Fifteen of 2015’s finest books prove that the Internet still hasn’t killed print publishing

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Every year seems to bring more doomsday articles lamenting the decline of the reader, charting the last gasps of publishing, predicting the death of the book.

I don’t believe those articles. I work in a library, where readers still flock, publishers still have plenty of books to place, and the book is alive and well.

It’s a heartening place to work — I talk with inspired readers and find many fantastic books. In fact, 2015 was such a good year for reading that I’ve had a difficult time narrowing my favorites to only 15 titles. (I’ve added some honorable mentions to each category.) I hope you find something new and intriguing here, whether you’re comparing other readers’ lists with your own (share it under this story at pitch.com) or you’re shopping for a book to give as a gift. May 2016 be as defiantly rich in reading.

FICTION

Best Novel to Read on Kansas City’s New Streetcar
The 6:41 to Paris
By Jean-Philippe Blondel

In this haunting novel, former lovers are caught in an awkward situation. Cécile and Philippe, who haven’t seen each other in almost 30 years, by chance end up sitting together on an early morning train bound for Paris. Both are afraid to speak — Cécile is still angry about the cruel breakup, and Philippe is embarrassed about his immature behavior. The chapters alternate between each person’s thoughts and memories, and the tension builds as the train nears the city. This short novel was so gripping that I hated putting it down.

Best Novel to Read While Visiting Family
A Spool of Blue Thread
By Anne Tyler

Few writers portray marriage and family as thoughtfully as Anne Tyler does. Her latest novel follows several generations of the Whitshanks in Baltimore, but the heart of the book is with the matriarch, Abby, who is growing old and forgetful. The story opens in 1994, with a strange phone call from one of Abby’s children, and it progresses through the years, showing perspectives of different family members. We also jump back in time and meet Abby as a girl and see how she fell in love with her husband, Red. This is a poignant story, and Tyler is so skilled at bringing characters to life that I swore I recognized a few relatives.

Best Psychological Thriller
The Kind Worth Killing
By Peter Swanson

Here’s a smart, well-crafted thriller likely to please Gone Girl fans. Ted and Lily are chatting in an airport lounge. Ted is upset because he recently discovered that his wife, Miranda, is cheating on him. Lily encourages him to talk and says she’ll help him kill his wife. Ted agrees, in part because he’s attracted to Lily. Readers get to see the story unfold from Ted’s point of view as well as from Lily’s. The plot quickly gets complicated, and I was so absorbed in the story that I lost sleep trying to finish it. More Peter Swanson books, please!

Best Novel for Crossword Lovers
Two Across
By Jeff Bartsch

Stanley and Vera tied for first place in a national spelling bee in 1960, then stayed in touch as they grew up. Stanley proposed before college started, but there was a catch: He wanted to fake the wedding, thinking it was a chance to escape his sheltered life. Vera agreed to the scam but was secretly in love with him. What differentiates this novel from a typical marriage plot are its word games. When Stanley and Vera are separated and want to find each other, one of them submits a unique crossword puzzle to a newspaper with hidden clues. Readers who like bookish characters will delight in this novel.

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Best Series to Give Your Mom
The Story of the Lost Child
By Elena Ferrante

This fourth and final installment of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels is heartbreakingly beautiful. The books are about Elena and Lila, two female friends in Naples, and it covers them from childhood to old age. The series begins with My Brilliant Friend, and the novels describe the girls’ families, the crime and poverty of their neighborhood, their schooling, their romances and their changes of fortune. As the women grow up, so do their problems and their politics. Elena and Lila try to navigate the new world, while their parents are still rooted in the old. I grew deeply attached to these women, and I cheered and wept for them. The four Neapolitan Novels comprise a masterpiece of modern storytelling.

Honorable Mentions: The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida; In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware; The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Christopher Scotton

NONFICTION

Best Book to Give Your Dad
The Wright Brothers
By David McCullough

The lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright make for a fascinating story. Born in Ohio, the brothers were so clever and mechanically gifted that they could fix or create almost anything. They became interested in human flight while they were children, and they studied birds obsessively, hoping to emulate their natural design. The brothers were determined to invent a flying machine, and they built their own test gliders. They suffered many hardships but eventually made that breathtaking first flight in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. David McCullough had access to the Wright family’s letters and diaries, which make his narrative rich in detail and description. The Wright Brothers is among McCullough’s best works.

Best Book About Homicide Detectives
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
By Jill Leovy

As a newspaper reporter, Jill Leovy spent 10 years following homicide detectives. Her incredible Ghettoside focuses on one South Los Angeles murder, the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Bryant Tennelle, who was the son of a police detective. The book gets into the problems that cops face every day and the larger issue of why so many black men are being cut down in America. In a year when police brutality has often been in the news, Leovy’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in issues of criminal justice.

