Sarah Gelman, BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Sarah Gellman is the editorial director for Books at Amazon where she leads a team of editors
[1:08]who hand selects books to help customers find their next great read.
[1:13]And today she is sharing with us Amazon's best books of the year as selected by the Amazon
[1:19]book review.
[1:20]These are the top 10 reads.
[1:22]Sarah also hosts Sarah Select's book club.
[1:24]She's regular guest on CBS mornings and has appeared in The View Good Morning America
[1:28]and Access Daily to share her book recommendations.
[1:31]She hosts Amazon live conversations and led strategic communications for many teams at
[1:36]Amazon, including books, prime, the launch of physical stores and the acquisition of Whole Foods.
[1:42]Welcome, Sarah.
[1:43]I'm so excited to talk to you again.
[1:45]Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's time for the best books of the year already.
[1:48]What is going on?
[1:49]Time is flying.
[1:50]I don't know.
[1:51]I can't believe it's November.
[1:52]It's like my youngest son's birthday is an early November and he keeps saying, is it Thanksgiving
[1:57]yet?
[1:58]And I'm like, oh my gosh, it is almost Thanksgiving.
[2:00]It's crazy.
[2:01]Here we go at the end of the year.
[2:03]I actually have this very strange habit at night during this season of the year, the way
[2:08]that I, besides reading, which I always do.
[2:10]And that's the last thing I do before I go to bed.
[2:12]But when I get into bed, like after putting my wife children's sleep, I look at gift
[2:17]guides on my tablet.
[2:21]And like every night I do a different one.
[2:23]So it could be like New York Times.
[2:25]I really like the every girl on the every mom.
[2:28]And I just, that's sort of my way that I relax.
[2:30]So I love this time of year just for my gift guide, relaxation, habit.
[2:35]I also love gift guides.
[2:36]In fact, I'm like, I really need to just write one.
[2:39]So I'm going to do one.
[2:41]I'm going to do one.
[2:42]I'm going to do one, too.
[2:43]But okay, books are obviously the best gift of all I said will include a lot of gifts.
[2:49]Of course.
[2:50]Okay.
[2:51]So what are the top 10 that you and the Amazon book review have come up with as the best
[2:57]books of the year?
[2:58]This is, and how do you come up with it?
[3:00]Okay.
[3:01]So I'll start with that.
[3:02]So we have just announced our best books of the year.
[3:06]And so this is my team where the books editorial team and our role is reading books and
[3:11]basically highlighting them for customers so they can discover them.
[3:14]All of our picks are things that we love, things that we think customers will love.
[3:18]It's not based on sales or pre-orders or publisher money.
[3:22]This is really, it's really editorial.
[3:25]It's really what we love.
[3:26]And so this end of your list, we look at all of our best of the month list that we do
[3:30]every month is usually one to 10, sometimes it's one to 12.
[3:34]If it's a huge month, we can't decide.
[3:38]And we look at all those lists.
[3:39]So you know, 12 times the 10 and then we ask ourselves, do we miss anything this year?
[3:44]Because sometimes the book comes and for some reason it could be because it was embargoed
[3:49]or because we just missed it.
[3:52]And then someone reads it later and they're like, oh my gosh, this book was amazing.
[3:55]We try not to miss anything.
[3:56]If we look at that full list and then we sort of go, you know, like, okay, let's start
[4:03]pulling in our favorite books of the year and we always start with one to 10 and then
[4:08]we do 11 to 20 and then we do the rest.
[4:10]But the one to 20 is the really hard part and one to 10 of course is really, really
[4:16]important.
[4:17]So this is all the team's taste, their books that you could, I really think the top 10
[4:22]of us, you could give anyone and they would love it.
[4:25]Like all the books kind of read outside of their genre, which I think is really important.
[4:30]Oh my dog is here saying hello, Joey, he's going to reel.
[4:35]Okay, so that's the process.
[4:39]So I need like a drum roll.
[4:41]There we go.
[4:42]Drum roll.
