Best books of October 2023, as chosen by Amazon editors
Autumn has arrived, and with it a bevy of great books you’ll fall for (sorry/not sorry), including highly anticipated releases from the likes of Jesmyn Ward, Bryan Washington, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Adam Grant, and more.
Jesmyn Ward (two-time winner of the National Book Award) returns with another slamming gut-punch of a story, this time following a young enslaved woman, separated from her mother, who is marched—shackled and bound with others—from one plantation in the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and sold to another plantation. All the while, Annis is guided by Aza, a spirit that has visited the women in her family for generations, simultaneously instilling the distraction of hope that Annis needs to survive while also infuriating her, for what mystical power could possibly allow for a mother to be taken from her daughter and for the relentless horror inflicted on her family—on anyone? Ward’s prose shivers with the weight of heartbreak, finding breath—and, survival—in the quiet, insistent conversations around memory, generations, and the surrounding water and land. Deeply affecting, this visceral novel will steal your breath and make your heart thud…unforgettable. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
Midnight is the Darkest Hour is The Handmaid's Tale crossed with True Blood, with a little dash of Wuthering Heights. When a skull is found in the swamp in Trufayette Parish, Ruth, the daughter of the Louisiana bayou town's fire and brimstone pastor, is terrified; she thinks the skull may be connected to a “sin” from her Twilight-obsessed youth. But that sin also marks the day she met her best friend, Everett, a brooding, hot guy who happens to be the outcast in their small town, perpetually in the crosshairs of both the law and Ruth’s fundamentalist father. This novel has it all: obsessive love and oppressive religion, tender hearts and dark arts, high emotions and low reputations. It’s both a Southern Gothic potboiler and a coming-of-age story, as a young woman whose town is in the throes of Satanic panic comes to realize that sometimes, as with fire, the only way to fight evil is with evil. Outstanding. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Most of us have never heard of Hank Asher, but he has our number. All of them, in fact. A genius, a maverick, a volatile man with a savior complex, Asher’s world-changing approach to collecting our personal data has had a profound and lasting impact on our lives and privacy in ways that are hard to imagine. A former drug smuggler, Asher learned to code at the age of 35 in the Wild West of our digital lives—gathering information about millions of us that we never agreed to give away. While his intentions were mostly good (he helped law enforcement find missing children and terrorists), what he built, making millions in the process, is a Pandora’s Box that outlasted his life and surely will my own. Fascinating, a little frightening, and incredibly informative, this is the book to read if you want to know how every step you take is tracked, and used, and by whom. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
Cam is back in his hometown of Houston after the loss of his partner, self-medicating with sex, drugs, and alcohol. The devastating circumstances behind Kai’s death are slowly meted out, but that mystery isn’t the beating heart of another moving novel by Bryan Washington (Memorial). After a stint bartending at a beloved, but imperiled, gay haunt, and later, rehab, Cam finds himself back in the kitchen, working at a bakery run by the family who raised him, including his childhood friend TJ. It’s clear that Washington’s love language is food, because his evocative descriptions will whet your appetite and squeeze your heart, as the characters use cooking to smooth the rough edges of their fraught relationships. Family Meal is a meditation on grief, but also a celebration of found family—the people we often treat the worst, but love the most. Dig in. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
We first meet Michael Easter fast-talking his way into a fortified police compound in Baghdad, surrounded by photos of terrorists holding AK-47s, pills, and homemade bombs. How did this science professor and journalist end up here? He’s looking for street drug Captagon, which is sweeping the region. And this is our first clue that Scarcity Brain isn’t your mother’s self-help book. Easter researches how to resolve the behaviors that hurt us most, namely the unquenchable drive for more, more, more: money, things, drugs, food, gambling, love. This rollicking journey for answers also takes us deep into the Bolivian jungle to meet the tribe of people with the world’s lowest heart disease rate, monks, survivalists who have been hired by billionaires, an astronaut, and the inventor of the modern-day slot machine. Easter delves into how cravings saved humanity at the dawn of civilization, but are wreaking havoc today. You’ll finish this book with an understanding of the larger forces driving our desires (and feel a lot less guilty about them), and the tools and words to be at peace with having enough. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer, which explores the contradictions of one man during the Vietnam War and its aftermath, begins with the line (arguably one of the best openers in the past decade): “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.” In his memoir, A Man of Two Faces, Nguyen trains the spotlight on his own life and his family’s experience moving from Vietnam to California, violence and racism, and the burning question that so many face: who am I? Teeming with broader stories of immigration and cultural clashes, Nguyen once again offers a thrillingly nuanced portrait of the allegiances, complexities, and aims that guide a single life. Told in paragraphs with interstitial interruptions, Nguyen mimics the intimate, interrupting puzzle of racial identity—"because AMERICA TM itself is and will always be a contradiction”—in real time. Nguyen notes that he will “excel in silence”, and yet, these books and his work, offers the award-winning opposite…a thrillingly engaging and conversational read. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
You don’t have to be preternaturally gifted to accomplish great things, Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant argues in Hidden Potential. Grant notes that “people who make major strides are rarely freaks of nature. They’re usually freaks of nurture”—and that includes factors such as a person’s parents, where they’re born, and even their kindergarten teacher (a good one can equal an additional lifetime income of $320,000). The key to exceeding expectations is learning the path to improve yourself, which Grant walks readers down as he seamlessly shifts between research and compelling narratives. That combination of science and storytelling is Grant’s special sauce, and why his prior books including Think Again and Originals topped best-seller lists, and more than 25 million people have tuned into his Ted Talks. In a world where many feel pressure to stack ourselves up against everyone from our neighbors to Instagram influencers, Grant helps us discover, develop, and embrace our own unique strengths. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Fear Is Just a Word is a work of reportage so epic and so meticulous, its central story so devastating and vividly personal, that putting it down will be practically impossible for readers, not until the very last page. One evening in 2014, Miriam Rodríguez got an anguished call from her eldest daughter, informing her that members of the Mexican drug cartel known as the Zetas had abducted her youngest daughter, Karen. A native of a Zeta stronghold—San Fernando, Mexico—Miriam had fought tooth and nail for Karen’s life years before—in a Houston hospital ward—and now she fought for it again, becoming part vigilante, part detective, part constitutional lawyer, and all avenging angel. A heartbreaking account of one mother’s stand for justice in a world gone mad, as well as a painful, harrowing history of how drug cartels came to feed the beast of demand from Mexico’s neighbor to the north with a depraved disregard for life and law, Azam Ahmed’s true crime tale is absolutely electrifying. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
When you’re a kid, you think your parents’ lives started with you. Children are often shocked to learn about the depths and origin stories of the people who are typically at the core of their foundations. It isn’t until adulthood that many learn the truth about who their parents really are and the circumstances that shaped them. The Museum of Failures is a kaleidoscope of emotions that explores the feelings of returning home to your roots, the depths of a mother’s love, and the secrets we keep to protect, which often end up doing the direct opposite. Remy Wadia returns from the United States to his childhood home of Bombay, India with plans to adopt a baby. There he finds a reluctant birth mom, his ailing mother with whom he has a complicated relationship, and the mournful memories of his deceased father. Remy must untangle each of these relationships to find peace within himself. Excellent storytelling, leaving you with reminders of how important patience, love, and understanding are to each of our lives. —Kami Tei, Amazon Editor
Power literally collides in this expansive look at America over the past decade, written by a man uniquely positioned to tell the story: Martin Baron, the former editor of The Washington Post, the newspaper loathed by then-president Donald Trump, and newly purchased by billionaire Jeff Bezos (also the founder of Amazon). But Baron never loses his cool; he’s a fly-on-the-wall to unimaginable influence, welcoming readers into rooms where everything happened (including a few headline-making moments that have never been revealed or reported—until now). And he doesn’t hold back his opinions, whether they’re about Trump, Bezos, his colleagues, or himself when he comes under fire amid #MeToo coverage. Like Bernstein and Woodward (the latter frequently a voice in this book, too), deep questions are probed about who has power, and how they wield it—and players are held to account by journalists grappling with a rapidly changing world (who sometimes make human mistakes, at great personal cost). The stakes are high, the threats are real—Collison of Power recounts a span of history that will have resounding impact on the country for years to come. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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