Best of 2015: Favorite Books

My love affair with reading blossomed in 2015, bolstered by a new purchase toward the end of the year: my kindle paperwhite, which I’ve lovingly named “Sassafras.” I already did most of my reading via the kindle app and free ebooks borrowed from my local libraries, but with my new kindle, I upgraded to a better reading experience (especially compared to my cell phone) with far fewer distractions. So in the end, I read 33 books, shown above in roughly descending order from favorite to least favorite.

Below are some mini-reviews of some of my favorite books. You can also see my favorite reads from previous years here: 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.

My Top 10 Books of 2015

1. All The Light We Cannot See.  We chose this for our first book club reading, and I’m so glad we did. It is so beautifully written, sad, and yet hopeful. It is a World War II novel that follows a blind French girl Marie Laure and a German boy Werner as they navigate the war until their paths inevitably cross. But despite the dramatic and often heartwrenching backdrop of war, the book remains solidly optimistic, which only adds to its ultimate charm. Think: beautiful writing, historic fiction, war, melancholy, hope.

“Has anyone ever spoken so intimately about the very things Werner is most curious about? Open your eyes, concludes the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever.”

“To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air.”

2. Big Magic.  I often read self help books with a hearty dose of skepticism, but this was wonderfully and simply written. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love offers great advice for any creative– or any person, really. Think: inspiration, creativity, simple writing, candid, motivational.

“You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting—its partner—and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile. “

“Because this is the other side of the contract with creativity: If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you. “

“Be careful of your dignity, is what I am saying. It is not always your friend. “

3. Gone Girl. This book is both brilliant and disturbing. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d recommend reading the book instead. Whereas the movie compacts the plot, the book allows you to really live in the psychological dimensions of the novel, getting inside Amy’s head and investing in her “cool girl” narrative. That’s about as much as I can say without giving away any spoilers. Think: thriller, dark, relationships, mystery, movie material.

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

“All this time I’d thought we were strangers, and it turned out we knew each other intuitively, in our bones, in our blood. It was kind of romantic. Catastrophically romantic.”

4. It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. A glimpse into Lynsey Addario’s perspective as a female war photographer. Her writing is rich but levelheaded as she weighs ethical questions, personal priorities, and being compelled toward conflict zones. I most loved her descriptions of discovering and loving photography and absolutely admire the type of work she does. Think: photography, photojournalism, memoir, ethics, travel.

“I had no idea that I would become a conflict photographer. I wanted to travel, to learn about the world beyond the United States. I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people’s most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.”

“More than anything, he taught me the art of patience. Cameras introduce tension. People are aware of the power of a camera, and this instinctively makes most subjects uncomfortable and stiff. But Bebeto taught me to linger in a place long enough, without photographing, so that people grew comfortable with me and the camera’s presence.”

“I was conflicted about making money from images of people who were so desperate, but I thought of all the years I had struggled to make ends meet to be a photographer, and I knew that any money I made from these photos would be invested right back into my work. Trying to convey beauty in war was a technique to try to prevent the reader from looking away or turning the page in response to something horrible. I wanted them to linger, to ask questions.”

5. Where’d You Go, Bernadette. This was such a great read. It has a deceptively simple, humorous start that snowballs into a full-on escapade tangled with so much heart and pointed commentary on life in the modern age. Don’t be fooled by its breezy nature. There’s a lot to unpack in this entertaining story. Think: funny, quick read, modern life, family, caper.

“People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.”

“I felt so full of love for everything. But at the same time, I felt so hung out to dry there, like nobody could ever understand. I felt so alone in this world, and so loved at the same time.”

“My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I’m going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, please step aside because I’m about to kick the shit out of life.”

6. Without You, There Is No Us.  We join author Suki Kim, a young Korean American writer who enters the country as an English teacher under the umbrella of a missionary organization. She has a beautiful writing style: thoughtful, self-aware, but never too flowery. It’s a fascinating look into North Korea, well worth the read. Think: North Korea, memoir, pointed observation, Asian American, politics.