[4:43]Okay, starting with number 10.
[4:45]Okay, so number 10.
[4:47]This is actually an advanced copy because even though the book is out, I just don't have
[4:51]a finished copy of the book.
[4:52]So this is small mercies by Dennis LaHang and this is a mystery that in South Boston
[4:58]during the 1970s and it is sort of no holds barred tough mom out looking for her daughter.
[5:06]It's very good.
[5:08]And this is actually a book that was on our best of the year so far list.
[5:12]And it's as Vanessa Cronin, who's our mystery and thriller expert on the team said, it's
[5:17]the mystery that we keep coming back to this year.
[5:19]This is her favorite mystery of the entire year.
[5:22]She absolutely love this book so much that we have it on both lists.
[5:25]Wow.
[5:26]Okay.
[5:27]Yes.
[5:28]All right.
[5:29]Okay.
[5:30]I'm looking at my cheat sheet too.
[5:31]Okay.
[5:32]So I don't get the order out.
[5:33]Okay.
[5:34]So number nine, I don't have a visual of so you will have to imagine Elon Musk's face
[5:36]right here.
[5:37]It is Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.
[5:39]It is the new biography that has come out all about Elon Musk.
[5:43]And the thing that the team loves about this book is, I think we can agree that Elon
[5:48]Musk can be a divisive figure.
[5:50]But this book really paints him in a very human way.
[5:53]It's very balanced.
[5:54]It's surprising.
[5:55]And I think you feel a lot of things and empathy is one of them.
[6:01]One of the things that my team felt.
[6:03]So Walter Isaacson, of course, is sort of like the current master of biography.
[6:07]I mean, he does such an amazing job with subjects.
[6:11]And this book is just, you know, it's so relevant for our time.
[6:15]So number nine.
[6:16]Okay.
[6:17]I like that.
[6:18]Number nine.
[6:19]So far, I have not read these.
[6:20]Okay.
[6:21]Number eight is one of, this is one of my favorite from the list.
[6:24]It's the newest Stephen Kingba.
[6:25]Okay.
[6:26]If you're getting a glare here called Holly.
[6:28]Okay.
[6:29]So confession for me.
[6:30]I read misery when I was a child, and I don't know why, but I want to see the movie.
[6:35]I wanted to read the book, but I'm not a Stephen King person.
[6:38]I didn't read all the books in between, but I read his last book fairy tale.
[6:42]And I was really, believe it or not, Stephen King is so good.
[6:45]Who knew?
[6:46]That he does this thing where he just, he can write in different genres.
[6:50]I think I've heard from a lot of people, as I've been recommending this book, oh, I don't
[6:54]do Stephen King.
[6:55]And it's like, I don't even know what that means.
[6:57]Because the last book was sort of a fairy tale horror.
[7:01]And this book is, it's so fun, it is a mystery.
[7:07]And it has a PI at the center of it named Holly Gibney.
[7:11]And she's appeared in his other books.
[7:12]And I can say from experience, no, you don't have to have read the other books to read
[7:16]this and enjoy it.
[7:18]But if you love Holly, she's a star of this book.
[7:21]And it is about, I don't want to give too much away, but it is about an elderly couple
[7:26]who are doing horrible things.
[7:28]And I think there's something so funny about, like, very old people doing horrible things.
[7:33]And it is just, I cannot put this book down, it is so fun.
[7:38]And also just sort of a reverent too.
[7:40]So highly recommend this book, absolutely loved it.
[7:43]OK.
[7:44]OK.
[7:45]So that was 10, 9, 8.
[7:46]7.
[7:47]OK.
[7:48]7.
[7:49]It's the Covenant of Water.
[7:50]So I think a lot of people have heard of this book, it was an overbook club pack.
[7:54]This is, it's just, I feel like there were no words wasted in this book.
[8:00]It is this epic story told over three generations of people and his family suffers from
[8:04]an affliction.
[8:06]And it's sort of, it is a medical mystery.
