Sarah Gelman, The Amazon Editors' Best Books of the Year So Far

[2:02]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, the creator and host of the award winning podcast that you're listening to right now, thank you so much, called Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. It is a daily podcast 365 a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career, their book, their life, and more in thirty minutes or less because who has time? I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature wherever books are sold starting July 1, and my children's book, Princess Charming. You can learn more about me at zboens.com. But, really, you're here to learn more about the authors, and that is what we're going to do. Also, be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the ZCast Podcast Network. You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well. Sarah Gilman is the editor of the Amazon Book Review and every six months or so I have her on to discuss the best books of the year and the best books of the year so far, which is always a really interesting conversation in curation and everything like that. Sarah was named after the memoir her dad was reading when she was born and so she thinks she was destined for a career in books. She started as a book publicist in New York before relocating to Seattle to work at Amazon, where, as I mentioned, she serves as the editorial director for books. Known for her guest appearances on national talk shows and her signature book club, Sarah Selects, Sarah loves fiction, memoirs, and a good multi generational family saga. When she's not working or reading, she's spending time with her two young sons walking her anxious and lovable dog or designing the perfect reading nook. Welcome back, Sarah Gelman. So exciting to have you in person It's here in New York

[3:49]Sarah Gelman: so different to actually do a podcast in person. It is. It feels good. And see someone and look them in the eye. I I used to do it like this all the time. Yeah, the good old days. Remember the first time I met you was at your book party, the Zippy Awards. And that wasn't raining that night. Probably. Yeah. In Brooklyn. It's like must have been a rainy night in Brooklyn. And I was like, oh, she's a little shorter than I thought she would be. Oh, okay. People say that they think I'm taller. So I don't know. I just think that capable women seem taller than they are.

[4:18]Zibby Owens: I like how you turned that into a Yes.

[4:21]Sarah Gelman: I'm five'two and proud. You like, I'm looking at you right now. I would say that you're five six. You guys are just sitting there. Maybe my legs are really short. Also, think there's such a thing as a tall personality and a shorter personality and you have a tall, a tall personality. Okay. I'll take it. Alright,

[4:41]Zibby Owens: you're just about the height I thought, which is tall and which is already for an accomplished person, right? Well, you. There you go. I'm I'm the most average height you can be.

[4:51]Sarah Gelman: You're a giant in my family. You are like the men in my family. I'm not even kidding. Yes. I'm like the least defensive height, the least defensive shoe size. It's like What shoe size do you wear? Eight. I'm an eight. I'm an eight and a half. Oh, some people say we're an eight and a half.

[5:04]Zibby Owens: It depends on the shoe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I know I was so sad. I just took my daughter to the orthopedist and they said, Okay, well, from the X-ray, we can tell her foot's not going grow. And I was like, No, she's never gonna people share shoes. I already bought her shoes that are half a size up and she's never going to grow into that. Anyway, big socks.

[5:23]Sarah Gelman: Did you worry with your pregnancies that your feet would change sizes? Yes. That happened to my mom. That happened to my mom. And did it happen with you? No, me neither. I'm so thankful. I don't know. I guess I don't love all the shoes that I wore pre pregnancy, but I thought I would. And yeah, now I'm like, I'm buying all my shoes. He has a Katie Turner book. I really want to read that. Oh yeah. I had her on my podcast. Yes. Sorry. I'm just distracted. Yeah. No, go ahead. So speaking of books, we are here to talk about

[5:51]Zibby Owens: height. Shoes and height. The Amazon Book Review Top 10 Books of the Year So Far, which we have done in the past. So you can go back a year if you want to scroll forever and find our last one. Although we probably did end of the year too, so maybe you don't have to go that far. Yeah, we did. We did, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So just go back six months and then six months from then, or just search Sarah Gelman and you'll get these great roundups. So we have 10, the top 10, and we're going start with 10, which was a little debate. But I said, I think Casey Kaysom would start with 10 and work his way up to one. So we're going to do that. We're going to make bracelets that say, What would Casey Kaysom do? And if you don't know who he is, well, whatever. Whatever. Okay. He was a radio host back in the day. Okay. Number

