Skip to main content

Virgil

The greatest wealth is health.

Attribution

Virgil

Which of the top 15 books submitted by readers for our Best Of 2015 list have you read with your group? (Please select as many as apply.)

February 3, 2016, 611 voters

Week of February 8, 2016

Paperback releases for the week of February 8th include GET IN TROUBLE, Kelly Link's first short story collection for adult readers in over a decade; AS CHIMNEY SWEEPERS COME TO DUST by Alan Bradley, in which Flavia de Luce takes her remarkable sleuthing prowess to the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools; THE INVENTION OF FIRE, which comes courtesy of Bruce Holsinger, the author of the acclaimed historical thriller A BURNABLE BOOK, who once again brings medieval London alive in all its color and detail in a novel that imagines the beginnings of gun violence in the Western world; and 17 CARNATIONS, a meticulously researched historical tour de force about the secret ties among Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor and Adolf Hitler before, during and after World War II.

Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You

Louisa Clark takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair-bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life and is pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Louisa refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

Christopher Scotton, author of The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

The town of Medgar, Kentucky, is beset by a massive Mountaintop Removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Fourteen-year-old Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the “company” and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Kevin’s friend, Buzzy, witnesses the brutal murder of the opposition leader, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

Lisa Genova, author of Inside the O'Briens

A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their 20s, and respected police officer, Joe O'Brien begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s disease.

Week of February 1, 2016

Paperback releases for the week of February 1st include FRICTION by Sandra Brown, a gripping story of family ties and forbidden attraction; Nick Hornby's FUNNY GIRL, a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet; PRETTY BABY, a stunning psychological thriller from Mary Kubica in which a chance encounter sparks an unrelenting web of lies; and PUBLISHING, a personal story of author Gail Godwin's hunger to be published, the pursuit of that goal, and then the long haul.

Mary Glickman, author of An Undisturbed Peace

A trio of outsiders linked by unrequited and rekindled love, Abrahan Bento Sassaporta Naggar, Dark Water of the Mountains, and a black slave named Jacob find themselves surrounded by the escalating horrors of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. As the US government implements the appalling logistics of transporting the Native American tribes of the South to the western side of the Mississippi River, Abe tries desperately to intervene --- and Jacob and Dark Water fight for their lives.

February 3, 2016

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that releases this winter. Read more about it, and enter our Winter Reading Contest by Thursday, February 4th at 11:59am ET for a chance to win one of five copies of DOG LOVE by Ann DeVito, which is now in stores. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgman

When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself --- an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook --- in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can’t bring himself to force her from the home both treasure --- the place where his father’s voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict: Betty, who speaks her mind but cannot quite reveal her heart, has never really accepted the fact that her son is gay.