2015 was a big year for MashableReads. Besides countless interviews, exclusives, social challenges and Twitter chats, we've had some amazing authors visit to talk about their writing with the MashReads community, like Chuck Palahniuk and Rainbow Rowell.
But the core of MashableReads is our social book club -- and this year, we picked six fantastic and vastly different books. Each one has gone on to be a bestseller and/or an award winner.
In case you missed a few, or if you're looking for books to read, recommend, or gift, here are our 2015 MashableReads picks:
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Our first pick of the year, this realistic science fiction novel about the resiliency of life in a post-apocalyptic future is riveting and poignant. "We have this incredible place with electricity, water that comes out of faucets...all of these incredible things that we take for granted, almost to the extent that we don't see them anymore," Mandel explained. "One of the ways to write about something is to write about its absence."
"I like the idea that our modern world seems more like sci-fi." @EmilyMandel on technology and its absence. #MashReads #StationEleven— MashableReads (@mashreads) January 8, 2015
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
This bestselling mystery thriller, which is being adapted into a movie starring Emily Blunt, showed us "when you peel back the everyday, you can find something really sinister under its veneer."
"I'm not bothered by people whether they are likeable, but whether they are credible and compelling," says @PaulaHWrites #MashReads— Lisa Gruber (@LisaG429) February 3, 2015
The only nonfiction pick of the year, Pilon's journalist background helped her to craft this compelling piece about the origin and history of the board game Monopoly, a sordid past that ties into so much of our nation's history.
Lizzie Magie, the low-key Beyonce of early 20th century boardgames. #TheMonopolists #MashReads @heyitsfranklin2 @marypilon— AlizaTweets (@AlizaTweets) April 7, 2015
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
One of the most buzzed-about books of the year, A Little Life chronicles the lives of four friends in New York City as they navigate relationships and adulthood. As Yanagihara said of her provocative novel, "This book is meant to be a fantasy. It’s a fantasy of friendship; it’s a negative fantasy of childhood."
Incredible illustration by @kategavino from last week's #MashReads discussion of #ALittleLife http://t.co/SkNnszAQh0 pic.twitter.com/yqFkAr28cW— MashableReads (@mashreads) June 22, 2015
Cline's second book, following the cult hit Ready Player One, is a video game nerd's dream. With the premise that all science fiction of the last 4 decades has been to prepare the world for an impending alien invasion, Armada is the ultimate escapist fantasy.
"Armada is my homage to growing up as a child of Star Wars" - @erniecline #MashReads— MashableReads (@mashreads) July 23, 2015
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Our last pick of the year was a lesson in duality -- within a single person, a relationship and a novel's perspective. Groff's marriage tale told in two parts showed us that you can never really know another person, even your spouse.
“I see in the women that I know this barely contained rage." @legroff on the inspiration for Mathilde in #FatesandFuries #MashReads— MashableReads (@mashreads) November 11, 2015
"There is no such thing as one single story for anything.” @legroff #FatesandFuries #MashReads”— MJ Franklin (@heyitsfranklin2) November 11, 2015