Surprise!
Due to an unforeseen hitch in my busy Holiday schedule, I am able to bring you the long awaited Dead End Follies Top 10 Best Reads of 2015. I've said it before, but here it is again: this was probably the best reading year of my life, so understand that these books are absolute top shelf badass material. Just to be clear, these are not all books published in 2015, but books I've read this year. Click here if you want to go through the entire list of my 2015 reads. It was the best time, it was the busiest time, some came through as complete surprises, so if you're looking for knockout reading suggestions look no further...
DEAD END FOLLIES TOP 10 BEST READS OF 2015
High-Rise, by J.G Ballard
A work of unparalleled ambition and prescient insight. Ballard was always the most interesting guy in the room because he dreamed of how we destroyed ourselves instead of celebrating a unity and resilience we never had.
By far the best short story collection I've read in a year filled with great short stories. Jordan Harper is a major new talent in the game and his stories are a breath of fresh air for a genre that wallows in self-indulgent violence too often.
A breakout novel from an author that once was pigeonholed as a psychological thriller writer. Wonderland is a Hammett-ian mystery with shades of horror that makes theme parks terrifying again by breaking every myth about them.
A bold and creative novel that explores the boundaries of crime fiction in more than one way. Zero Saints is allowed is stray from the form because its approach to violence is more visceral and realistic than most novels written for the genre. A daring challenge to other crime writers and potentially a game changing novel.
LeDuff can make reality stranger than fiction with his words. He paints his hometown with melancholy and anger, yet gives Detroit a soul and a face for people who never set foot there. A powerful reminder that journalism is vital to our society and that there's a thing line between tragedy and fiction.
A strunning and thoroughly modern family saga. Perhaps the most enthralling trait of Bull Mountain is its groundbreaking intergenerational narrative that layers the complexity of the relationship between the Burroughs boys in a way that I've never really seen before. The book is on several year-end lists and deservingly so.
The intimacy and the anectodal humor of Pierce's fishing stories transcend the nature of the sport and expose the bonding power of a fishing trip to the unwitting reader. Cameron Pierce's stories pried more than one smile off my focused reading face and might've broke my heart once or twice along the way.
By far the most endearingly brutal cop story I remember reading south of James Ellroy. I don't think there's anything I like reading about more than crooked policemen and Iain Ryan has the necessary chops not only to do it well, but to do it better than most. This one's definitely not fancy, but it's just so goddamn satisfying.
The best surprise of my reading year. Scandal writes with such a disarming honesty and simplicity, she tears down the barriers of genre and ethnicity for her readers and highlights the universal nature of a young woman's struggle. Heartbreaking and sometimes difficult to withstand, Jigsaw Youth is a strong statement from a powerful new voice.
I don't know what to say about this novel that hasn't been said already, except that I don't feel like reading anything else on Mexican drug cartels because this story might just as well be the be all, end all on the subject. This book has an Alexandre Dumas-like epic nature that will tear down any doubts you might've had about Don Winslow's standout writing talent.