I found 18 lists of the best books of 2015 on the Internet and combined them into one meta-list. The results are below: every book on two or more of the original 18 source lists. If I’ve read the book, I have included my personal 1-5 star rating.
On 13 Lists
A LITTLE LIFE. By Hanya Yanagihara.
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. By Ta-Nehisi Coates.
On 11 Lists
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD. Book 4, The Neapolitan Novels: “Maturity, Old Age.” By Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein.
On 10 lists
PURITY. By Jonathan Franzen.
FATES AND FURIES. By Lauren Groff.
On 9 lists
H IS FOR HAWK. By Helen Macdonald.
On 7 lists
ON THE MOVE: A Life. By Oliver Sacks.
On 6 lists
DELICIOUS FOODS. By James Hannaham.
GET IN TROUBLE: Stories. By Kelly Link.
CITY ON FIRE. By Garth Risk Hallberg.
A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN: Selected Stories. By Lucia Berlin. Edited by Stephen Emerson.
THE SELLOUT. By Paul Beatty.
A GOD IN RUINS. By Kate Atkinson.
On 5 lists
THE SYMPATHIZER. By Viet Thanh Nguyen.
TWO YEARS EIGHT MONTHS AND TWENTY EIGHT NIGHTS. By Salman Rushdie.
THE BURIED GIANT. By Kazuo Ishiguro.
FORTUNE SMILES: Stories. By Adam Johnson.
GOLDEN AGE. By Jane Smiley.
THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. By Paula Hawkins.
THE MEURSAULT INVESTIGATION. By Kamel Daoud. Translated by John Cullen.
OUR SOULS AT NIGHT. By Kent Haruf.
DEAD WAKE: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. By Erik Larson.
DESTINY AND POWER: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. By Jon Meacham.
ORDINARY LIGHT: A Memoir. By Tracy K. Smith
THE WITCHES: Salem, 1692. By Stacy Schiff.
On 4 lists
THE TURNER HOUSE. By Angela Flournoy.
THE FIRST BAD MAN. By Miranda July.
WELCOME TO BRAGGSVILLE. By T. Geronimo Johnson.
LOVING DAY. By Mat Johnson.
THE ARGONAUTS. By Maggie Nelson.
THE COMPLETE STORIES. By Clarice Lispector. Edited by Benjamin Moser. Translated by Katrina Dodson.
A STRANGENESS IN MY MIND. By Orhan Pamuk.
THE SECRET CHORD. By Geraldine Brooks.
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD. By Anne Tyler.
GIRL WAITS WITH GUN. By Amy Stewart.
UNDERMAJORDOMO MINOR. By Patrick deWitt.
BARBARIAN DAYS: A Surfing Life. By William Finnegan.
STALIN’S DAUGHTER: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. By Rosemary Sullivan.
ONCE IN A GREAT CITY: A Detroit Story. By David Maraniss.
GHETTOSIDE: A True Story of Murder in America. By Jill Leovy.
NEUROTRIBES: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. By Steve Silberman.
M TRAIN. By Patti Smith.
On 3 lists
MISLAID. By Nell Zink.
THE GREEN ROAD. By Anne Enright.
BEST BOY. By Eli Gottlieb.
SUBMISSION. By Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Lorin Stein.
THE HEART GOES LAST. By Margaret Atwood.
EILEEN. By Ottessa Moshfegh.
MY STRUGGLE: Book 4. By Karl Ove Knausgaard. Translated by Don Bartlett.
THE MARK AND THE VOID. By Paul Murray.
BEAUTY IS A WOUND. By Eka Kurniawan. Translated by Annie Tucker.
THE VISITING PRIVILEGE: New and Collected Stories. By Joy Williams.
GOD HELP THE CHILD. By Toni Morrison.
THE FISHERMEN. By Chigozie Obioma.
THE WHITES. By Richard Price (writing as Harry Brandt).
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING: Fiction. By Colum McCann.
MY DOCUMENTS. By Alejandro Zambra.
DID YOU EVER HAVE A FAMILY. By Bill Clegg.
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. By Elizabeth Alexander
THE STORY OF MY TEETH. By Valeria Luiselli. Translated by Christina MacSweeney.
THE TSAR OF LOVE AND TECHNO: Stories. By Anthony Marra.
THE BOOK OF ARON. By Jim Shepard.
GOLD FAME CITRUS. By Claire Vaye Watkins.
FINALE: A Novel of the Reagan Years. By Thomas Mallon.
CUSTER’S TRIALS: A Life on the Frontier of a New America. By T.J. Stiles.
