We begin our 2015 Stevereads year-end festivities with a glance back at a healthy barometer of the book-world around us. That book-world is only as strong as its memory, so a very good gauge of the health of the Republic of Letters at any given time is the state of its reprints, the extent to which it remembers the infinite glories on which it’s built. And the reprints in 2015 were in fine shape, showing a nice breadth and some genuinely quirky choices. Here were the best of the bunch:

10 Avengers Omnibus by Kurt Busiek & George Perez (Marvel) – As much as I loved this run on Marvel’s Avengers when it first started in the late 1990s, I had no idea that a) it would last for so many great issues or b) that it would be the last grand, traditional iteration of Marvel’s mightiest team ever to appear. That admittedly adds a strong element of nostalgia to reading this enormous omnibus edition of the run, but it would make for great re-reading in any case.

9 Wonder Woman Omnibus by George Perez (DC Comics) – Ditto this 1987-88 run on DC’s flagship superheroine by fan favorite artist George Perez: I loved it the first time through, loved the texture of it, the visual care to give us a Wonder Woman thoroughly returned to her roots in classical mythology, loved the almost stodgy pacing Perez’s various writers used, the better to showcase the beautiful, meticulous artwork. This was a thoughtful and thoroughly impressive re-interpretation of the character – she’d have one more first-rate update after this, and then she’d become a brainless, sword-wielding Amazonian version of Conan the Barbarian, apparently forever.

8 The Histories by Herodotus, Tom Holland trans. (Penguin Classics) – Reprinted now in a lovely Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition is Tom Holland’s translation of the Histories of Herodotus, a translation that’s grown on me since I first read it and grown on me since I second read it.

7 The Centurions by Jean Laxteguy (Penguin Classics) I was very pleased to see this searing 1960 novel about the ordeals of a military company in French Indochina get reprinted and added to the Penguin Classics line; the book deserves its shot at becoming the modern-day war-fiction classic it should be. You can read my full review here.

6 Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) – I’ve had occasion to praise the Barnes & Noble leatherbound editions in the past, and this is another superlative example, a big hefty gorgeous edition of Thomas Mallory’s 1485 compendium of tales about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. This volume has rock-solid binding, gorgeous pages, and the full complement of Arthur Rackham illustrations – a home run in this series.

5 Complete Arrow Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey (DAW) – Such a joy to see Mercedes Lackey’s debut sequence of 1980s set in the fantasy realm of Valdemar now being offered to a new body of readers in this bright-colored anthology! Fantasy series have taken a decidedly grim and gritty turn since these books first came out, so their comparatively gentle story-cycle, centering on the character of Talia and her supernatural companion Rolan, is even more refreshing now than it was thirty years ago.

4 The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (Penguin Classics) – It might have been a sound decision financially, but it required a bit of nerve creatively for Penguin to create a Deluxe Classic version of this 1916 perennial from crusty old Robert Frost – after all, some of these poems have become well-worn cultural icons, and the volume hasn’t exactly lacked for editions. But the decision is here winningly justified: this beautiful little volume encouraged me to encounter these poems afresh, and the experience has been very rewarding. You can read my full review here

3 The Best of Nancy Kress (Subterranean) – As with Mercedes Lackey, even more so with the great Nancy Kress: how cheering to see an attractive reprint volume dedicated to one of the great masters of science fiction! As far as I’m concerned, Nancy Kress never wrote a bad or even second-rate story, so it was a pure delight to revisit all the gems reprinted here, from “My Mother, Dancing,” “Beggars in Spain,” to “Unto the Daughters” and more. Bravo to the folks at Subterranean Press for creating this volume!

2 And Yet … by Christopher Hitchens (Simon & Schuster) – Not exactly cheering, this volume reprinting some of the previously-uncollected or under-collected piecemeal work of the late Christopher Hitchens, because it still feels tragic and odd and a bit raw that he’s not still here, producing new piecemeal work or following up his mega-selling god is Not Great with some other substantial book (my guess is that it would have dealt with the Islamic fundamentalism that’s currently threatening the lives of every single human on Earth, but this author could very well have surprised me with something else). But even so, it was great to read (and in some instances re-read) these writings and, just for an afternoon, hear that unmistakable voice again.

1 Little Black Classics – The best and most mouth-watering of all the year’s reprints was this set Penguin Classics did in commemoration of their 80^th birthday. The set consists of eighty slim volumes, eighty little slices of great literature, from a single play to a small collection of poems to a scene here and there from epics. It’s like a Penguin-guided crash course in great literature, all in a pretty set suitable for gifting to every bookworm on your list!