Best Book About Online Mobs
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
By Jon Ronson

The Internet has made it easier to make public mistakes and suffer public humiliation as a consequence. Jon Ronson here writes about a few such incidents, including the shaming of Justine Sacco. In 2013, she posted a bad joke on Twitter about AIDS and Africa, and was hounded by online mobs and quickly fired from her PR job. Then there’s Jonah Lehrer, who was caught fabricating Bob Dylan quotes in his book Imagine, then scorned while making a public apology. Ronson also looks at the history of shaming and theories of crowd behavior. Fans of popular psychology and sociology will find this fascinating.

Best Social Commentary
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Structured as a letter to his teenage son, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book vividly tells his readers what it is to be a black man in America. His writing is eloquent, strident and bleak. Coates talks about his childhood, family, education and work, and underlining all of it is a discussion of race. An especially moving section remembers a college friend, Prince Jones, who was shot and killed by police. The epistle is only about 150 pages, but it’s so thought-provoking that often I could read only a few pages at a time before I had to set it down. Coates has been described as the James Baldwin of our time. It’s a well-earned comparison — his book is powerful and enlightening, and it deserves to be widely read.

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Best Book to Give Your Writer/Artist/Musician Friends
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
By Elizabeth Gilbert

Thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert, for writing this practical, helpful, inspirational book on creativity. It offers good advice on how to nurture one’s curiosity, how to make time for creative projects, and how to avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism and fear. Gilbert, author of the best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love, shares some great stories of her own writing experiences as well as the habits of other artists. One of the big lessons of the book is not to procrastinate if you have an inspiring idea — just get to work on it. Don’t be fooled into thinking there’s a perfect time to write or make music or create art. There’s never a perfect time.

Honorable Mentions: Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

MEMOIR

Best Travelogue That Starts in Missouri
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
By Rinker Buck

Rinker Buck got the wild idea to buy some mules and a covered wagon and follow the route of the Oregon Trail, which hundreds of thousands of pioneers traversed in the 1800s. Buck started the nearly 2,000-mile journey in St. Joseph, Missouri, crossed into Kansas and Nebraska, trekked across Wyoming and Idaho, and finally arrived in Oregon. Buck first got this notion while he was visiting the Flint Hills of Kansas and stumbled on a section of the original trail. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the book is that Buck’s brother, Nick, comes along for the ride — their bickering is vastly amusing. The book is a fun mix of travel adventure and American history.

Best Addiction Memoir
Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
By Sarah Hepola

I have an addiction to addiction memoirs, and Blackout was the perfect fix. Sarah Hepola’s drug of choice was alcohol. She sipped her first beer at age 6, started stealing beer at 7, and first got blackout drunk when she was 11. When she was in her 20s and working as a writer in New York, the blackouts started to pile up. She tried getting sober a few times, but the effort didn’t stick until she was in her 30s. She went to AA meetings, focused on her work and found friends who supported her sobriety. This memoir is honest, powerful and beautifully written.

Best Memoir about a Rare Disease
Girl in the Dark
By Anna Lyndsey

This is a harrowing memoir about a woman who suffers from a rare skin condition that makes her severely sensitive to light. It started out that Anna (a pen name) couldn’t tolerate her glowing computer screen, which she says felt like a blowtorch against her face. Then the sensitivity spread: Light waves irritated her skin even when she was fully clothed. To cope, she blacked out a room in her home and stayed in darkness most of the day. This is essentially a survival story — how one woman adapted to an extreme change in lifestyle. This book will also make you appreciate being able to walk freely in the sunshine.

Best Nature Writing
H Is for Hawk
By Helen Macdonald

This is gorgeous nature writing that’s also a graceful memoir about bereavement. When Helen Macdonald’s father died, her grief was so great that she decided to adopt a goshawk — a behemoth bird of prey. Helen had loved hawks since childhood and had studied falconry, but this was her first time trying to train a goshawk. If you’ve ever suffered loss, you know that grief can cause you to do strange things. She became obsessed with her goshawk, spending hours with it and avoiding other humans. As her feathered companion grew stronger, Helen’s despair lessened. This book is beautifully written, perching the hawk on your own shoulder and urging you to be bold.

Best Book about Changing Your Life
Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives
By Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin is the queen of project memoirs. Author of the best-selling The Happiness Project, in which she spent a year focusing on how to be happier, she sets her sights this time on daily habits, which she describes as “the invisible architecture” of life. If you can improve your habits, she says, you can improve your life. Rubin sets out to discover just how we can change our routines, and her book is filled with practical advice. She recommends starting with habits that help you sleep better, move more, eat and drink healthfully, and unclutter your home. I’ve already adopted several of her suggestions, and I can tell you: If you want to make your life better in 2016, Rubin is the coach you want in your corner.

Honorable Mentions: Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Diane Kockler Martin is a librarian in Lee’s Summit and is ranked as one of the Top 100 reviewers on Goodreads.