Amazon Unveils Best Books of 2014 List, Naming Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You the Best Book of the Year

(NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon.com today announced its selections for the Best Books of 2014. The annual feature includes the editors’ picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year as well as Top 20 lists in over two dozen categories, from Children’s & Teen to Cookbooks to Celebrity Picks. To see all of the Best Books of 2014, and buy the print or Kindle editions, visit www.amazon.com/bestbooks2014.

“The top pick, Everything I Never Told You, is kind of a ‘sleeper’ in that it got less attention initially than other novels, but Ng’s debut is a sad and moving story that we all fell in love with from the first line,” said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Books and Kindle at Amazon.com. “Deeply felt and searingly emotional, Everything I Never Told You is the kind of novel that people say doesn’t get published any more. We’re so happy it did.”

The top picks in the Children’s categories are The Pigeon Needs a Bath! (Picture Books), The Fourteenth Goldfish (Middle Grade – ages 9-12) and We Were Liars (Teen and Young Adult). Topping the list in Lifestyle categories are The Slanted Door: Modern Vietnamese Food (Cookbooks) and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Home Improvement & Design).

Celebrity top picks include David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, chosen by Mark Bittman, Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, selected by Brooke Shields, and We Were Liars, which is one of Martin Short’s favorites.

“This is a brilliant new novel by E. Lockhart,” said Martin Short, author of the new book I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend. “I’ve always adored a good generational drama and this is deeply fascinating reading and soaked in suspense. And the ending is utterly spooky.”

Here’s a look at the Top 10 editors’ picks for the year:

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: Quiet and beautiful, this novel about an unknowable teenage girl in a mixed-race family in the 1970s Midwest will make you cry.
2. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: A beautiful, atmospheric story about two young people, one French, one German, growing up on the eve of World War II.
3. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides: The ultimate adventure story, but with a touch of romance and intrigue. A historical The Perfect Storm.
4. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs: At once extremely personal and culturally wise, this reported memoir will change the way you think about race, class and the meaning of friendship.
5. Redeployment by Phil Klay: Strong, brilliant stories about survival of something almost as dangerous as war itself—its aftermath.
6. Revival by Stephen King: The best kind of King book: a little horror, but mostly pitch-perfect details about youth and faith and family.
7. Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman: The Rockefeller clan might not have wanted to believe it, but author Hoffman is convincing about what led to the scion’s death. It’s not pretty…but it IS fascinating.
8. The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez: Told in the many voices of the Latin American tenants of one apartment complex in Delaware, this novel illuminates several different kinds of immigrant experience.
9. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty: Moriarty dazzles with another novel about “ordinary” Australian families and the secrets they keep.
10. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Set in the not-so-distant future, this apocalyptic novel is surprisingly hopeful in its depiction of a culture that both mocks and mourns its disappeared past.

Some fun facts about this year’s list:

• Books read by the editorial team in determining the Top 10: 480
• Pages read collectively for the Top 10: approximately 250,000
• Debut authors in the Top 100: 17
• Debut authors in the Top 10: 2
• Authors in this year’s Top 100 who have been on previous Amazon Best Books of the Year lists: 31

About Amazon

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