2019 Reading Challenge: Nominated for an award in 2015

Do you remember 2015? I know it seems like a long time ago so let me refresh your memory:

• Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
•  An Amtrak trail derailed in Philadelphia, killing 8 and injuring over 200 passengers.
•  Two prisoners escaped from a jail in New York.
•  Satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's Paris headquarters was attacked by a terrorist group.
• The Patriots were accused of under-inflating footballs in a scandal dubbed "deflategate."

But not everything was bad!

• Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk" became the big hit of the year.
• Pope Francis made his first visit to America.
• The internet became divided over whether a picture of a dress was blue and black or gold and white.
• Same-sex marriage became legal in the US.
• William and Kate introduced Princess Charlotte to the world.

And all of these award-nominated books were released meaning our "to-be-read" piles suddenly became much longer...

Fiction

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.

 

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

A novel framed as a fictional oral history that explores the events and characters surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley during the political turmoil on Jamaica in the late 1970s.

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson

A collection of stories that delve deeply into love, loss, the decisions we make for ourselves, and the decisions we make for others.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Marrying in a whirlwind amid predictions of future greatness, Lotto and Mathilde are shaped throughout a subsequent shared decade by complications, secrets, and powerful creative drives.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Lord Blackheart, a villain with a vendetta, and his sidekick, Nimona, an impulsive young shapeshifter, must prove to the kingdom that Sir Goldenloin and the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

As ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts--and shapes--their family's future.

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

Surviving a disaster that kills everyone else in her family, June relocates West and settles into a directionless existence while other people impacted by the tragedy struggle with new circumstances.





   

Nonfiction

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

Drawing on the work of geologists, botanists, marine biologists and other researchers, an award-winning writer for The New Yorker discusses the five devastating mass extinctions on earth and predicts the coming of a sixth.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings--moments when he discovered some new truth about our long, tangled history of race.

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

Montgomery explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus--a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature--and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.

Want to participate in Dover Public Library's 2019 Reading Challenge? Download the form here!