[6:33]Sarah Gelman: 10. Is Hello, Molly by Molly Shannon. So Molly Shannon is the, I think, best known as the SNL comedian. And I always think of her the one that she sticks her hands on her armpits when she's nervous. I don't know. I'm glad that there's a visual of that happening. Mary Katherine Gallagher. Oh, Yes. Yes. Yes. She's super funny. And this is, I think like a lot people that are comedians, she has a bit of a tragic past and not of the like sunshine and sparkles that you expect from someone who is so funny. So this is a very a funny, but very honest memoir about her life and her relationship with her parents. And it's not at all what you might think based on even looking at the sunny picture of her on the jacket with her arms spread wide and this beautiful red dress. Wait, I should back up and ask you how you pick the best books of the year. Yes. So this is a full team effort. So I lead a team of editors and we are like you. We read hundreds of books every year, except there's more of us than there is of you. How many people do you have? How big is the team? I should know exactly. Eight us. Eight, nine of us. And so everyone is really an expert in a different genre and we all have different backgrounds. Most of us publishing our book selling, one person came from IMDB and they're like huge, like sci fi fantasy. They would say speculative fiction fan. And so we all read and we come together and basically we curate this list mid year of our it's top 20. We're going to talk about the top 10 today. 20 of our favorite books of the year so far. So this is not based on sales data. It is our judgment and opinion. It's not scientific. These are just books that we love and we want customers to hopefully discover if they haven't yet or see it on a list and be like, I have been meaning to read that. And it's fun because it comes out mid year. So it's great for summer reading. There are some good Father's Day gifts on here. It's a really this is a fun list. Our end of the year list is top 100, which gets a little stressful. So we'll be like, this isn't a 20 to 30, it's a 50 to 60. But this way we're able to talk about top 20. And we started with what we thought was a tight list of about 45. And it's like, okay, 25 of these, you kill them. And yeah, it's hard and it inspires a lot of healthy debate. The team, we're like a dysfunctional family. We love each other, we fight. And then it's like after you have that fight about, I didn't like this book or you blah, blah, blah. And then we love each other again. It's like the best dysfunctional family of all time. Every meal is like Thanksgiving dinner or every meeting I should say is like Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, it's a cool team. And I think to me, it's really cool that a place like Amazon, which relies on data a lot. And I think people think of as really tech heavy that we're this really high touch team of people that sit around and read. And we also do things on our computer. Like, I don't get to sit and read all day, but we are reading books and basically writing about them and talking about them. And it's just to me, like such a cool thing to be able to do that as a job, but then also as a job that then has an audience of Amazon customers. It's amazing. It's pretty cool.

[9:33]Zibby Owens: When did the Amazon book review start?

