The 2015 Crystal Ball
Looking ahead to the new year, we want to know what the Washington Post‘s insightful critic, Ron Charles is anticipating.
He obliges us with a list of his top ten most anticipated novels, acknowledging that the book that eventually become his favorite of the year may not be on this list (for 2014, it was one he didn’t see coming, the debut, Fourth of July Creek, by Smith Henderson. These anticipatory lists, of necessity, focus on authors with already established reputations).
He’s has us salivating for Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire, (Macmillan/FSG, 8/4/15), the final book in the Ibis trilogy about the opium trade in 19th-century India. He gives the series high praise, “The earlier books, Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of Smoke (2011), are among the most thrilling historical novels I’ve ever read.”
He also mentions two books coming in the fall but not yet listed on catalogs, Jonathan Franzen’s Purity, and John Irving’s Avenue of Mysteries.
The Millions has also just released a list of the titles that are ringing their bells for the new year. We have combined the two newest lists with Entertainment Weekly’s “20 Books We’ll Read in 2015” and The Barnes & Noble Review‘s selections of “the most enticing new books slated to arrive in the first half of 2015″ into an Edelweiss collection, a list of over 100 titles you can check for eGalleys, so you can be the first in your library to spot a winner.