Amazon Announces the Best Books of 2019, Naming Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments the #1 Book of the Year
November 12 2019 - 6:00AM
Business Wire
The Amazon Books editorial team selects the 100
best books of the year – from adventurous fiction and investigative
journalism to heartwarming memoirs and so much more
(NASDAQ:AMZN) Today, Amazon announced its selections for the
Best Books of 2019, naming Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments – the
sequel to her dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale – the Best
Book of 2019. The annual list features the Top 100 books of the
year plus Top 20 lists across various categories ranging from
literary fiction, mystery and thriller, biography, children’s and
young adult, making it the go-to list for holiday reading and gift
giving. All lists are hand-selected by Amazon’s team of editors –
first by choosing the best books of every month, and then, finally,
the best books of the year. To explore the full list of the Best
Books of 2019 and buy the print, Kindle or Audible editions, visit:
amazon.com/bestbooks2019
“The Books Editorial team reads thousands of new releases every
year, all with the goal of recommending the very best to our
customers,” said Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director, Amazon Books.
“This year there were so many great books from various genres. Our
top 100 Best Books list includes books with clever satire,
heartwarming memoirs and psychological thrillers. But as soon as we
read it, it was clear that Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments was the
book of the year. The sequel to the modern classic The Handmaid’s
Tale enraptured our editorial team and readers across the globe
with a dramatic continuation of goings-on in the dystopian Republic
of Gilead. It’s so exciting to witness literary history being made,
and Atwood has done just that with this deeply moving book.”
“I’m Canadian, where modesty is a requirement. So I’m mildly
embarrassed, though absolutely delighted, to hear that the Amazon
editorial team has chosen The Testaments as their book of the
year,” said Margaret Atwood, author of The Testaments. “While I'm
no prophet, we seem doomed to live in stressful times. A tale of
hope and courage narrated by three strong female voices appears to
have connected to this crucial 2019 moment.”
The Testaments joins Amazon Book Editors’ past Best Book of the
Year selections including Educated by Tara Westwood, Killers of the
Flower Moon by David Grann, Underground Railroad by Colson
Whitehead, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Everything I Never Told
You by Celeste Ng.
Here are the Amazon Editorial Team’s Top 10 picks of 2019:
- The Testaments by Margaret Atwood: Praise be! After
almost 35 years, Margaret Atwood released the sequel to her
pioneering work of speculative fiction, The Handmaid’s Tale, and it
is well worth the wait. While The Handmaid’s Tale explored how
totalitarian regimes come to power, The Testaments delves into how
they begin to fracture. At 80 years young, Atwood is at the top of
her game.
- The Nickel Boys: A Novel by Colson Whitehead: Having
earned a Pulitzer and a National Book Award with his last novel,
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead follows up with a story
about two young black men sent to the infamous Nickel Academy in
Florida. Set during the 1960s Jim Crow era, the story follows
Elwood and Turner who, despite different backgrounds and world
views, learn to lean on one another to survive.
- Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur: The subtitle seems to say
it all: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me. And yet there is so much more
to the story. Adrienne Brodeur was fourteen when her mother started
secretly dating Ben Souther. What developed after that was a
strange, uncomfortable, impossible-to-look-away-from triangle in
which young Adrienne became cover for the trysts between her mother
and Ben. This is an engaging and at times breathless memoir that
builds with anticipation and continues to unfold with observations
and revelations.
- Quichotte: A Novel by Salman Rushdie: An exquisite
satire on the world we live in, Rushdie’s latest novel pays
Cervantes a great, clever compliment with this deliciously funny
Don Quixote for modern times. An unusual romantic quest kicks off a
road trip across America in an age that would be utterly surreal if
we weren’t actually living it. An antidote to fear, bursting with
intelligence and wit—Quichotte is exactly what so many of us need
right now.
- The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: Almost ten years
after she wrote The Night Circus, Morgenstern offers readers a
shape-shifting, time-bending, otherworldly adventure of
storytelling, where pirates lurk and doors lead forward and
backward in time, where crowded ballrooms collapse into oceans, and
where a young man must piece together the clues to uncover and
protect his own life’s story. This magnificent tribute to tales of
the imagination is absolutely magical.
- Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac: Super
Pumped is a masterful and highly entertaining work of investigative
journalism into the evolution of Uber and its maverick founder
Travis Kalanick. Perfect for readers who were captivated by Bad
Blood, Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped provides an insider’s view of the
stunning highs and catastrophic lows of the company that changed
the way we use transportation.
- City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert: It’s the
1940s, and the frivolous and fun-loving Vivian Morris arrives in
New York with the goal of “becoming someone interesting”—and in
short order she is, but for all the wrong reasons. The latest novel
by the author of Eat, Pray, Love is bawdy, bighearted, and
wise.
- They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger,
Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker: George Takei’s vivid graphic
memoir reveals the story of his family’s incarceration during the
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, beginning
when Takei was only five years old. Even as the memories depicted
range from unsettling to infuriating, They Called Us Enemy inspires
readers to insist that our country treats fellow human beings with
fairness and dignity.
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides: In this
psychological thriller, a couple seems to have it all until the
wife is convicted of shooting her husband in the face. But she will
say nothing about the crime—or anything else, for that matter.
After a criminal psychologist obsessed with the case comes on the
scene, dark twists and delightful turns follow, secrets (and a
diary) are revealed, and you will likely find yourself racing to
the end of this year’s must-read thriller.
- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb: What
happens when a celebrated psychotherapist finds herself on the
other side of the couch? Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is an
entertaining, relatable, moving homage to therapy—and just being
human.
The top pick in the children’s category is the middle grade
novel:
- Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy: Bestselling author Julie
Murphy makes her middle-grade debut with a smart, funny novel that
tween readers will quickly embrace. Patricia “Sweet Pea” DiMarco is
a seventh grader dealing with a wide range of emotions and change,
including recently divorced parents and friendships in transition.
Dear Sweet Pea is a warmhearted read that is at once reassuring,
wise, and utterly relatable.
During 2019, the Amazon Books editorial team read thousands of
pages to help customers discover their next great read. Here are
some interesting facts about this year’s Best Books of the Year
list:
- Most highlighted quote from Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments,
our number one pick, is: “You don’t believe the sky is falling
until a chunk of it falls on you.”
- Customers’ Most Wished For titles in our top 100: The Silent
Patient by Alex Michaelides, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood,
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, Maybe You Should Talk to
Someone by Lori Gottlieb, and Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor
Jenkins Reid
- Top three best of the year selections that readers have used
both Audible and Kindle interchangeably throughout are: The Silent
Patient by Alex Michaelides, City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert,
and Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner.
- Alex Michaelides’s The Silent Patient, our ninth pick, is the
number one most popular book on Goodreads this year, added to
Goodreads shelves by more than 380K members; especially impressive
since it’s a debut novel!
- Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (#10 on our
list) is the number one most popular nonfiction book on Goodreads
this year, followed closely by Three Women (#19).
To see the complete list of Best Books of 2019, and to purchase
in print, for Kindle or Audible, visit amazon.com/bestbooks2019 or
visit an Amazon Books location near you, www.amazon.com/stores.
For more coverage of the books featured on the Best Books of the
Year list, as well as insightful reviews on new books, author
interviews, and roundups in popular categories, visit the Amazon
Book Review, www.amazonbookreview.com, and the Amazon Book Review
Podcast, www.amazonbookreview.com/tag/podcast.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather
than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to
operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews,
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Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and
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www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
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