[8:09]I mean, it's really a mystery, which is funny, but it's just, it has a strong female
[8:13]at the center of it.
[8:15]And it's just, you just read this book and you feel like you could fall into this world
[8:19]and you never wanted to end.
[8:21]It's really, I mean, it's a feat of literature, just a beautiful book.
[8:26]OK.
[8:27]Adored cutting for stone.
[8:28]And when I heard he had a new book coming out, it was like, oh my gosh, I can't wait.
[8:31]Have you ever found this one yet?
[8:33]Yes.
[8:34]OK.
[8:35]Oh, I love it.
[8:36]OK.
[8:37]So we're on to number six.
[8:39]And I want to know if you've read this book.
[8:40]So this is wellness.
[8:41]Bye-bye.
[8:42]I have not read it yet.
[8:43]Well, in this video, not yet, not yet.
[8:46]You need to read this.
[8:47]I think the thing about this book that I've been saying to people that is so remarkable
[8:51]to me is I spent the first half of this book literally laughing out loud and the second half
[8:55]crying.
[8:56]And it's so funny and sad because it's true.
[9:01]And it's about a couple that meet when they're 19, they're in Chicago, they're cool
[9:06]hip kids, and in the present day, they're suburban parents, and they're dealing with
[9:12]you know, CFA's and trying to get the great croissant before they sell out and not all these
[9:19]things that are so, I mean, honestly, relatable to my life.
[9:23]And but it's about how their love and marriage has changed over time and also about how
[9:28]society has changed too.
[9:29]So it's just, it's such a clever book.
[9:32]And I think, you know, it's not just for people who are parents, but I do think that
[9:35]parents will see a lot of themselves in this book, it's just really fun and sad too.
[9:40]It's sad.
[9:41]Interesting.
[9:42]That was a great pitch.
[9:43]You need to read it.
[9:44]Okay, I know.
[9:45]I have to read it.
[9:46]I have to read it.
[9:47]Yeah.
[9:48]Okay, I'm checking the list for, okay, this one.
[9:49]Have you read this one?
[9:50]No.
[9:51]What have I been doing with all my time?
[9:52]No.
[9:53]I don't even know.
[9:54]I don't know.
[9:55]What have you been reading?
[9:56]This is King.
[9:57]It's Jonathan Eek.
[9:58]And this is biography.
[10:00]of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
[10:01]And yes, there are a lot of these out there.
[10:04]But this one, I'm gonna say is really special.
[10:06]And I have not read every biography of King that there is.
[10:10]But the thing that's really different about this
[10:12]was sides that it draws on unreleased facts before.
[10:15]So recording from the FBI, it has an unpublished,
[10:18]it looks at the unpublished manuscript of his father.
[10:20]But it paints him not as this,
[10:24]you know, we put him up on this pedestal
[10:26]or sort of this heroic figure.
[10:28]And he was, but he was also human being that had flaws.
[10:31]He cheated on his wife, he suffered from depression,
[10:34]all these things that, you know, we sort of write out.
[10:37]And this book really brings him into a real,
[10:41]rounded human being.
[10:43]And you see why he was the way that he was.
[10:45]And it's really, I mean, I just feel like
[10:48]I wanna read a chapter of this every night
[10:51]and just kind of stay in this world.
[10:52]It's, I think this is the way we should teach history
[10:55]to kids, I mean, it's such a compelling book.
[10:58]So yeah, this is, and I think this is a great gift book
[11:00]for people to both for, you know, young adults.
[11:04]Also for parents, it's just, it's a great great book.
[11:06]Excellent.
[11:07]And can be endorsed up because it's so big.
[11:10]Oh my God, it's so big.
[11:11]Yes, speaking of big,
[11:12]I'm gonna go a little shift in my books here.
[11:14]Grab my next stack.
[11:15]Okay, next stack, keep it coming.
[11:17]Okay. So number four is the fourth wing.
[11:21]I have to read this book.
[11:22]Okay, you really have to read it.
[11:24]I know, I know, I know.
