{"id":903,"date":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/public-picks-2015\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:20:56","slug":"public-picks-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/public-picks-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Picks 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the third annual edition of Public Picks, a selection of the books and art that most interested and excited our editorial staff over the past year.\u00a0As with previous years\u2019 Picks (2013<\/a>, 2014<\/a>),\u00a0we aimed for a list that combines the best of the best with\u00a0more idiosyncratic works that you may have missed.<\/p>\n

With admiring nods to widely praised novels like Ali Smith\u2019s How to Be Both<\/i>\u00a0and the latest installments from Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2019s My Struggle<\/i> and Elena Ferrante\u2019s Neapolitan Novels, to nonfiction standouts like Lawrence Wright\u2019s Thirteen Days in September<\/i> and Hermione Lee\u2019s biography of Penelope Fitzgerald, and to celebrated films like Selma<\/i>\u00a0and the Oscar-winning Ida<\/i>, then, here are our picks: a dozen titles each in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and art and media that appeared in the US between May 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015, joined this year by top 10 lists of both graphic works (compiled by Jared Gardner) and children\u2019s and YA literature (compiled by Marah Gubar) from the same period, plus a tidy half-dozen brainy beach reads. We hope you\u2019ll find many new favorites among them.<\/p>\n

\n

FICTION<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 Sait Faik Abas\u0131yan\u0131k, A Useless Man<\/i>, translated from the Turkish by Alexander Dawe and Maureen Freely (Archipelago)
\n\u2022 Donald Antrim, The Emerald Light in the Air<\/i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\n\u2022 Rachel Cusk, Outline<\/i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\n\u2022\u00a0Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days<\/i>, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions)
\n\u2022 William Gibson, The Peripheral<\/i> (Putnam)
\n\u2022 James Hannaham, Delicious Foods<\/i> (Little, Brown)
\n\u2022 Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings<\/i> <\/i>(Riverhead)
\n\u2022 Tove Jansson, The Woman Who Borrowed Memories<\/i>, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella (NYRB Classics)
\n\u2022 Miranda July, The First Bad Man<\/i> (Scribner)
\n\u2022 Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven<\/i> (Knopf)
\n\u2022\u00a0Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer <\/i>(Grove)
\n\u2022\u00a0Marilynne Robinson, Lila<\/i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NONFICTION<\/b><\/div>\n

\u2022\u00a0Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History<\/i> (Knopf)
\n\u2022 Kevin Birmingham, The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/i> (The Penguin Press)
\n\u2022\u00a0David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy<\/i> (Melville House)
\n\u2022 Jake Halpern, Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld<\/i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\n\u2022\u00a0Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Volume 1: Paradoxes of Power, 1878\u20131928<\/i> (Penguin Press)
\n\u2022\u00a0Kevin M. Kruse,\u00a0One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America<\/i> (Basic)
\n\u2022 Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk<\/i> (Grove)
\n\u2022\u00a0Ben Macintyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal<\/i> (Crown)
\n\u2022 David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century <\/i>(Norton)
\n\u2022 Brando Skyhorse, Take This Man<\/i>\u00a0(Simon & Schuster)
\n\u2022 Ronald Grigor Suny, \u201cThey Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else\u201d: A History of the Armenian Genocide<\/i> (Princeton University Press)
\n\u2022 Zephyr Teachout, Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin\u2019s Snuff Box to Citizens United<\/i> (Harvard University Press)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ART & MEDIA<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cMiguel Covarrubias: Drawing a Cosmopolitan Line,\u201d curated by Carolyn Kastner (Georgia O\u2019Keefe Museum, Santa Fe, NM, September 27, 2014\u2013January 18, 2015)
\n\u2022\u00a0Fun Home<\/i>, musical adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori from the graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, directed by Sam Gold (Circle in the Square Theatre)
\n\u2022 Edward Gorey: His Book Cover Art and Design<\/i>, edited by\u00a0Steven Heller\u00a0(Pomegranate)
\n\u2022 Hayden Herrera, Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi<\/i> <\/i>(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\n\u2022 \u201cHip-Hop Revolution: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper,\u201d curated by Sean Corcoran (Museum of the City of New York, April 1\u2013September 13, 2015)
\n\u2022 Greil Marcus, The History of Rock\u00a0<\/i>\u2019n\u2019 Roll in Ten Songs<\/i> (Yale University Press)
\n\u2022\u00a0Joel Meyerowitz: Retrospective<\/i>, edited by Ralph Goertz (D.A.P. \/ Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther K\u00f6nig, Feb 2015)
\n\u2022 Nicholas Nixon,\u00a0The Brown Sisters: Forty Years\u00a0<\/i>(The Museum of Modern Art)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u201cChris Ofili: Night and Day,\u201d curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and Margot Norton (New Museum, October 29, 2014\u2013February 1, 2015)
\n\u2022 Ruben \u00d6stlund (director), Force Majeure<\/i>
\n\u2022\u00a0Abderrahmane Sissako (director), Timbuktu<\/i>
\n\u2022 Kara Walker,\u00a0\u201cA Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,\u201d presented by Creative Time (Domino Sugar Factory, Brooklyn, May 10\u2013July 6, 2014)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

