2015 National Book Award Fiction Longlist

In search of great fiction? Try some of these books on the 2015 National Book Award Longlist for Fiction. All summaries taken from our catalog.

Refund: Stories by Karen E. Bender

In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the lives of her characters...Set in contemporary America, these stories herald a work of singular literary merit by an important writer at the height of her power.

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

On the eve of her daughter's wedding, June Reid's life is completely devastated when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter's fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke--her entire family, all gone in a moment.

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family...It's a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art and perception...Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and heart.

Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson

In six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal.






The other titles on the Longlist are A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball, Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson, Honeydew by Edith Pearlman, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, and Mislaid by Nell Zink.

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2015 National Book Award Nonfiction Longlist

Looking for excellent nonfiction to read? Try some of these books on the 2015 National Book Award Longlist for Nonfiction.

Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett

The ability to write about something common in a fascinating way is a skill and Cynthia Barnett uses her skill in this book that combines well-researched science with the everyday effect rain has and has had on humans.  If you enjoyed other microhistories like Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, or Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History, take a look at Barnett's book.



Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes for The Atlantic and Between the World and Me is his second book. Written as a letter to his son, he writes about what it is to be black in America today. James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time inspired this fiercely personal yet universal work.







Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

In this intimate memoir, Sally Mann takes old and new photographs and combines them with her memories of loved ones to create an amazing book that speaks of family, history, and her Southern heritage.







The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery's friendship with an octopus was the catalyst for this book. Montgomery studied octopi in aquariums and the sea and came to see that they, not unlike humans, have personalities and can be playful and intelligent. If this book interests you, you should also check out her book The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, the story of a pig that won over her heart and the heart of the small town in which she lived.


The other titles on the Longlist are Mourning Lincoln by Martha Hodes; Paradise of the Pacific by Susanna Moore; Love and Other Ways of Dying: Essays by Michael Paterniti; If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran by Carla Power; Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith; and Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir by Michael White.

Books and Movies: Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill

Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill is the story of John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger. The pair knew each other when they were children and grew up to take different paths (Connolly becoming an FBI agent and Bulger becoming a career criminal) until they met again when Bulger became an FBI informant. While working together to dismantle the Italian mafia in Boston, their plans lead to multiple murders, drug dealing, and racketeering and they both, eventually, (Bulger was able to evade capture for 16 years) end up in prison.

The intriguing, crime-filled lives of Whitey Bulger and John Connolly are perfect for a movie so of course, one was made. Black Mass opens in theaters tomorrow, September 18, and has a great cast, including Johnny Depp as Bulger, Joel Edgerton as Connolly and, Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger's brother Bill. Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, and Adam Scott also star.

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Staff Review: H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald is one intense book: grief-intensive, nature-intensive, language-intensive, and raptor-intensive, just for starters. Its genesis was the unexpected death of the author's father, a vibrant newspaper photographer with whom MacDonald shared a close and sympathetic relationship all her life. Indeed he sounds like an exceptional dad. MacDonald learned to love nature right by his side and accompanied him on expeditions, such as his personal project to photograph every bridge over the River Thames. Receiving news one day of his sudden death by heart attack, MacDonald is devastated. She doesn't recover for months.

For at that point in her life, she feels she has nothing: no partner, no kids, no permanent job, no house.  She's winding up a fellowship and will soon be jobless and homeless (in the less urgent sense of the latter term). MacDonald is no ordinary woman though: she is a writer, poet, naturalist, historian, research scholar, and falconer, falconry having been a mad passion since childhood.

In an attempt to deal with her overwhelming grief, MacDonald acquires a hawk -- and not just any hawk, but a goshawk, notoriously the most difficult and murderous of raptors -- and raises Mabel the Hawk to be her wild companion. Her narrative of their time together is interspersed with memories of her father and with a biographical sketch of the writer T. H. White, a tortured man, avid falconer, and author of The Once and Future King, a series of books about King Arthur. H Is for Hawk moves back and forth between MacDonald's life and White's, the two linked by their love of hawks and their hope for healing through their birds. The extensive White passages may wear on some readers.

The story of MacDonald's training of Mabel is compelling; the author becomes almost feral herself in her attempt to drown her grief in the hawk's wildness. MacDonald's writing is dazzling: unbelievable, really, the freshest, most original I've encountered in ages. Reading the book you feel the author has never met a cliché, never witnessed anything through any eyes but her own.

H Is for Hawk won the Costa Book Award for 2014 (formerly known as the Whitbread Prize, with a £30,000 purse) and the Samuel Johnson Prize (worth  £20,000) for nonfiction. The awards are well-deserved but the author's intensity began to wear on me just a bit by the end, as did the murderous intent of Mabel, whose blood-lust the author often seemed to share.

For MacDonald's a rare poet-scholar, one who doesn't have a problem snaking her hands down the rabbit hole Mabel's legs have penetrated, grabbing the frantic rabbit ensnared by sharp talons, and snapping its neck. It's a merciful act, but I found myself appalled that MacDonald could do it. Her intensity has created a rare book though, even if by its final pages I was ready to head my own less-intense way.

~Ann, Adult Services