At the halfway point of the year, Amazon Books’ editorial team in Seattle has finalized its “Best Books of the Year So Far” list, with curated picks focused less on sales and more on what the editors believe readers will carry beyond the last page.
On a rainy Seattle morning. six Amazon Books editors gathered with stacks of new pages and a simple question: what should people actually read right now?. Around the halfway mark each year. the team spends time reading. arguing. and shaping the “Best Books of the Year So Far” list—highlighting titles published from January to June.
This year, their top choices carried a shared conviction. “As a reader. there’s nothing greater than reading a book and feeling like a part of you is seen. ” editor Al Woodworth said. “To me. that’s why you want to talk about it and why you want to share it with the world. is because you want to talk about something that is deep to you. I think literature offers that inroad.”.
The list, Amazon says, doesn’t track sales. Instead. it is driven by editorial judgment—built by a larger group that includes former publishing representatives. booksellers. writers. journalists. and agents who read hundreds of books before the overall Top 20 list is finalized. The editors’ favorites also break into additional genre-specific lists covering nonfiction, romance, history, sci-fi, and more.
What stands out across the top books is a recurring obsession with visibility: being seen by friends, family, and media, and the ways people are perceived—especially online. It’s a theme the editors say shows up again and again, even when the stories couldn’t be more different.
Amazon’s Top 20 list begins with Tayari Jones’s “Kin. ” a novel about two motherless girls growing up in the 1950s South as “cradle friends.” Their bond continues even as they split—one at Spelman College among affluent peers. the other on a quest to find the mother who abandoned her. Woodworth described it as “unforgettable. heartbreaking and redemptive. ” adding that it “hits you immediately on a sentence level. ” then “grows and grows and then lives inside you.”.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s “London Falling” lands next. described as a true crime investigation into the unexpected death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler—who. unbeknownst to his family. was posing as the son of a Russian oligarch. Woodworth framed the book as both true crime and a story about London. its history. and how “foreign money” can reshape power and rules—raising the question of what happens when capitalism and money begin to dictate lives.
Caro Claire Burke’s “Yesteryear” follows. The premise: a tradwife influencer wakes up in 1855. far from her “perfectly Instagrammable homesteading life. ” and is forced to live in pre-modern ways she had advocated for online. Sarah Gelman. executive director at Amazon Books. said she loved that “Yesteryear” “blurred genres. ” calling it a book that “hits on everything that’s current in our culture” and stands apart from anything the team has read before.
Belle Burden’s “Strangers” is set in the aftermath of a sudden departure. In her memoir. Burden reflects on her husband leaving after she learned about his affair. leaving her to confront how someone she thought she knew intimately became a stranger who wants nothing to do with her. their kids. or the life they created together. Gelman said the book goes beyond a typical divorce memoir—calling it “a forensic examination of a love and a marriage gone wrong and without any warning.”.
Eli Raphael’s “Night Objects” switches to a thriller-leaning world after tragedy. A 15-year-old is sent to an elite boarding school in the Pacific Northwest where secret societies rule. and a murder investigation is about to upend everything she thought she knew. Gelman compared the feel to Liz Moore’s “God of the Woods” and Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History. ” saying it was “so moody and fresh and atmospheric. ” and that it is the kind of book that “sticks in your head.”.
Maggie O’Farrell’s “Land” turns to history and family. A man and his son work to complete a map of Ireland after the Great Hunger. but an unsettling encounter among the trees changes their lives and their family permanently. Woodworth said she was “enchanted” and “bewitched” by O’Farrell’s new work. describing herself as “completely transported out of Brooklyn” into a “cloudy. moody forest. ” and saying the sentences were “divine.”.
Jordan Ritter Conn’s “American Men” takes on the social expectations that shape masculinity. painting a portrait through four different men and the ways they either buck or uphold what it means to be a man in America. Woodworth said it is compelling because it explores “the space between society’s expectations and the reality. ” and she described the experience as being “with all of these different men navigating life” while “your eyes are being opened.”.
Rainbow Rowell’s “Cherry Baby” is rooted in a different kind of fracture. Cherry’s soon-to-be ex-husband is getting rich and famous making a movie based on his wildly successful and semi-autobiographical webcomic. while Cherry deals with the fallout of their unfulfilled future and his viral character that resembles her “a little too much.” Gelman called it “a book about forgiveness. ” and about “love and grief and the grief that we feel when we lose people in different ways. ” adding that the messiness of the characters makes the story feel oddly true even though it’s not.
Luke Dumas’s “Nothing Tastes as Good” moves into darker territory. Emmett Truesdale enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight-loss product. finds the results miraculous but horrifying. and the editors say the book works as both body horror and social mirror. Gelman said it is “visceral” but fun. “darkly funny” and “sort of ridiculous. ” while reflecting “the way that society treats people that are overweight.”.
Gabriel Tallent’s “Crux” closes out the Top 10 with a story about intensity and class pressure. Two teens forge a bond through their love of rock climbing. but differences in obligations. class. family. and talent threaten to tear them apart. Woodworth called it a “fiery. feisty book” and said it reminded her of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. ” describing it as about “finding something that you love. finding somebody that loves the same thing. ” and also the “blistering heartache” of what happens when you “maybe can’t do what you want to do.”.
Beyond the Top 10. Amazon’s overall “Best Books of the Year So Far” list continues with “Transcription” by Ben Lerner. “Famesick” by Lena Dunham. “A Far-flung Life” by M.L. Stedman. “Five” by Ilona Bannister. “Into the Blue” by Emma Brodie. “John of John” by Douglas Stuart. “Mad Mabel” by Sally Hepworth. “The Calamity Club” by Kathryn Stockett. “Homebound” by Portia Elan. and “Lady Tremaine” by Rachel Hochhauser.
The throughline—editors say it shows up in everything from family to media—may be why the list feels less like a reading recommendation and more like a challenge: choose something that insists you will be recognized while you read it. In a year that has already generated plenty of attention. Amazon’s editorial team is betting that the books worth keeping are the ones that make that feeling linger.
Amazon Books Best Books of the Year So Far Amazon editorial picks Tayari Jones Kin Patrick Radden Keefe London Falling Caro Claire Burke Yesteryear Belle Burden Strangers book recommendations