Amazon’s Best Books of 2023: A Sneak Peek with Sarah Gelman
We can’t believe it’s already time for this year’s “best-of” lists, but ready or not, they’re starting to roll out! Zibby sat down with Sarah Gelman, the Editorial Director of Amazon Books, for a special episode of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. In the interview, Gelman walks through this year’s top 10 books, according to Amazon’s editorial team, and gives us some insight into why each book was chosen. See the full list below, and listen to the special episode here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
“We are big James McBride fans on the team… My colleague Al Woodworth read it, and she has really impeccable taste… She loved this book so much. Slowly, the rest of us on the team came to it. By the time we convened in person to discuss the top ten, this was on it, hands down, no discussion. We all wanted this to be number one.”
The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters
“My book club could not put this one down. It is such a beautifully written book. I think if you're someone that likes Celeste Ng, who likes Ann Patchett, this is a great book.”
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
“This is a story about Stéphane Breitwieser… He is the most prolific art thief that we've even seen. He is Alsatian. He and his girlfriend went around Europe and just stole art. They walked into a room, took something off the wall, stuck it down their pants, and walked out. It is about his obsession with the world of art as objects of beauty. Unlike most art thieves who steal art and then sell it, he keeps it all. He hordes art.
It reads like fiction. You cannot believe this is true. It's sort of like Thomas Crown Affair meets Becoming Anna.”
Fourth Wing (The Empyrean Book 1) by Rebecca Yarros
“What can I say about this book? To me, it's like Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones with steamy sex. I am not a fantasy person and... I was just blown away by this book… If I'm going to generalize here, I would say I will give this to all the mom friends in my life in the way that I slipped them Fifty Shades of Grey.”
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
“This is a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. And this one, I'm going to say, is really special… The thing that's really different about it, besides that it draws on unreleased facts and recordings from the FBI—it looks at the unpublished manuscript of his father. It paints him as a heroic figure and a human being that had flaws. He cheated on his wife. He suffered from depression. This book really brings him into a real rounded human being. You see why he was the way that he was... I think this is the way we should teach history to kids. It's such a compelling book.”
Wellness: A Novel by Nathan Hill
“You need to read this. The thing about this book that I've been saying to people that is so remarkable to me is I spent the first half of this book literally laughing out loud and the second half crying. It's so funny and sad because it's true…It's about a couple that meet when they're nineteen. They're in Chicago. They're cool, hip kids. In the present day, they're suburban parents… It's about how their love and marriage has changed over time and also about how society has changed too. It's such a clever book. It's not just for people who are parents, but I do think that parents will see a lot of themselves in this book.”
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
“I feel like there were no words wasted in this book. It is this epic story told over three generations of people. This family suffers from an affliction. It is a medical mystery.. It has a strong female at the center of it. You just read this book, and you feel like you could fall into this world. You never want it to end. It's a feat of literature. Just a beautiful book.”
Listen to Zibby’s interview with Abraham here.
Holly by Stephen King
“I love that Stephen King does this thing where he can write in different genres. When I recommend this book, people say, ‘oh, I don't do Stephen King.’ But this book is so fun. It is a mystery. It has a PI at the center of it named Holly Gibney, who has appeared in his other books. I can say from experience, no, you don't have to have read the other books to read this and enjoy it.”
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
“I think we can agree that Elon Musk can be a divisive figure, but this book really paints him in a very human way. It's very balanced. It's surprising. You feel a lot of things, and empathy is one of them, which my team felt. Walter Isaacson, of course, is the current master of biography. He does such an amazing job with subjects. This book is so relevant for our time.”
Small Mercies: A Novel by Dennis Lehane
“This is a mystery set in South Boston during the 1970s. It is about a tough mom out looking for her daughter. It's very good. This is actually a book that was on our Best of the Year So Far list. Vannessa Cronin, who's our mystery and thriller expert on the team, said it's her favorite mystery of the entire year. She absolutely loved this book so much that we have it on both lists.”