[9:35]Sarah Gelman: So the team of Amazon editors has actually existed since Amazon was a bookseller, which is the whole time that there's been Amazon, which I think is about twenty five years now. We've always had these curators that were kind of like curating and writing reviews in the store because it was an important deciding factor for someone to buy a book. Even before customer reviews, this is what you got. And the Amazon Book Review is, gosh, probably at least as it was named something else before it was called Omni Voracious. I still love that word, but I think it's not quite as descriptive as Amazon Book Review. But to say like I read Omni Voraciously is so cool, right? Sure. But I've been at Amazon for thirteen years and Omni voracious was around before that. Would say So at least fifteen, if not longer. Wow. Yeah. And some people on the team have been there for over ten years. It's not a job that a lot of people leave. I bet. Yeah. It's pretty rad. Yeah. Number nine. Number nine is, this is one of my personal favorites. Really? Okay. Half Blown Rose by Lisa Cross Smith. So this is actually the first pick for my book club on Amazon, which is called Sarah Selects, which is that is all my taste, which is weird and kind of scary. But also these are books that I love. So I was just talking about this book this morning to a colleague who's going to Europe next week, and I told her she has to bring this. So I interviewed the author and she said that this is a coming of age story, which I love because it's about a woman in her early 40s. So not what you would think of of coming of age. So she's 43 and she discovers this huge betrayal by her husband who lives back in America where she lives in Kentucky with him. And her response is that she moves to Paris or she goes to Paris and stays at her parents' flat in Paris, which is a beautiful apartment. And her parents are successful artists and she's a successful woman. She's a privileged black woman basically. And so when she's in Paris, she's like lives her best life. So she's eating like panache a lot. She's drinking red wine, she's smoking some cigarettes and she ends up falling for this man who's twenty years her junior and is actually the same age as her son. And they have this steamy affair and they end up traveling around Europe together. And it comes down to really like, will she go back to her life as this wife of this person in America? Or is she going to continue to live out sort of this fantasy of like being with this man in Europe? And her children are grown, they're in their 20s. So, she has the freedom to have this life and she sort of gave up her early 20s to be a wife and a mother. So it's just, it's sort of like it's escapist. It's definitely like, I call it like smart girl betrayed, but I love this book. That sounds you sold me. You need to read it. I honestly, I hadn't, don't even know about this book. Oh, so good. Okay. Numbered Okay. Out for sure. I'm going to add to cart. Number eight. Okay. So Sea of Tranquility is Emily St. John Mandel. So Emily St. John Mandel has the new Hulu adaptation series of Station 11, which was, I believe, her debut novel. And I actually loved her last novel, The Glass Hotel. It's one of my favorite books. And this is a new one, also speculative fiction. And there's someone on my team that I mentioned that loves this genre. And so he read it. And then this is how things come on the list. He was like, this isn't just for sci fi fans. I think this has broad appeal. And then other people read it and they just totally fell in love with it. So this is on the team, some people's favorite book of the year. So you can see like it doesn't make it number one because it's a it's a democracy, but it's definitely a top 10. Amazing. Okay. Next one. What number did I say? Eight, seven. Yes. Okay. Memphis by Tara. I'm sorry. It's Tara Stringfellow. Okay. She This was a Reese's pick, wasn't it? It was. And I don't know. It's a Jenna pick actually. I talked about this on during an interview and the author reached out to me and said, it's actually Tara because I said Tara. So I want to make sure it's Tara and I hate mispronouncing names. So I apologize. But this is such a good book. This is about three. It's three generations of women in Memphis. And it's sort of it's a little bit about intergenerational trauma and how you carry kind of secrets and trauma from the past into the future. But it also is very helpful. It's just it's lush. There's such a sense of place. And I also love music when music plays a big role in books. And it does that in Half Blood Rose, too. But there's also just like this great sense of music in Memphis. So it's a great novel.

[14:04]Zibby Owens: It's her debut. I think she was a poet before, but this is her debut novel and it's just totally beautiful. I have lyrics to one song in my book, bookends. No way. Yeah, you will have to. I haven't gotten there yet. You have to read the song and then tell me if you like hearing it. Okay. This is my short term memory. I'm like, I can't We have number these. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Yes. I had Bonnie on my podcast. She was amazing. So

