Just in time for summer reading season, Amazon.ca Book editors today unveiled their annual Best Books of the Year So Far list. Customers looking for a new summer read can browse the hand-selected list of top books from January to June of 2013. This year, Canadian author Lisa Moore holds the No. 1 spot with her novel Caught.
"Whether you're looking for the next breakout Canadian writer, a nail-biting thriller, or a sweeping epic, Amazon.ca customers can find plenty of great summer reads on our Best Books of the Year So Far list," said Steve Oliver, country manager for Amazon.ca. "The first half of 2013 has brought a wide array of choices for book lovers and we look forward to sharing more wonderful novels our customers can enjoy this year."
The Amazon.ca Book editors' favourite title overall, Caught, is Lisa Moore's third novel. She is the acclaimed author of national best sellers Open and February. February also won this year's Canada Reads competition. Additionally, the Best Books of the Year So Far list features an epic of the American West, a novel about second chances and many other books that will keep book lovers busy reading this summer.
The Amazon.ca Book editors' picks for the top 10 Best Books of the Year So Far are:
- Caught* by Lisa Moore: A thrilling adventure and a superbly written novel. Customers 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 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.
- 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.
- Frozen In Time by Mitchell Zuckoff: Two adventures in one… recounting the 1942 crash (and subsequent struggle to survive) of a U.S. cargo plane crew in Greenland, and describing the author's own participation in a modern day mission to uncover the mystery behind their disappearance.
- 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 Demonologist: A Novel* by Andrew Pyper: This captivating supernatural thriller takes the genre to a higher level as renowned Miltonian scholar David Ulin is drawn to a mystery in Venice that eventually has him battling demons, internal and otherwise, to save his daughter.
- Gulp by Mary Roach: Roach is about as entertaining a science writer as you'll find, and this book about how we ingest food will make you think, laugh, and wince as she covers all things alimentary.
- The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman: Forty years ago, our narrator, who was then a seven year old boy, unwittingly discovered a neighboring family's supernatural secret. What follows is an imaginative adventure that could only come from the magical mind of Neal Gaiman.
