By John Coleman, Longtime Knoxville Bookseller
A list is just a list. But here are ten books from 2015 that I’m glad were written in 2015. There are ten books not on this list that would surely be just as good or better and of course, there are hundreds (or thousands) of books that should be avoided if time is limited, just like every year. Without further adieu…
Dreamland by Sam Quinones. This is the story of the opiate addictions of America and their costs. A book about capitalism gone off the rails, or the dysfunction of health care policy or maybe even a black market business primer(!?). It’s an important book.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan. This is a lovely memoir written about his world traveling during decades of surfing. Trust me: “Get barreled” in this book, it’s a great one on many levels.
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald A book that is hard to classify, this journey is part memoir, part natural history and part a curative ghost story. It’s a book about bereavement, a woman and her hawk.
Persuasion by Michel Houellebecq. This very slightly futuristic novel about a peaceful, democratic Islamist victory at the polls became this year’s number-one bestseller in both France and Germany. Houellebecq, while usually making one squirm, almost always gives the reader new perspectives. A timely read.
Nemesis Games by S. A Corey is the fifth installment in the rollicking space opera The Expanse. Aliens, politics and terrorism combine in this thrilling interplanetary adventure. This book can stand alone, but it is recommended that one starts with Book 1 – Leviathan Wakes.
How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt. Think philosophically: “nothing is free” while reading this book about well…, the title.
Purity by Jonathan Franzen is very smart, and while it sometimes feels like he is writing for his own edification rather than the readers, his novels are still absorbing and thought provoking. Purity follows several characters, including a Snowden/Assange type with a murderous past and his mysterious young protégé.
Bone Clocks by David Mitchel. This book is not like anything else you’ve read this year. Part sci-fi, part every other genre, it is an entertaining mystery, comedy and climate change thriller.
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann. Sally Mann’s memoir of her life, her family, and of course her controversies make up this piece. It’s beautiful photography as usual. Hopefully the context this book gives her work will quiet the art vs. exploitation argument.
The Other Paris by Luc Sante. Paris. A well researched, illustrated trip through the underside of a city lately in our minds. We might not think much about the dark corners and the amazing life therein, but maybe we should.
If you’d like to chat books with John, stop in at Mid Mod Collective on Central Street in Knoxville, TN.
