We’re moving our weekly wrap-up of our favorite reads of 2015 up a few days, since the holidays are looming large at the end of the week.  This week’s selection comes to you from the Main Library’s Circulation Desk…or, as I like to think of it, the All You Can Read Buffet.  We hope you find some new books on here to start your new year off in literary style!

Half of a Yellow Sun: The winner of this year’s Baileys “Best of the Best” award (handed out to one of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is also one of our staff’s favorite reads of the yet.  Set during the Biafran War, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel weaves an intricate tale of handful of lives that are shaped forever by their own decisions, and by the world events that bring them all together.  The Observer called this work “An immense achievement, Half of a Yellow Sun has a ramshackle freedom and exuberant ambition.”  Though at times tragic and difficult to read, this is a book that continues that is, at its heart, inspiring and impossible to forget.

The Bellweather Rhapsody: We’ve mentioned this book before, but it is just too unique, too quirky, and too delightful a book not to mention again.  Kate Racculia, herself a child musician, has composed a brilliantly original and enthusiastic tale about a group of young musicians trapped in the decaying grandeur of a luxury hotel during a massive blizzard…at the same time, a possible murder mystery that has overtones of a crime committed over a decade earlier adds an energy and urgency to an already chaotic scene.  I missed a bus stop because of this book–and ended up being grateful, as the return trip gave me time to finish it, and revel in the pitch-perfect, twisted ending!

Suckerpunch: *Guilty pleasure alert*…I love noir novels.  I am consistently blown away with the way that noir writers can capture a huge range of emotion in the shortest of sentences, and convey a world of meaning in a brief snippet of dialogue.  And Jeremy Brown is one talented writer.  This book, which is the opening of a trilogy, introduces Aaron “Woodshed” Wallace, a talented fighter and surprisingly good guy, who can’t seem to get out of his own way, and is still fighting in small-time bouts.  So when he’s offered the chance to fight a rising MMA superstar, he jumps at it.  But the night before the fight, he runs into an old acquaintance who gets him involved in an underground betting ring that might not just lose Wallace his fight, but the few people about whom he actually cares.  I enjoyed every moment of this outlandish, surprisingly funny, gritty, and superlatively well-written story, and was really thrilled to see Brown buck the noir convention and give us a hero who isn’t a misogynist, and a heroine who is admirably capable of taking care of herself.

14-18, Understanding the Great War: Many of you wonderful people know that your blog-writer-in-chief is in grad school, and studying the First World War, so it’s only natural that some of my school stuff appears on this list.  This book is one of the most accessible, sympathetic, and insightful book on the First World War that I’ve read in a while.  Though it mostly deals with the French history of the war, authors Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker refuse to compare the First World War to the Second, or to any other historic event.  Their emphasis is on how truly significant this war was for those who lived through it, how alien a world it was for those who had to live through it, and how the legacy of the war changed the course of world history.  It’s a beautifully written and incredibly informative book that scholars and armchair historians alike can appreciate.

The Burning of Bridget Cleary: One more non-fiction book for your delectation.  Linguistic historian Angela Bourke does a beautiful job bringing to life the story of Bridget Cleary, a fiery, defiant, and fascinating Irishwoman who was murdered by her husband in 1895.  What makes this story unique, however, was the fact that her husband, Michael, claimed that Bridget had been kidnapped by fairies, and he had actually killed the proxy that the fairies had left behind.  This case gives her the opportunity to explore the role of folklore, particularly in Irish culture, the history of the period, including British imperialism, the role of women, and the importance of historic archives.  And she does it all in an accessible, thoroughly engaging way.  I teach this book in my class, and it’s one of the few books my students actually enjoy reading, so I hope you do, too!

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell:  Arabella and Lady Pole both claim this book as their favorite read of 2015…which you may have been able to tell by our weekly proselytizing.  Set during the Napoleonic Wars, this book focuses on the two magicians who join forces to save England–but it is so much more.  It is a story about the things we do for those people, and those things, that we love, a tale about growing up, a sweet love story, and a brilliant epic full of magical action and intrigue.  It is entirely possible that this magical, imaginative, wholly delightful novel will also be among our favorite reads of 2016, because we can’t resist the need to read it again very soon.  Also, you should see the BBC adaptation, which is glorious.