[11:25]I just read that huge profile in New York Times.
[11:28]And I was like, oh my gosh, now I like her even more.
[11:31]Yeah, I mean, what can I say about this book?
[11:33]It's sort of, it's like, to me, it's like hunger games,
[11:38]meets, game of thrones with like, steamy sex, to be honest.
[11:43]And I am not a fantasy person,
[11:45]but I also, I've read the hunger games.
[11:48]And, you know, I read sort of,
[11:50]I would say fantasy books that are in the zeitgeist.
[11:52]And I was just blown away by this book.
[11:55]And this is my favorite part.
[11:57]My colleague, Cammy, who is our romance expert on the team,
[12:01]read this book.
[12:01]And she was so excited about the new one
[12:04]that is on sale now, so it can get to November 7th.
[12:07]That, she said, this book ends on the craziest cliffhanger.
[12:13]So it is, I think it's great
[12:15]because there wasn't that much time
[12:17]between the publication of the fourth wing
[12:18]and then the second book.
[12:19]And apparently she's writing five in the series.
[12:22]And it is, it's a beautifully well written book.
[12:26]It has that element of world building
[12:28]that you get in fantasies,
[12:30]but it also has the tropes of romance.
[12:32]It has the friends to lovers.
[12:34]It's really, I think if I'm going to generalize here,
[12:38]I would say like, I would give this to all the mom friends
[12:40]in my life in the way that like,
[12:42]I slipped them 50 shades of prey.
[12:44]Interesting.
[12:45]Yes.
[12:45]I feel like the sex part is what nobody is talking about.
[12:48]That is a huge selling point.
[12:50]I'm just saying.
[12:51]It is.
[12:51]Yeah.
[12:52]If you want to talk about that with me after,
[12:54]we can talk about it.
[12:55]Okay.
[12:56]So number three book,
[12:57]I actually don't have a physical copy of.
[12:59]It is the art thief.
[13:00]And I want to make sure I'm getting the author's name.
[13:02]So the subtitle is a true story of love, crime,
[13:04]and a dangerous obsession by Michael Finkel.
[13:07]Okay.
[13:08]This is a story about it's Stefan Brightheuser.
[13:12]I'm sure I'm just pronouncing that,
[13:14]but he is the most prolific art thief
[13:17]that we've ever seen.
[13:20]He is Alsatian.
[13:22]And he and his girlfriend at the time
[13:24]basically went around Europe and just stole art.
[13:28]Like they walked into a room
[13:30]and just took something off the wall,
[13:32]stuck it down their pants and walked down.
[13:34]And it is about his obsession with the world of art
[13:39]as objects of beauty.
[13:40]And unlike most art thieves who feel art and then sell it,
[13:43]he keeps it all and he hoards art.
[13:47]And this book catalogs basically everything
[13:51]that he stole and how.
[13:53]And then ends with what happens to him.
[13:55]And it is, it reads like fiction.
[13:59]Like you cannot believe this is true.
[14:01]It's sort of like Thomas Crown Affair meets
[14:04]becoming Anna, the Netflix series of Facebook books.
[14:07]Like, I love the time of the time of the art book
[14:09]that I feel like you could give to anyone.
[14:12]And they would enjoy it.
[14:13]It is just like your entertainment.
[14:15]You cannot believe what you're reading.
[14:18]I feel like all your books are very meaty.
[14:20]Like there's a lot there.
[14:21]They're not just like a quick read that like,
[14:23]they're hefty in either content or emotion or something
[14:27]like substantial in some way.
[14:29]No?
[14:30]Yeah, I think in the 11 to 20
[14:32]we get into some lighter books.
[14:34]But yeah, I would say one thing
[14:35]when I get to our number one, that book.
[14:38]I think it packs a lot.
[14:40]Like these are books that I feel like
[14:42]I felt this about wellness.
[14:43]Like our readers getting a lot for their money
[14:45]with this book.
[14:46]Like they're getting in this world
[14:48]and they're gonna live there for a long time.
