THIS WAS A GREAT YEAR FOR WOMEN WRITERS. Paula Hawkins’ thriller novel, The Girl on the Train, topped Amazon, Goodreads, and even the Boston Public Library’s lists of the best and most popular books of 2015. But it’s just one of many fabulous books penned and published by women writers this year.

Likewise, the books listed here represent only a smattering of the great, new(ish) titles sitting on store shelves. These books are as diverse as the women who wrote them, and all are worth the time it takes to read them, and trust me: they aren’t the only 2015 titles by women worth reading. I’m sorry, I couldn’t include them all.

So go to your local independent bookstore and ask for the ones that interest you most. Or go to your local library. Hell, if you order them from Amazon, I won’t tell if you don’t. Just read them, OK? These are (some of) the best books by women in 2015.

best books by women in 2015

A photograph from a war-torn country sparks an international affair in this tightly-wound novel.

  • The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch
  • Negroland by Margo Jefferson
  • The Story of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden
  • Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
  • Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Rosemary by Kate Clifford Lawson
  • The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  • The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
  • Born Survivors by Wendy Holden
  • An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
  • The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
  • Rising Strong by Brené Brown
  • Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Berman
  • Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon
  • Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith
  • A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
  • Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
  • You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
  • Spinster by Kate Bolick
  • Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
  • Girl at War by Sara Nović
  • Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
  • Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
  • Step Aside, Pops by Kate Beaton
  • A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
  • The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
  • Barbara the Slut and Other Stories by Lauren Holmes
  • The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato
  • Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

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