“Separation haunts the affected long after the actual incident. It is a perpetual act of violation. You know that the missing are there, just a few hours away, but you cannot see them or write to them or call them. “

“It was at moments like these that I could not help but think that they— my beloved students— were insane. Either they were so terrified that they felt compelled to lie and boast of the greatness of their Leader, or they sincerely believed everything they were telling me. I could not decide which was worse.”

“Resignation is a habit, and it is contagious.”

7. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Whereas Without You, There Is No Us takes one person’s first-person perspective within North Korea, this book is a journalist’s in-depth investigation which follows the lives of six North Koreans over a period of fifteen years. The reporting is excellently crafted into sensitive, human narratives. Think: North Korea, human stories, reportage, history, insightful.

“This is not the sort of thing that shows up in satellite photographs. Whether in CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or in the East Asian studies department of a university, people usually analyze North Korea from afar. They don’t stop to think that in the middle of this black hole, in this bleak, dark country where millions have died of starvation, there is also love. “

“Yet another gratuitous cruelty: the killer targets the most innocent, the people who would never steal food, lie, cheat, break the law, or betray a friend. It was a phenomenon that the Italian writer Primo Levi identified after emerging from Auschwitz, when he wrote that he and his fellow survivors never wanted to see one another again after the war because they had all done something of which they were ashamed.”

“But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.”

8. Not My Father’s Son.  Actor Alan Cumming’s memoir is not a fluffy celebrity memoir. The book weaves together the story of Alan’s childhood abuse at the hands of his father, ongoing revelations about his father, and the concurrent story of finding out more about his maternal grandfather. It’s well framed and beautifully told. Think: memoir, actor, human stories, family history, mystery.

“I had to pretend I had no joy. It will come as a shock to people who know me now, but being able to express joy was something it took me a long time to be confident enough to do. I’ve certainly made up for it since, and for this, I am proud and grateful. “

“My father told me I was worthless, my mother that I was precious. They couldn’t both be right, but they evened each other out and I began to make my own mind up, not just about myself but about everything that was going on around me.”

“It’s actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you’ll be okay.”

9. It Was Me All Along. A food blogger’s memoir about her relationship and struggles with food and losing over 100 pounds. It’s insightful, earnest, and beautifully written. I especially love the way she writes about her childhood, with such vivid descriptions and emotional presence. Think: memoir, human stories, relationships, body image, food.

“In an ideal world, a child learns eating as an intuitive practice. She seeks out and savors what she wants when she feels hungry. She stops when her stomach sends signals to her brain to say “Hello, hi, I’ve had enough.” Gentle bodily sensations are the sole systems she needs to rely on. I learned none of that. Food was never simply fuel. It was never just about hunger, and it certainly didn’t stop at fullness.”

“Food was a tangible thing that she could give when she couldn’t give time and presence.”

“I thought that my relationship with Daniel, my first experience of true and pure romantic love, would fulfill me in a new kind of way. I thought that it would solve something, would satisfy some inner craving I’d had for love, and I’d finally start to lose weight. Instead, in growing closer to him, I got fatter. And at first I wondered if it was the security of having found love that kept me fat and made me feel comfortable enough to grow fatter. I questioned if it was the satisfaction of acceptance or the fact that my partner enjoyed overeating as much as I did. “

10. Americanah. I was first introduced to author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie via her TED Talk on the danger of a single story. Americanah is a sweeping story of a woman who departs Nigeria for America and finds herself confronting for the first time what it means to be black. Adichie is articulate, pointed in her observations, and her central character Ifemelu is a great blend of smarts, irreverence, and vulnerability. Think: smart, feminist, social commentary, diaspora, African American.

“It brought to him a disorienting strangeness, because his mind had not changed at the same pace as his life, and he felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be. “

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive.”

Other notable books

Also see my previous book recommendations: 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011. Happy reading!