[14:31]Sarah Gelman: this is a novel about a woman in the 1960s. She's a female chemist and she's brilliant, but she suffers in her career because of sexism. And she becomes this unlikely host of a cable network cooking show. And that becomes really popular. And she's teaching all of these housewives about more than just how to make meatloaf. To her, cooking is science, it's chemistry. And so she takes it very seriously. She wears a lab coat and it's all about chemical reactions. And it's just such a great story about female empowerment. To me, this was like a cross between John Irving and also Maria Semple from where John Irving has a new book coming out. Oh my God, he does? Yes. Oh, I'm very excited for that. Yes. I love him. I just got the digital art. No. I did. Know. It's like amazing. John Irving's publisher. Send me a copy too. I'll tell you who it is. You can get your own copy. Yeah. I just like there's a dog in this book that is like a major character that doesn't speak out loud but understands English. And it's like, to me, that's very John Irving, like the animals that are human sort of thing. It sounds weird, but it just it works. But yeah, I just to me, I just love this book. Actually, someone on the team, Lindsay Powers, who you have worked with, said that this is her new all time favorite book. Really? Yep. So like that is a glowing endorsement from someone that reads so much to say this is a new favorite book. That's great. Yeah. She loved it. So did my mom, if that counts for anything. I loved too. It's a great book. Yeah. It was great. It was great. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[19:09]Sarah Gelman: Okay. I think we're on number five. Okay. River of Gods. The subtitle is genius, courage, and betrayal in the search of the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard. So this is non fiction and I'm going to say of the top 10, I like this as a Father's Day pick. Okay. And I hate to say that because it's non fiction, but it is a good Father's Day pick. So this is a book about the search for the Nile in the nineteenth century. And to me, what's different about it is that Millard really confronts colonialism in a way that a lot of historians do not and acknowledges it and deals with it. And she's telling a story about these two European men who are like, to me, it's just like hapless race for them to one up each other. And they just have this like relentless search for geographic discoveries. And, you know, they're getting fevers and they're falling and they're attacked by insects. But it's like they're single mindedly focused on this. But she also tells the story of an enslaved man named Sidi Bombay, who basically they wouldn't have made their discoveries without him. And he really is like the unsung hero of this piece of history. In the book he emerges that way. So this book definitely inspired healthy debate on my team. It didn't sit well with everyone, but we all agree that it's beautifully written. It reads like a thriller. I mean, it's so visceral, like you're reading it and like you feel like sweaty from the humidity of being in a jungle. So it's great that way. And it definitely like, yes, it is. It's history told sort of the way that we want history to be told, which is the truth. Love it. Okay. Before we go on to the next one, tell me more about your book club. Oh my gosh. Okay. So it's called Sarah Selects, which is so weird to have something named after me, but it is a monthly book club on Amazon. And so you can go to amazon.com/sarahselects and join the club. And I will be picking a new book every month. And it's books that I love. And the idea is really books that like I read so much. I mean, you read so much like when you read a book and you were like, I need to talk about this with someone right away. It should be those books. So there's no other parameter besides that. Men, women, all genders, all non fiction fiction. It just needs to have that feeling of like, I'm reading something and I don't want to be alone right now. I need to call someone and talk about this. Interesting. Yeah. Sorry, I just finished nor reads off script. Yes. I think I would pick that for your thyroid. That I'm so sorry. I haven't read that yet because my colleague Vanessa loved it. And she said to me, Sarah, I really think you need to read this book. You know what it's like when you're reading

[21:36]Zibby Owens: for work and like sometimes the things that you just want to read that you No, get to I meant to read this so much earlier than I've I had it. I mean, I've meant to do it earlier, but I did it right before my podcast and I was like, Oh my gosh, I wish I had done this earlier. And it right? You know? Because you can tell by the The book that I is like my white whale that I wanna read and I always am like, I'm gonna read this on vacation is Pachinko.

[21:58]Sarah Gelman: I read that. I did read that. And I just for some reason, I like can't get to it.

