Amazon has announced their annual Best Books of the Year So Far list, a mid-year retrospective that highlights the best books released in 2012 between January and June. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” “Gone Girl” and “The Fault in Our Stars” took the top three spots.
The Best Books of the Year So Far are hand-picked by the Amazon Books editors, who rank their favorite titles in an overall Top 20 list, plus 10 picks each in 13 popular categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Investing, Cookbooks, Food & Wine, Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Nonfiction, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comics & Graphic Novels, and Teens, as well as Middle Grade and Picture Books for Kids.
Amazon Books editors’ picks for the Top 10 Best Books are
- “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity”by Katherine Boo: A Pulitzer-winning author writes the true story of struggle and hope in a Mumbai slum.
- “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn: Plot twists and revelations make this a psychological thriller of the highest order.
- “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green: Two kids with cancer deal with the big subjects—life, love, and death—in this perfect blend of levity and heart-swelling emotion.
- “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” by Ben Fountain: Questions of privilege, power, and heroism swirl in this debut novel about recently returned Iraq War veterans invited to attend a Cowboys football game.
- “The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson” by Robert A.Caro: The fourth installment in Caro’s authoritative biographical series on Lyndon Baines Johnson – a masterpiece in nonfiction.
- “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson:A superb novel about freedom, sacrifice and violence, set within the dark borders of North Korea.
- “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt: A singular portrait of a girl and her family transformed during the late-80s AIDS epidemic.
- “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed: A memoir of a 1,100-mile journey that nearly broke the author to pieces, before she used those pieces to rebuild her life.
- “The Age of Miracles” by Karen Thompson Walker: Speculative fiction and a girl’s coming-of-age story meet in this gripping debut.
- “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power” by Steve Coll: An examination of the largest, most profitable company in history by a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
