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Amazon’s brand new list of the most interesting books released in 2017 has just been announced.
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It’s one of my favorite book lists that are released at the end of the year. The titles are selected by the editorial team at Amazon. Fascinating – although sometimes not easy – reading time is guaranteed.
What is the best book of 2017 according to Amazon’s editors who read hundreds of thousands of pages throughout the year to spot the most interesting new books?
Released in April, Killers of the Flower Moon is a disturbing new non-fiction from New Yorker staff writer David Grann, the author of the bestselling The Lost City of Z. The book investigates a case of oil-rich members of the Osage Nation murdered one by one in 1920s.
Sarah Harrison Smith, Editorial Director of Books and Kindle at Amazon, explains the decision:
It’s meticulously researched and shines an important light on what is at once an unsurprising and yet unbelievable chapter in American history.
The second place is taken by a novel by Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere. Set in a picture-perfect suburb of Cleveland, the book addresses timely issues of motherhood, privilege, and race.
From Fredrik Backman, the author of A Man Called Ove, comes the third best book of 2017. The novel explores the hopes that bring a small community together, and “the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain.”
How are the books selected for Amazon Best Books of the Year lists?
Amazon editors read and review hundreds of books a year. The editorial team meets at least once a month to pick up Best Books of the Month.
The best books of the year are selected in a series of meetings that take place in October. The books featured in monthly lists are considered, as well as most interesting new releases.
The announced list can be explored in multiple ways. First of all, you can pick up your preferred book format:
You can also narrow down your search to specific categories. As usual, sixteen categories are listed, each one includes 20 titles. Here are the shortcuts to the most popular genres:
- Best literature and fiction of 2017 – Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, My Absolute Darling – a novel by Gabriel Tallent,
- Best mysteries and thhrillers of 2017 – Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles, Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito, Philip Kerr’s Prussian Blue,
- Best romance books of 2017 – Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren, RaeAnne Thayne’s Serenity Harbor, or Fool Me Once from Catherine Bybee’s First Wives romance series,
- Best biographies and memoirs of 2017 – Sherman Alexie’s memoir You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci,
- Best young adult books of 2017 – John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, The Hate U Give from Angie Thomas.
The top 10 Amazon best books of 2017 are featured below. If you want to find more book recommendations, make sure to explore the entire 2017 list of Amazon best books of the year.
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Amazon Best Books of 2017 – Top 10
1. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
David Grann
From the author of The Lost City of Z comes a true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.
In the 1920s, the wealthiest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
2. Little Fires Everywhere
Celeste Ng
From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family.
In Shaker Heights, a progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads to the colors of the houses. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.
3. Beartown: A Novel
Fredrik Backman
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.
Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain.
In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
4. Exit West: A Novel
Mohsin Hamid
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a secret love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city.
As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through.
Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are.
5. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Yuval Noah Harari
An original, compelling, and provocative book, drawing our attention toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century, humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. What is at the top of the human agenda now?
As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams, and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life.
6. Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
George Saunders
A moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation.
Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us.
7. The Heart’s Invisible Furies: A Novel
John Boyne
From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping saga about the course of one man’s life, beginning and ending in post-war Ireland.
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by an eccentric Dublin couple, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
In this Boyne’s most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man.
8. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir
Sherman Alexie
Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie’s bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most.
She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth.
An unflinching and unforgettable remembrance, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me is a powerful, deeply felt account of a complicated relationship.
9. Sourdough: A Novel
Robin Sloan
In his much-anticipated new novel, Robin Sloan does for the world of food what he did for the world of books in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
Lois Clary is a software engineer. She codes all day and collapses at night. Her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues.
But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her.
10. The Dry: A Novel
Jane Harper
A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.
After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke.
Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.
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