GRAPHIC<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Gabrielle Bell, Truth Is Fragmentary: Travelogues and Diaries<\/i>\u00a0(Uncivilized)
\n\u2022 Roz Chast, Can\u2019t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? <\/i>(Bloomsbury)
\n\u2022 Farel Dalrymple, The\u00a0<\/i>Wrenchies<\/i> (First Second)
\n\u2022 Eleanor Davis, How to Be Happy <\/i>(Fantagraphics)
\n\u2022 Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B., Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, Part Two: 1953\u20131984<\/i> (SelfMadeHero)
\n\u2022 Aidan Koch, Impressions<\/i> (Peradam)
\n\u2022 John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book Two <\/i>(Top Shelf)
\n\u2022 Richard McGuire, Here<\/i> (Pantheon)
\n\u2022 John Porcellino, The\u00a0<\/i>Hospital Suite<\/i> (Drawn & Quarterly)
\n\u2022 Anya Ulinich, Lena Finkle\u2019s Magic Barrel<\/i> (Penguin)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CHILDREN\u2019S & YA LITERATURE<\/b><\/div>\n

\u2022 Jonathan Auxier, The Night Gardener<\/i> (Amulet)
\n\u2022 Cece Bell,\u00a0El Deafo<\/i>\u00a0(Amulet)
\n\u2022 Nick Bruel,\u00a0Bad Kitty Drawn to Trouble\u00a0<\/i>(Roaring Book)
\n\u2022 Sharon M. Draper,\u00a0Stella by Starlight<\/i>\u00a0(Atheneum)
\n\u2022 Stuart Gibbs, Space Case<\/i> (Simon & Schuster)
\n\u2022 Jennifer L. Holm, The Fourteenth Goldfish<\/i> (Random House)
\n\u2022 Jandy Nelson, I\u2019ll Give You the Sun<\/i> (Dial Books)
\n\u2022 Frank Portman, King Dork Approximately<\/i> (Delacorte)
\n\u2022\u00a0Faith Ringgold,\u00a0Harlem Renaissance Party<\/i> (Amistad)
\n\u2022 Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl, Rad American Women A\u2013Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries who Shaped Our History \u2026 and Our Future! <\/i>(City Lights \/ Sister Spit)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CROSS-GENRE BEACH READS<\/b><\/div>\n

\u2022 Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist<\/i> (Harper)
\n\u2022 Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band<\/i> (Dey Street)
\n\u2022 David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks<\/i>\u00a0(Random House)
\n\u2022 Julie Schumacher, Dear Committee Members<\/i> (Doubleday)
\n\u2022 John Waters, Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America<\/i> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
\n\u2022 Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests<\/i> (Riverhead)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the third annual edition of Public Picks, a selection of the books and art that most interested and excited our editorial staff over the past year.\u00a0As with previous years\u2019 Picks (2013, 2014),\u00a0we aimed for a list that combines the best of the best with\u00a0more idiosyncratic works that you may have missed. With admiring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497],"tags":[15,147,17,36,179,20,33,150,196,23,47],"pbpartner":[],"section":[],"pbseries":[],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-comics","tag-fiction","tag-film","tag-graphic","tag-literature","tag-nonfiction","tag-novel","tag-public-picks","tag-translation","tag-visual-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPublic Picks 2015 - Public Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Welcome to the third annual edition of Public Picks, a selection of the books and art that most interested and excited our editorial staff over the past\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/public-picks-2015\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public Picks 2015 - 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