[14:50]They're gonna know all the details.
[14:51]And that's really satisfying to me.
[14:54]Interesting.
[14:55]Okay, next one.
[14:56]Number two, I'm really excited about
[14:57]because this is my November book club pick for Sarah Select.
[15:00]This I have read the very thinkers by Amanda Peters.
[15:04]This is a debut novel.
[15:05]And also it's really beautiful.
[15:07]It is about, starts in the 1960s and family
[15:12]and indigenous family from Canada
[15:14]comes to Maine to pick blueberries for the summer.
[15:16]And one day their four year old daughter disappears.
[15:19]And the last person to see her is her six year old brother.
[15:22]And then the story kind of takes two routes.
[15:25]Her brother's route, which follows him
[15:27]and sort of all this one event in his life
[15:29]in the six year old has changed the trajectory
[15:31]of his life for the worst.
[15:32]And you see him in current day
[15:34]and the demons that he's facing.
[15:36]And then the other track is of this girl.
[15:39]And what happened to her in the life that she lives
[15:41]growing up, not knowing that she was part of this family.
[15:45]And it's just, it reminds me of Celeste Ang's first book,
[15:49]everything I never told you.
[15:51]It's just, it's sort of,
[15:53]I keep saying quietly beautiful,
[15:54]which I realize it doesn't sound that selling
[15:56]because when you say something's quiet, it's like,
[15:57]mmm, but it's just this beautiful book.
[16:01]And when I've heard from people in my book club
[16:03]that have started reading it
[16:04]and we read for the whole month
[16:06]and people are done with the book already
[16:08]because they just cannot put it down.
[16:09]It is just such a beautifully written book.
[16:12]And I think if you're someone that likes Celeste Ang,
[16:14]who likes and pageant, this is a great book.
[16:16]Excellent.
[16:17]Okay, I'm gonna go back to the drum roll.
[16:19]Okay, number one.
[16:20]Okay, number one.
[16:21]My dog's barking too.
[16:22]She's very excited is, it's the heaven
[16:24]and earth grocery store by James McBride.
[16:26]We are big James McBride fans on the team.
[16:29]And this book is interesting
[16:31]because it came out this summer
[16:33]and my colleague, Al Woodworth, Reddit,
[16:35]she has really impeccable taste.
[16:37]And she, she lost him.
[16:39]She loved this book so much.
[16:40]And sort of slowly the rest of us on the team came to it.
[16:43]And by the time we convened in person
[16:45]to discuss the top 10,
[16:47]this was like hands down, no discussion.
[16:49]We all wanted this to be number one.
[16:51]So this is about a town called Pops Town
[16:54]that's in Pennsylvania and the people that live there.
[16:58]And it's really American.
[17:00]It's about immigrants and voices that are not represented
[17:04]and how they come together and help each other.
[17:07]How found family is as important as family
[17:09]that you're born into.
[17:11]And there is a mystery that runs through it.
[17:13]But it's just the characters in this book.
[17:16]You, you really like mourn for them
[17:19]when the book is over because you love them so much.
[17:22]They're such complicated people.
[17:24]And the book looks so funny,
[17:26]which I think is something that,
[17:28]I mean, you mentioned like these are heavy books.
[17:29]Like it means a lot to me with it.
[17:32]Not heavy, just substantial.
[17:34]Okay, that's fine.
[17:35]It's a little different in my head.
[17:37]Yeah, I think there are pieces of this book
[17:39]that are just so funny.
[17:41]And to me, that's that's important
[17:43]when you say best book of the year.
[17:45]Like it needs to have something.
[17:47]And this has so much it has,
[17:49]I mean, so many things that are honestly so current
[17:53]are everyday life.
[17:54]And then this element of humor and love and acceptance
[17:58]and really like this very true American story
[18:01]of different cultures of different people coming together
[18:04]with a common cause.
[18:07]It's just it's a beautiful book.
[18:09]So here's my question.
