such diverse titles as Being Mortal:
Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande’s heartfelt take
on how medicine can improve life and the process of its ending, and All
the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning
masterpiece. The complete list is as follows:
-
All
the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr -
Being
Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande -
Dead
Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson -
The
Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins -
Go
Set a Watchman by Harper Lee -
The
Isle of the Lost (Descendants Series) by Melissa de la Cruz -
The
Last Ever After (The School for Good and Evil Series #3) by
Soman Chainani -
The
Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering
and Organizing by Marie Kondo -
Red
Queen (Red Queen Series #1) by Victoria Aveyard -
The
Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Books That Colored the Imagination
As adults increasingly channel their creativity to alleviate stress,
coloring books harkening back to our childhood made a nostalgic and
grown-up resurgence this year. Books such as Secret New York: Color
Your Way to Calm allow people of all ages to relax, flex their
creative muscles and be immersed in a youthful sense of the present.
Barnes & Noble’s top picks are as follows:
-
Animal
Kingdom: Color Me, Draw Me (Millie Marotta Adult Coloring Book Series)
by Millie Marotta -
Animorphia:
An Extreme Coloring and Search Challenge by Kerby Rosanes -
Color
Me Calm: 100 Coloring Templates for Meditation and Relaxation
by Lacy Mucklow -
Lost
Ocean: An Inky Adventure and Coloring Book by Johanna Basford -
Mandala
Meditation Coloring Book by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. -
Secret
New York: Color Your Way to Calm by Zoe de Las Cases
Binge-Reading Page-Turners
With downtime during the holidays and the winter travel season
approaching, Barnes & Noble recommends the following addictive
page-turners that will keep readers up into all hours of the night,
including The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins’ gripping
chiller (widely considered the next Gone Girl) and the third
installation of James Dashner’s bestselling, edge-of-your-seat Morality
Doctrine series. The complete list is as follows:
-
Career
of Evil (Cormoran Strike Series 3) by Robert Gailbraith -
City
on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg -
The
Game of Lives (The Mortality Doctrine Series #3) by James
Dashner -
The
Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins -
H
is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -
The
Heir (Selection Series 4) by Kiera Cass -
Library
of Souls: The Third Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs -
The
Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom -
The
Nightingale by Kristin Hannah -
Rosemary:
The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson -
Saint
Anything by Sarah Dessen -
The
Survivor (Mitch Rapp Series #14) by Vince Flynn
Celebrity Behind-the-Curtain Memoirs
Whether they’re actors or musicians whose talents we admire or reality
personalities we just love to follow, the seemingly magical lives of
celebrities offer an escape from our own. This year, some of the most
interesting celebrity memoirs include Leah Remini’s Troublemaker,
which examines her immersion in – and escape from – Scientology, Drew
Barrymore’s Wildflower, her first adult book about how young
stardom affected her life, and Willie Nelson’s It’s a Long Story,
which twists up the best tales from the country legend’s eight-decade
career. The complete list is as follows:
-
Almost
Interesting by David Spade -
The
Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy by Rainn Wilson -
Boys
in the Trees by Carly Simon -
Dear
Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker -
Hunger
Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein -
It’s
a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson -
M
Train by Patti Smith -
Photograph
by Ringo Starr -
Troublemaker:
Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini -
Unfaithful
Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello -
Wildflower
by Drew Barrymore
The complete lists are available at www.bn.com/bestof2015.
To browse these great reads and all of the hottest books and gifts this
holiday season, visit any of Barnes & Noble’s nearly 650 stores
nationwide or visit www.bn.com.
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is a Fortune 500 company, the nation’s
largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital
media and educational products. The Company operates 647 Barnes & Noble
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Contacts
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Mary Ellen Keating, 212-633-3323
Senior
Vice President
Corporate Communications
mkeating@bn.com
or
Alan
McNamara, 212-633-3379
Director
Corporate Communications
amcnamara@bn.com