*Just in time for holiday shopping, Amazon book editors announce the 100 best books of the year, as well as the top 100 customer favorites*
SEATTLE, Nov 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. today announced its picks for Best Books of 2010. This annual feature includes the Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year, the Top 100 Customer Favorites and Top 10 lists in nearly two dozen categories, from Literature & Fiction to Children’s Picture Books. To see all of our Best Books of 2010, or to download one of the picks to your Kindle, go to www.amazon.com/bestbooks2010.
“Whether it was Jonathan Franzen’s reunion with Oprah or the eagerly anticipated final books in blockbuster trilogies, 2010 had everyone talking about reading,” said Daphne Durham, Managing Editor of Books at Amazon.com. “Deciding on our Top 100 Books is always a tough assignment, but our choice for the Best Book of the Year, Rebecca Skloot’s ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,’ was unanimous.”
The Best Books of 2010 Store is live on Amazon.com. Our Best Book of the Year, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, was our spotlight pick for February’s Best Book of the Month, it appeared on the Best Books of 2010…So Far list and also finished in our Top 10 Customer Favorites for our bestselling new releases of the year.
Here’s a look at our Top 10 editors’ picks for the year:
| 1. | “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot: From a single, short life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. From that same life, Skloot fashions a rich and haunting story that redefines what it means to have a medical history. | |||||
| 2. | “Faithful Place: A Novel” by Tana French: The past haunts in French novels. In this compelling and cutting mystery, Frank Mackey (the beloved undercover guru from “The Likeness”) returns home to investigate the cold case of his teenage sweetheart, and faces down his family. | |||||
| 3. | “Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War” by Karl Marlantes: A breathtaking debut (30 years in the making) by a decorated Vietnam veteran that takes readers deep into the jungle, and offers a new perspective on the ravages of war, the bureaucracy of the military, and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood. | |||||
| 4. | “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” by Laura Hillenbrand: As she did with “Seabiscuit,” Hillenbrand has unearthed another unlikely and inspiring tale from our past. Louis Zamperini was an Olympic athlete as a teenager, an airman in World War II, an ocean crash survivor, and a prisoner of war before returning home for another half-century of life. | |||||
| 5. | “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson: Through the eyes of three families, Wilkerson gives vivid life to one of the great untold epics of American history: the migration between the two world wars of millions of African Americans from the South to the North and West. | |||||
| 6. | “Freedom: A Novel” by Jonathan Franzen: Franzen’s first novel since “The Corrections,” and a match for that great book, is a wrenching, funny and forgiving portrait of a Midwestern family. “Freedom” is deserving of all the unprecedented attention it received this summer. | |||||
| 7. | “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” by Stieg Larsson: The finest example of a book that saves the best for last, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” roars with an explosive storyline filled with revelations that make the end of this game-changing suspense series all the more bittersweet. | |||||
| 8. | “To the End of the Land” by David Grossman: In a fictional story whose events hauntingly parallel the author’s own life, an Israeli mother–one of the most indelible characters in recent fiction–goes on a journey through her past to avoid the news that her soldier son may have been killed. | |||||
| 9. | “Just Kids” by Patti Smith: Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe weren’t always famous, but they always thought they would be. Smith’s memoir of their friendship is tender and artful, with the visionary style of her rock anthems balanced by her detailed memories of their bohemian youth. | |||||
| 10. | “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” by Michael Lewis: Of the many books about our economic meltdown, “The Big Short” is the one to read, told, in Lewis’ usual hilarious and clear style, from the perspective of a few iconoclastic thinkers who saw the collapse coming–and bet big on it. |
*Source: Amazon.com