[18:10]You have Sarah select book club in every month
[18:12]because I watch eagerly because I feel like
[18:14]we have very similar dates and some of the things
[18:16]that you're thinking,
[18:18]why are those not just your favorites of the year?
[18:21]Like taking all those together, those picks.
[18:23]Well, because it's not Sarah's best book of the year.
[18:26]Number one, this is my team.
[18:28]Okay, and I have a particular kind of taste
[18:31]and they do too.
[18:32]And we're not, you know, if you wanted to get my list
[18:36]of best books that they are like,
[18:37]I'll send you an email with them.
[18:38]But really, I mean, I want to know the taste of my colleagues
[18:43]who have different lived experience than I do
[18:46]who have different expertise that I do.
[18:48]I want to know, I didn't know that world building was a thing.
[18:51]And when I talk to someone who knows a lot about fantasy,
[18:54]I learned that honestly, I probably wouldn't have read
[18:58]the art thief had it not been for my colleagues, Lindsay Powers,
[19:01]who is such an, she gets so excited about nonfiction.
[19:04]I just like, it warms my heart.
[19:06]Like, they'll be like, this is a story about drug deals
[19:09]on the street.
[19:10]And she's like, oh my God, I cannot wait to read this.
[19:13]And I'm like, so sad.
[19:15]So she's the one that got behind the art thief.
[19:17]And I think that's what you need.
[19:18]Like, you need sort of a well-grounded,
[19:20]well-rounded group of people that bring different views.
[19:24]And also, I mean, I love my book club
[19:26]and the theme is books that I love.
[19:29]And so, you know, I think some people can read a book
[19:33]and be like, oh, you would definitely love that.
[19:34]But it also, when I pick a book club book,
[19:37]I want a book that fosters the discussion.
[19:39]And a discussion that I think is interesting
[19:41]and maybe germane to the moment.
[19:43]I'm, I wish I'd pick my book sooner.
[19:47]I will admit that I don't because I'm always behind
[19:49]on my reading.
[19:50]I just made a list of sort of like books
[19:52]I need to read by a certain day.
[19:53]And it's like, no human being could do this,
[19:55]even if they gave up everything else in their life.
[19:57]And, you know, as a working single mom.
[20:00]I got a lot going on and, you know, I wish I'd hit them sooner, but I do try to think
[20:04]about what's happening in the moment.
[20:06]I was excited to pick the amount of Peter's books.
[20:08]She is a indigenous Canadian and it is indigenous people's mom, but I don't necessarily
[20:13]set out to say that, you know, like, oh, let's find something for this mom that speaks
[20:17]to this, but it's great if it works out.
[20:19]Amazing.
[20:20]Wow.
[20:21]I can't believe I get to hear this right from you.
[20:24]This is such a thrill.
[20:25]Thank you so much for sharing this and sharing with the listeners.
[20:29]And some, I've had some of these authors on my podcast.
[20:33]I've had a man to Peter's and I've had Abraham for Gaze and I think that might be it,
[20:40]but now I have to go back and like read up because now I'm feeling really inferior and
[20:44]embarrassed.
[20:45]So, I'm speaking of inferior, I am so in awe of everything you do.
[20:51]It is incredible.
[20:52]I don't understand how you do this and you have a family and it's just, it's amazing.
[20:57]I want, I want all your secrets.
[21:00]So you grasp this, I mean, it's greener.
[21:01]We're just speechless of each other.
[21:03]So there you go.
[21:04]I mean, we both have a pretty great job though, but yeah, yeah, we're both very, very
[21:09]lucky.
[21:10]This is like a dream job, dream, dream job, central love fest.
[21:14]Okay.
[21:15]Well, thank you for the best books of the year from the Amazon book review.
[21:19]Really appreciate it and look forward to seeing you in person.
[21:22]Sounds great.
[21:23]Thank you so much.
[21:24]Okay.
[21:25]Bye.
[21:27]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[21:31]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[21:35]Books.
[21:36]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[21:40]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[21:43]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[21:47]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.