Canadian novelist Eleanor Catton tops the 2013 list with her book The Luminaries
Four Canadian authors earn spots in the top 10 Amazon.ca Best Books of the Year list
SEATTLE, Nov. 12, 2013 /CNW/ - Today, Amazon.ca book editors released their annual Best Books of the Year. The list is hand-selected by Amazon.ca book editors and features top books released in Canada in 2013. This year, Amazon.ca awarded The Luminaries by Canadian author Eleanor Catton with the top spot. To see all of the Amazon.ca Best Books of the Year, and buy the print or Kindle editions, visit www.amazon.ca/bestbooks.
"Whether you're looking for an entertaining novel to read by the fire, a historical masterpiece to give as a gift for the history buff in your life, a thriller to keep you entertained during holiday travels or a new book written by a breakout Canadian writer, our customers will find plenty of choices on our Best Books of the Year list," said Alexandre Gagnon, country manager for Amazon.ca.
Earning the No. 1 spot on this year's list, Eleanor Catton's novel, The Luminaries, also recently won the 2013 Man Booker Prize and is a finalist for the 2013 Governor General's Literary Awards.
The top 10 editors' picks for the Amazon.ca Best Books of the Year are:
- The Luminaries* by Eleanor Catton: Part historical fiction, part mystery -- the story opens in New Zealand in 1866. Scotsman Walter Moody arrives to find his fortune in gold, and quickly discovers himself among 12 important men of the community discussing a recent crime. Catton's ability to keep the reader turning pages marks her as a writer readers will look forward to hearing from for years to come.
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: A decade after her last novel, Tartt has written a wide-ranging, emotionally trenchant masterpiece that follows the life of Theo, a 14-year-old Manhattanite, who loses his mother, steals a painting and sets off on a journey worthy of Dickens.
- Thank You For Your Service by David Finkel: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good Soldiers comes a mesmerizing nonfiction account of the day-to-day hope and pain that soldiers carry upon returning home. As Finkel writes: "while the truth of war is that it's always about loving the guy next to you, the truth of the after-war is that you're on your own."
- The Son by Philipp Meyer: A multigenerational Western spanning the 1800s Comanche raids in Texas to the 20th century oil boom, The Son is a towering achievement.
- Caught* by Lisa Moore: A thrilling adventure and a superbly written novel. Readers will enjoy it for the absorbing, suspenseful tale of David Slaney, a normal guy who chooses to make his way into the drug business, and for the brilliant sentence-to-sentence writing.
- The Woman Upstairs* by Claire Messud: The story of a suburban middle-aged teacher who never became the artist she thought she would be -- if this novel were to have a subtitle, it would be: No More Ms. Nice Guy.
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: What if you could be born again and again? This brilliant, multi-layered novel answers that question as Atkinson's protagonist moves through multiple lives, each one an iteration on the last, flirting with the balance between choice and fate.
- And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: Following The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini has written another masterwork, one that moves through war, separation, birth, death, deceit, and love—illustrating how people's actions, even the seemingly selfless ones, are shrouded in ambiguity.
- Tenth of December by George Saunders: Saunders' first collection of short stories in six years introduces his ironic, absurd, profound, and funny style to an army of new readers.
- The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914* by Margaret Macmillan: From the bestselling, award-winning author of Paris 1919, this is a page-turning account of how an unexpected and avoidable war, despite the efforts of the populace, can horrifically alter lives and transform a continent.
* Books with asterisks (*) are by Canadian authors.
The 2013 Amazon.ca Best Books of the Year features 10 novels by Canadian authors in the top 20 rankings, including The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (#1), Caught by Lisa Moore (#5), The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (#6), The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret Macmillan (#10), Hellgoing by Lynn Coady (#11), Cataract City by Craig Davidson (#12), MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (#13), The Demonologist: A Novel by Andrew Pyper (#16), A House in the Sky: A Memoir by Amanda Lindhout (#17), and The Devil and the Detective by John Goldbach (#18).
A full list of the Amazon.ca Best Books of the Year, which are available in print and Kindle editions, is available at www.amazon.ca/bestbooks.
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