[22:03]Zibby Owens: I did. I read that a couple of years ago. I had mentioned Leah on my podcast. I'm just going to keep telling you about the guests. People listening can go back and you can get your appetite wet for all these things. Okay. So this

[22:15]Sarah Gelman: is The Maid by Anita Prose. This is a book that came out earlier this year. So I think people are kind of familiar. It's a red jacket with the keyhole and it is about a neurodiverse maid at a hotel and it isn't to me, it's an unnamed city. I think it's either New York or Toronto. And she is cleaning a hotel room and she stumbles upon the body, dead body of a man that sort of lives at the hotel. And she is kind of thrust in as the key suspect in his murder. And so the story unfolds through her eyes, but you're seeing the world the way that she does, which is in a neurodiverse way. And it's never named any sort of diagnosis, but you understand that she sees the world a little bit differently. And so as a reader, you're seeing it through her eyes and sort of this limited view, but also bringing the knowledge of like, you can tell when people aren't good guys that she doesn't necessarily know. And it's definitely, it's a mystery and it's not like a violent mystery. There's no like knifing or anything. And she's just, she's lovable. And you sort of see like the good and the bad in people through her eyes. And it's just, it's really unique too. It's a little bit like the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Or I know that you love Sally Hepworth too. Sally Hepworth, do. Good sister. Yep.

[23:33]Zibby Owens: That was great. Yeah. Another question before we go on to the top three. Do you give the authors anything like a certificate or a gift or do you just For Sarah Selects? Well, yeah. Oh, for this. For this. But okay. For Sarah Selects too. Wasn't as No. Just the Just the Yeah. Just the list, which is huge. So we do for the top three, actually, I interviewed all the author, the top three authors on Amazon Live yesterday,

[23:56]Sarah Gelman: which is always a really fun interview because it's like four ways. Oh, at the same time. At the same time. So I do like all the others at once and then like breakout, I call them breakout rooms, but it's just like one on one with all of them. But yeah, it's a lot to wrangle and the technology piece is always a little stressful, but That's awesome. Yeah. Okay, number three. Okay, Number three is this one. I love this book. All My Rage by Saba Tahir. This is it's a young adult book, but I read it without knowing that it was a young adult book. And I'm sort of thinking like teenagers would like this. And then I realized it was actually intended as a young adult book, but it reads like an adult novel. It is about two star crossed Pakistani teenagers in a small desert town in California and a story about their parents and where they came from and it jumps back in history.

[24:45]Zibby Owens: And it's I cried. Did you cry when you're reading this? I have to admit I did not finish this book. Oh, sorry. So I did not cry, but I did have Saba on my podcast to talk about the parts that I did read. She's been on twice. I love her. And what I read was amazing. Yeah. She I loved talking to her yesterday. Mean, you can tell she's like so smart and also great music in this book. If you're a fan of music and books.

[25:08]Sarah Gelman: And I loved, know, this is her first contemporary novel because she is the author of a really popular fantasy series, An Ember in the Ashes. And she said that she's been writing this book for a long And this is a book that she would go to when she was feeling angry. So like it, I mean, it's called All My Rage. Like there is this undercurrent of anger and rage in it, but it also it's hopeful too.

[25:31]Zibby Owens: Awesome. Yeah, she's amazing.

[25:33]Sarah Gelman: Okay. Number two. What My Bones Know, a memoir of healing from complex Trauma by Stephanie Fu. So, I love the jacket on this book too. It's worth checking out. It's like crossed bones with like beautiful like flowers and vegetables growing out of them. And when I interviewed Stephanie Fu yesterday, we talked about the jacket and she said that she and a friend designed it because they want this idea of like, you know, even though your bones can hold trauma, like beautiful things can come from that, which I loved. So, this book is about her life. It's a memoir about her being diagnosed with complex PTSD when she is, I guess, was about four years ago. So, PTSD is a condition that happens when someone experiences trauma over a long period of time. So, PTSD is like I was in a plane crash. Complex PTSD is I was a victim of child abuse. And in her case, she writes about the child abuse that she suffered and how it's affected her her entire life. And so, she gets this diagnosis because she realizes something's not quite right, but she doesn't know it has no name. And once it's named, she researches it. And she's actually she was a producer on American Life or This American Life. And so she attacks it like a researcher. So she's like, Okay, here are some things that I can do. And she goes after all of these different ways and like looks at it scientifically. And it's it sounds like a sad book, but she is very funny. So there's lots of humor. Like she's not afraid to make fun of herself. And it has a happy ending too. And one thing that I mean, I'm not giving anything away that it ends during the pandemic. We And all know what that is like. But it turns out that people that suffer from complex PTSD thrive in conditions of like high stress. So like wartime or pandemic time. And so she was like high functioning during this time that everyone else like she was like, all my friends were calling. They're like, I can't get in bed. I'm so scared. I don't want to go to the grocery store. And she was like, I'm doing great. So it's really interesting, like that something that a lot of people would take as something that's, you know, wrong with them, and it's really like a superpower.