GIVE US THE BALLOT: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. By Ari Berman.
HOLD STILL: A Memoir with Photographs. By Sally Mann.
BLACK EARTH: The Holocaust as History and Warning. By Timothy Snyder.
THE INVENTION OF NATURE: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World. By Andrea Wulf. (4)
NEGROLAND: A Memoir. By Margo Jefferson.
DREAMLAND: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic. By Sam Quinones.
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS. By David McCullough.
2
YOU TOO CAN HAVE A BODY LIKE MINE. By Alexandra Kleeman.
HONEYDEW: Stories. By Edith Pearlman.
THE MARE. By Mary Gaitskill.
BEATLEBONE. By Kevin Barry.
THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT. By Helen Phillips.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS. By Marlon James.
THE CARTEL. By Don Winslow.
THE INCARNATIONS. By Susan Barker.
IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT. By Judy Blume.
THE STATE WE’RE IN: Maine Stories. By Ann Beattie.
THE FIFTH SEASON. The Broken Earth: Book One. By N.K. Jemisin.
LEAVING BERLIN. By Joseph Kanon.
MAN AT THE HELM. By Nina Stibbe.
OUTLINE. By Rachel Cusk.
THE FLY TRAP. By Fredrik Sjoberg. Translated by Thomas Teal.
THE SHEPHERD’S CROWN. By Terry Pratchett.
EARLY WARNING. By Jane Smiley.
UNDER THE UDALA TREES. By Chinelo Okparanta.
THERE’S SOMETHING I WANT YOU TO DO. By Charles Baxter.
THE WATER MUSEUM. By Luis Alberto Urrea.
STEP ASIDE, POPS! By Kate Beaton.
SPEAK. By Louisa Hall.
A WILD SWAN. By Michael Cunningham.
ANCILLARY MERCY. By Ann Leckie.
KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST. By J. Ryan Stradal.
SLADE HOUSE. By David Mitchell.
IN THE COUNTRY. By Mia Alvar.
BINARY STAR. By Sarah Gerard.
SATIN ISLAND. By Tom McCarthy.
CIRCLING THE SUN. By Paula McLain.
THE COUNTRY OF ICE CREAM STAR. By Sandra Newman.
EPITAPH: A Novel of the O.K. Corral. By Mary Doria Russell.
THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES. By Alice Hoffman.
SEIOBO THERE BELOW. By Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Translated by Ottilie Mulzet.
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF PRIMO LEVI. Edited by Ann Goldstein.
SKYFARING: A Journey With a Pilot. By Mark Vanhoenacker.
THE PRIZE: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? By Dale Russakoff.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. By Mary Beard.
KILLING A KING: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel. By Dan Ephron.
DO NO HARM: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. By Henry Marsh.
THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS: The Great War in the Middle East. By Eugene Rogan.
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. By Nikolaus Wachsman.
EMPIRE OF COTTON: A Global History. By Sven Beckert.
THE GAY REVOLUTION: The Story of the Struggle. By Lillian Faderman.
HOW MUSIC GOT FREE: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy. By Stephen Witt.
IF THE OCEANS WERE INK: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran. By Carla Power.
CITIZEN: An American Lyric. By Claudia Rankine.
THE FOLDED CLOCK: A Diary. By Heidi Julavits.
SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED. By Jon Ronson.
OUR KIDS: The American Dream in Crisis. By Robert Putnam.
BLACK MAN IN A WHITE COAT: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine. By Damon Tweedy.
YOUNG ELIOT: From St. Louis to The Waste Land. By Robert Crawford.
THE PENTAGON’S BRAIN: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency. By Annie Jacobsen.
DIETRICH & RIEFENSTAHL: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives. By Karin Wieland. Translated from the German by Shelley Frisch.
HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL: A Memoir. By Carrie Brownstein.
STRANGERS DROWNING: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices and the Overpowering Urge to Help. By Larissa MacFarquhar.
THE BATTLE OF VERSAILLES: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. By Robin Givhan.
THE DARK NET: Inside the Digital Underworld. By Jamie Bartlett.
SISTERS IN LAW: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World. By Linda Hirshman.
TED HUGHES: The Unauthorised Life. By Jonathan Bate.
SPECTACLE: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. By Pamela Newkirk.
KEEPING AN EYE OPEN: Essays on Art. By Julian Barnes.
BLACKOUT: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget. By Sarah Hepola.
A KIM JONG-IL PRODUCTION: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power. By Paul Fischer.