[27:34]Zibby Owens: Wow. I'm gonna investigate that more. It's complex PTSD. Yes. And the book. The book sounds great too. Okay. Number one. Okay.

[27:44]Sarah Gelman: Journal It's Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. So, this is a debut novel and it is about an unlikely friendship between a widow named Tova and an octopus, which I feel like I start to lose people and they're like, what is this? But it's really it's a book about aging and it's about rediscovering family. It's about finding love and sort of resetting yourself, getting out of a place where she described it as like it's a book about getting unstuck. And it also has a mystery at its core. And the octopus is key to solving the mystery. And you just I don't know. It's one of those books that like to me felt incredibly original. Even though I read a lot, like it's hard to find something that is really original. And to me, this struck me as very original.

[28:32]Zibby Owens: And I still think about the characters. I did not realize that was an octopus. Yes. I mean, never really looked. I just thought it was like Yeah. See

[28:41]Sarah Gelman: woman on the front. So this is I learned this yesterday, actually. This is original artwork that was done by the art director at Echo, which is the publisher. And she painted the scene. It's like a Wow. Don't know if it's watercolor, but it's an octopus in a tank with a woman, an older woman, gray hair, standing in front of it, looking at him. And the I read a lot my books on Kindle. It's just kind of easy for me to carry around. But I did have a hardcover of this book that I received after I read the book. And I have to say, like, the artwork within the book is beautiful because there's sort of the shadow of like a creeping octopus that comes across the book as it gets further along. Wow. It's really cool. It's one of those books that's like, it's beautiful to own this in person. The texture of the jacket is really nice, but you can read it on Kindle too. So yeah, this is like the whole team loved this book. And what I think is cool about that is like, it was it's men and women. It's people that are different ages. It's, you know, like in the diversity of the team, like everyone felt like this was so far our favorite book. Wow. And it's a read with Jenna Pick. And it's a read with Jenna Pick. So she must have liked it. Jenna has good taste. Yeah. Yeah. I love her taste. Amazing.

[29:49]Zibby Owens: Okay. So now you start reading for the next second half of the year. That's it. Yep. Turn over to the next next part of the year. Well, excellent picks. Listeners, go out and get all these, but you can also find them on Amazon Book Review, amazon.com/amazon

[30:04]Sarah Gelman: Book Review slash lots of other things, but start there. Yep. And you will find it and check out Sarah's Slacks. Thank you. Is there an actual meeting? Like, do you meet with the people who've It's all virtual. It's all virtual. Yeah. So I post. I'm like, I am actually in there responding to people and posting. I go in every day, except on the weekends when I do take a break. Every day I go in, I respond to comments and like things and post prompts. I just posted yesterday about this idea of like, would the main character's name is Vincent and like, would how would Vincent's life be different if she had younger kids? And I'm going to be 43 in a month. And so like, she's very much my age. What would her life look like if her kids were three and six, the same age my kids? Like, this would be impossible to escape to Paris, but she missed that period of her early 20s where hopefully you've got to be irresponsible and like, date the men that ride motorcycles and not the men you want to marry. And, you know, she never had that. And so her I think her life is very different because she never had that period. And now she's able to have it as a 40 year old woman. Okay. Totally gonna read that book. Yeah. You need to read it. I need to read it. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Okay. So fun. Thanks

[31:16]Zibby Owens: for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.